After singling out the London and Birmingham day mail, which was timed at twelve miles an hour, it is impossible to say, at the present date, which was the fastest coach. That the "Quicksilver" was the fastest mail, I have no doubt, though I believe the palm has been disputed by the Bristol, and perhaps some others; for if a passenger asked a coachman which was the fastest, he was very likely to be told that the one he was travelling in was. I cannot, however, believe that any of these claims could have been supported by facts. "Cui bono?" We can see at a glance why the Devonport should be pushed along as fast as possible, because the journey was a long one; but the distance to Bristol was only one hundred and twenty miles, and whether the mail arrived there at eight or nine o'clock in the morning would have been thought little of in those days, but in a journey of two hundred and twenty-seven miles half a mile an hour makes an appreciable difference. It would seem reasonable, therefore, that the longer mails should have been accelerated as much as possible, and so I believe it really was the case, and that the Holyhead was, after the "Quicksilver," the fastest out of London. At any rate, I know that, when travelling by it, we always passed all the other mails going the same road, and that included a considerable number, as the north road and the Holyhead were synonymous as far as Barnet, and, moreover, the Post-Office was likely to have screwed up these two mails the tightest, as one carried the Irish bags and the other had the correspondence of an important dockyard and naval station.
To single out the fastest coach would be still more impossible. The "Wonder" had a world-wide reputation, which was well deserved, both for the pace and regularity with which she travelled and the admirable manner in which she was appointed in every way; but what gave that coach its preponderating name was the fact of its being the first which undertook to be a day coach over a distance much exceeding one hundred and twenty miles. The Manchester Telegraph must have surpassed the "Wonder" in pace, and, certainly, when we consider the difference of the roads and the hills by which she was opposed in her journey through Derbyshire, had the most difficult task to accomplish; and, again, the "Hirondelle" was timed to go the journey of one hundred and thirty-three miles between Cheltenham and Liverpool in twelve hours and a half, which is a higher rate of speed than the "Wonder," which was allowed fifteen and a half hours to cover the one hundred and fifty-four miles between London and Shrewsbury, and on a far superior road.
I have been induced to enter into this subject because one sometimes now-a-days meets with people who appear to have a somewhat hazy idea about it, and talk glibly of twelve miles an hour as if it was nothing so very great after all. Well, I am not going to deny that it can be done, because I know that it has been effected by the Birmingham day mail, as already stated, and I have also been told by an old inspector of mails that in the latter days they did contrive to screw some Scotch mails up to that speed; but I am sure I can safely say that no mail or stage-coach ever was timed at even eleven miles an hour during the main coaching days, however much faster they might have gone when racing or on special occasions, though I believe it would have been attempted, at any rate, if road travelling had not been put an end to by the railways.
Twelve miles an hour is very great work to accomplish. Why, when stoppages of all sorts are allowed for, it means thirteen miles, and that means galloping for the greater part of the way.
Though the subjoined List is not comprehensive, nor indeed absolutely accurate, it may be worth inserting, as conveying a fair idea of what coaches ran.
| PRINCIPAL NIGHT MAILS | SOME NOTED DAY COACHES | |||
| Miles from London. | TO | Time (including stoppages) of Mail | ||
| h. | m. | |||
| 110½ | Bath | 11 | 0 | "Beaufort Hunt," "York House," "White Hart." |
| 50 | Bedford | "Times." | ||
| 119 | Birmingham | 11 | 56 | "Tally-Ho," "Tantivy," "Greyhound," "Economist,""Rocket," "Eclipse," "Triumph," "Crown Prince," "Emerald," "Albion,""Day," etc. |
| Brecon | "Red Rover." | |||
| 53 | Brighton | "Red Rover," "Times," "Age," "Quicksilver," "Pearl,""Dart," "Arrow," "Vivid." | ||
| 121 | Bristol | 11 | 45 | "Prince of Wales," "Monarch," "Regulator." |
| 50 | Cambridge | "Star." | ||
| 95 | Cheltenham (see below) | "Berkeley Hunt," "Rival," "Magnet," "Favourite." | ||
| 181 | Chester | "Criterion." | ||
| 217½ | Devonport | 23 | 45 | "Quicksilver." |
| 71 | Dover | |||
| 176 | Exeter | 19 | 0 | "Telegraph" (165 miles) 17 hours; "Defiance" (168miles), 19 hours; "Nonpareil," "Herald." |
| 111 | Gloucester | 11 | 55 | |
| 195½ | Halifax | 20 | 5 | "Hope." |
| 68 | Hastings | |||
| 135 | Hereford | "Champion," "Tiger." | ||
| 259 | Holyhead | 26 | 55 | |
| 172½ | Hull | 18 | 12 | |
| 197 | Leeds | 21 | 0 | "Courier," "Rockingham.' |
| 201½ | Liverpool | 20 | 50 | "Umpire," "Fair Trader," "Express," "Erin-go-bragh." |
| 148 | Louth | 16 | 0 | |
| 99 | Lynn | 10 | 33 | |
| 185 | Manchester | 19 | 0 | Telegraph" (186 miles), 18 hours 15 minutes,"Beehive", "Estafette," "Peveril of the Peak," "Cobourg," "Red Rover." |
| 129 | Monmouth | "Mazeppa," "Royal Forester." | ||
| 113½ | Norwich viâ Ipswich | 11 | 38 | "Shannon." |
| 117½ | Norwich viâ Newmarket | 13 | 0 | "Phenomenon." |
| 106 | Poole | "Phœnix." | ||
| 73 | Portsmouth | "Diligence," "Regulator," "Hero." | ||
| 158 | Shrewsbury | "Wonder," (15 hours 45 minutes;) "Nimrod," "Stag,""Union," "Oxonian." | ||
| Southampton | "Star." | |||
| 105 | Stroud | 12 | 9 | |
| 195 | Wetherby (Glasgow Mail) | 20 | 36 | |
| 128 | Weymouth | "King's Royal." | ||
| 23 | Windsor | "Taglioni." | ||
| 114 | Worcester | 12 | 20 | |
| 197 | York (Edinburgh Mail) | 20 | 54 | "Wellington." |
| 30 | Liverpool and Preston197 | |||
| 129½ | Edinburgh and Aberdeen | "Defiance" (12 hrs. 10 min., including 30 min. Ferry). | ||
| Cheltenham and Liverpool | "Hirondelle," "Hibernia" (see above). | |||
| Shrewsbury and Welshpool andAberystwith | "Royal Oak," "Nettle," "Engineer." | |||
Notes.
The fastest coaches were the "Defiance" (Edinburgh and Aberdeen), the "Wonder" (Shrewsbury and London), for which alone 150 horses were kept, and the mail from Liverpool to Preston. The next fastest were the Holyhead, Exeter, and Scotch mails, and those to Bath and Bristol (which last ones did not stop for meals on the road). The slowest is the Stroud mail, but formerly was the Worcester mail, which used to be most frequently overturned of any. The Hastings and Brighton mails had only two horses. For some reason or other, with which I am not acquainted, the Liverpool mail, and, I believe, the Halifax also, though leaving London at the same time as the others, had a day coach on the up journey, arriving at St. Martin's-le-Grand about 7 p.m. One of the Birmingham coaches was lighted by gas for a time, as far back as 1834. A coach running every day between London and Birmingham paid annually for toll-gates the sum of £1,428. The double miles of the mails travelling reached at one time 6,619 a journey.
SCOTCH AND IRISH MAILS.
It is interesting to compare the running of the Edinburgh and Glasgow coaches out of London. Both left St. Martin's at the same hour, but by a different road. At Alconbury (65 miles out of London) the two coaches must have frequently been in sight of each other on a moonlight night—if punctual a bare four minutes divided them (not a yokel in that part of Huntingdonshire but could discuss the merits of the rival whips)—and at Grantham (108 miles out) they probably transferred some mail bags picked up upon their different roads.