It set forth once a week, and by dint of much labour its six horses dragged it the 44 miles in three days.
How long a time this daring service lasted is not known, but probably not for any extended period. Again, in 1743, the Town Council of Glasgow is found attempting to set up a stage-coach or “lando,” to go once a week in winter and twice in summer. Negotiations were opened with one John Walker, and the fare proposed was 10s.; but it was not until 1749 that regular communication between Glasgow and Edinburgh was established.
Meanwhile there was nothing in the nature of a coach service between Glasgow and London. To reach the metropolis by public conveyance, you were obliged to go first by this rate-aided conveyance of Mr. William Hume, and then, arrived at Edinburgh, to secure a seat for the tremendous journey southward. It is no mere figure of speech to name that early coach-journey to London “tremendous”; for it took, according to circumstances and the season of the year, from nine to twelve days. The enterprise of Glasgow, it will thus be perceived, was not equal to so great an undertaking.
At a time when the able-bodied—who, after all, were the only people who could endure this kind of thing—were the only people who travelled, except under the extremest pressure of necessity, a horseman would ride the distance in six or seven days, and the postboys who carried the mails before the establishment of mail-coaches commonly did it in five; and so, possibly, those enterprising Glasgow town-councilmen considered there was no necessity at that period to support a coach to London.
STAGE AND MAIL TO GLASGOW
It was thus comparatively late in the history of coaching that Glasgow and London were connected by a direct coach service, but London and Carlisle Post Coaches were announced, going by Boroughbridge, and starting from December 26th, 1773. They travelled between the “George and Blue Boar,” Holborn, and the “Bush,” Carlisle; setting out from London on Wednesday evenings, and from Carlisle on Sunday evenings, and performing the journey in three days. They held six inside passengers, and two outsides; and the fares were, inside, £3 16s., and out, £2 6s. Passengers taken up on the road paid from twopence to threepence per mile. Dogs were strictly forbidden, under a penalty of £5.
It is not until 1788 that we learn of “Plummer’s Glasgow and London Coach,” which travelled the distance in sixty-five hours. In the same year, on July 7th, the first mail-coach arrived at Glasgow from London, after a journey of sixty-six hours; at a speed averaging about 6 miles an hour. Its route was along the Great North Road, so far as Boroughbridge, whence it continued by Leeming Lane, Catterick, Greta Bridge, and Brough, on to the Manchester and Glasgow Road at Penrith. Arrived at Carlisle, it halted, and a second coach took up the running to Glasgow.
In the era of mails carried on horseback, thus brought to an end, Glasgow had received and despatched its London post through Edinburgh, at second-hand, as it were, and this newly won independence wrested from the rival city was greeted with becoming enthusiasm, crowds of rejoicing citizens riding out to view the coming of the mail, and to escort it to its destination.
What the mail looked like in the first twelve years or so of its existence we perceive in the illustration after James Pollard, on the [opposite page]; although we may be quite sure that the coach never in its slowest time progressed in the slow and stately fashion—resembling the mournful deliberation of a funeral—pictured here. This is merely the early Pollard convention, seen in many of his productions.
The first Glasgow mail was by no means direct, and between Boroughbridge and Penrith it passed over wild and difficult country, so that it often did not succeed in keeping time. But, in spite of these difficulties, this route was kept—varied only by occasional divagations taking in Leeds and Ripon—until 1835, and, owing to road improvements between London and Doncaster, a number of accelerations were even possible.