This was at the beginning of the present century, and was a vast improvement upon the still older, clumsier, and infinitely slower road-wagons. Thirty-five years earlier (circa 1770), even the quickest stages were no speedier than the vans. For instance, at that time the “Royal Mail” started daily from the “Blue Posts” at two p.m., and only arrived in London at six o’clock the next morning. Then came Clarke’s “Flying Machine,” which was so little like flying that it did the journey only in a day, leaving the “King’s Arms” Inn, Portsmouth, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night at ten o’clock, and returning on alternate nights.
In 1805 the number and the speed of coaches were considerably augmented. Among them were the “Royal Mail,” from the “George”; the “Nelson,” from the “Blue Posts”; the “Hero,” from the “Fountain”; the “Regulator,” from the “George”; and Vicat and Co.’s speedy “Rocket,” that started from the “Quebec” Tavern, and did the journey to town in nine hours. It was at this period that a local bard was moved to verse by the astonishing swiftness of the coaches, and this is how he sings their prowess:—
“In olden times, two days were spent
’Twixt Portsmouth and the Monument;
When Flying Diligences plied,
When men in Roundabouts would ride,
And at the surly driver’s will,
Get out and climb each tedious hill.
But since the rapid Freeling’s age,
How much improved the English Stage!
Now in ten hours the London Post
Reaches from Lombard Street our coast.”
Prodigious! But when the railway was opened from Portsmouth to Nine Elms in 1840, and did the journey in three hours, there were, alas! no votaries of the Muse to celebrate the event.
That year witnessed the last of the old coaching days upon the Portsmouth Road, so far, at least, as ordinary travellers were concerned. Some few, particularly conservative, still elected to travel by road; and, as may be seen from the appended copy of a Post-office Time-Bill, the Postmaster-General put no trust in new-fangled methods of conveyance:—
GENERAL POST OFFICE.
The Earl of Lichfield, Her Majesty’s Postmaster-General.
London and Portsmouth Time-Bill.
| Contractors’ Names. | Time Allowed. | ||||
| In | Out | M.F. | H.M. | Dispatched from the General Post Office, the of , 184 , at by time-piece, at by clock. Coach No. { With time-piece safe, sent out{ No. to | |
| Arrived at the Gloucester Coffee-House at | |||||
| Chaplin and Gray | 13.0 | 1.35 | Arrived at Kingston at | ||
| 4.0 | Esher | ||||
| 3.4 | Cobham | ||||
| 3.7 | 1.25 | Arrived at Ripley at | |||
| 6.1 | Guildford | ||||
| 4.2 | 1.18 | Arrived at Godalming at | |||
| 2.1 | Mousehill | ||||
| 10.1 | 1.32 | Arrived at Liphook at | |||
| 8.3 | 1.3 | Arrived at Petersfield at | |||
| Wise | 7.4 | 57 | Arrived at Horndean at | ||
| 5.6 | Cosham | ||||
| Guy | 4.6 | 1.20 | Arrived at the Post Office, Portsmouth, the of , 184 , at by time-piece, at by clock. Coach No. { Delivered time-piece safe, arrived{ No. to |
The time of working each stage, &c. Up-time allowed the same.
By Command of the Postmaster-General.
George Stow, Surveyor and Superintendent.
HER MAJESTY’S MAILS
This time-bill, quoted by Mr. Stanley Harris in his “Coaching Age,” is dated April 1841, and shows, by a side-light, the innate conservatism of all Government institutions. At that time the London and South-Western Railway—then called the London and Southampton—had been opened eleven months, with a station at Portsmouth and a London terminus at Nine Elms, yet her Majesty’s mails still went by road, and at a pace scarcely equalled for slowness among all the coaches of England. Nine hours and ten minutes taken, at this late period, in journeying between London and Portsmouth! Why, the Jehus of the Bath and Exeter Roads, the drivers of the “Quicksilver” and the “Regulator,” even, would have scorned this jog-trot.