It is generally assumed that fast coaching only came into existence after the macadamisation of the roads; but this is not quite the case. Under favourable conditions the speed attained in pre-Macadam days was nearly as great as it became later. The Sporting Magazine of June 1807 says: ‘Lately one of the stage coaches on the North road ran from London to Stamford, a distance of 90 miles, in 9 hours 4 minutes. The passengers, four in number, breakfasted and dined on the road, so it must have run at the rate of 12 miles an hour all the time it was travelling.’
The ‘old heavies’ discarded under Palmer's drastic rule worked out their lives as ordinary stage coaches, and some of these remained on the road until well on in the nineteenth century.
Nimrod's description of the old-time coachman is worth giving:—
‘The old-fashioned coachman to a heavy coach—and they were all heavy down to very recent times—bore some analogy with the prize-fighter, for he stood highest who could hit hardest. He was generally a man of large frame, made larger by indulgence, and of great bodily power—which was useful to him. To the button-hole of his coat were appended several whipcord points, which he was sure to have occasion for on the road, for his horses were whipped till whipping was as necessary to them as their harness. In fair play to him, however, he was not solely answerable for this; the spirit of his cattle was broken by the task they were called to perform—for in those days twenty-mile stages were in fashion—and what was the consequence? Why, the four-horse whip and the Nottingham whipcord were of no avail over the latter part of the ground, and something like a cat-o'-nine-tails was produced out of the boot, which was jocularly called the “apprentice”; and a shrewd apprentice it was to the art of torturing which was inflicted on the wheelers without stint or measure, but without which the coach might have been often left on the road. One circumstance alone saved these horses from destruction; this was the frequency of ale-houses on the road, not one of which could then be passed without a call.
‘Still, our old-fashioned coachman was a scientific man in his calling—more so, perhaps, than by far the greater part of his brethren of the present day, inasmuch as his energies and skill were more frequently put to the test. He had heavy loads, bad roads, and weary horses to deal with, neither was any part of his harness to be depended on, upon a pinch. Then the box he sat upon was worse than Pandora's, with all the evils it contained, for even hope appeared to have deserted it. It rested on the bed of the axletree, and shook the frame to atoms; but when prayers were put up to have it altered, the proprietors said, “No; the rascal will always be asleep if we place his box on the springs.” If among all these difficulties, then, he, by degrees, became a drunkard, who can wonder at his becoming so? But he was a coachman. He could fetch the last ounce out of a wheel-horse by the use of his double thong or his “apprentice,” and the point of his lash told terribly upon his leaders. He likewise applied it scientifically, it was directed under the bar to the flank, and after the third hit he brought it up to his hand by the draw, so that it never got entangled in the pole-chains, or in any part of the harness. He could untie a knot with his teeth and tie another with his tongue, as well as he could with his hands; and if his thong broke off in the middle, he could splice it with dexterity and even with neatness as his coach was proceeding on its journey. It short, he could do what coachmen of the present day cannot do, because they have not been called upon to do it; and he likewise could do what they never tried to do—namely, he could drive when he was drunk nearly as well as when he was sober. He was very frequently a faithful servant to his employers; considered trustworthy by bankers and others in the country through which he passed; and as humane to his horses, perhaps, as the adverse circumstances he was placed in by his masters would admit.’
Time has dealt kindly with the reputation of the old stage coachman, and popular tradition holds him, as Nimrod portrayed him, a whip of unrivalled skill. That there were such men is perfectly true;[1] but not every stage coachman was an expert: not all were skilful or even careful, and not all were civil: and if, as Nimrod says, they could drive as well when drunk as when sober, the cold light of contemporary record shows that there was ample room for improvement. Take the following:—On the 18th of May 1808 the coachman of the Portsmouth coach to London was intoxicated, and “when he came to the foot of the hill on Wimbledon Common, instead of keeping straight on turned to the left and found himself in Putney Lane, where turning the corner of Mr. Kensington's wall in order to get again into the road to Wandsworth, the coach was overturned.” He appears to have driven on to the bank by the roadside. The ten outside passengers were all more or less hurt, one dying from her injuries, and the coachman himself had both legs broken. Accidents due to reckless driving and racing were very common, despite the law[2] of 1790 which made a coachman who, by furious driving or careless, overturned his coach, liable to a fine not over five pounds. The following is typical:—
‘Last night occurred one of those dreadful catastrophes, the result of driving opposition coaches, which has so stunned the country with horror that sober people for a time will not hazard their lives in these vehicles of fury and madness.
‘Two coaches that run daily from Hinckley to Leicester had set out together. The first having descended the hill leading to Leicester was obliged to stop to repair the harness. The other coachman saw the accident and seized the moment to give his antagonist the go by, flogging the horses into a gallop down the hill. The horses contrived to keep on their legs, but took fright at something on the road, and became so unmanageable in the hands of a drunken coachman, that in their sweep to avoid the object of their alarm, the driver could not recover them so as to clear the post of the turnpike gate at the bottom of the hill. The velocity was so great that the coach was split in two; three persons were dashed to pieces and instantly killed, two others survived but a few hours in the greatest agony; four were conveyed away for surgical aid with fractured limbs, and two in the dickey were thrown with that part of the coach to a considerable distance, and not much hurt as they fell on a hedge. The coachman fell a victim to his fury and madness. It is time the Magistrates put a stop to these outrageous proceedings that have existed too long in this part of the country.’ (St. James's Chronicle, 15th July 1815).
The frequency of upsets is suggested by a letter which appeared in the papers in 1785. The writer, who signs himself ‘A Sufferer,’ begs coach proprietors to direct their servants, when the coach has been overturned, ‘not to drag the passengers out at the window, but to replace the coach on its wheels first, provided it can be accomplished with the strength they have with them.’
After coaches began to carry the mails, accidents grew more numerous. We can trace many to the greater speed maintained, others to defective workmanship which resulted in broken axles or lost wheels, many to top-heaviness, and not a few to carelessness. The short stage drivers, on the whole, were the worst offenders. For sheer recklessness this would be hard to beat:—