A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

"In Consequence of all this, the Demand for the Produce of the Lands is increased; the Lands themselves advance proportionably both in their annual Value and in the Number of Years-purchase for which they are sold, according to such Value....

"There never was a more astonishing Revolution accomplished in the internal System of any Country than has been within the Compass of a few years in that of England.

"The carriage of Grain, Coals, Merchandize, etc., is in general conducted with little more than half the Number of Horses with which it formerly was. Journies of Business are performed with much more than double Expedition. Improvements in Agriculture keep pace with those of Trade. Everything wears the Face of Dispatch; every Article of our Produce becomes more valuable; and the Hinge, upon which all these Movements turn, is the Reformation which has been made in our Publick Roads."

In the article on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) it is declared that the country had derived great advantage from the improvements of the roads, and from the application of tolls collected at the turnpikes. Travelling had been rendered safer, easier and pleasanter. "That this end is greatly answered," we are assured, "everyone's experience will tell him who can remember the condition of the roads thirty or forty years ago." There had been, also, a benefit to trade and commerce by the reduced cost of carriage for all sorts of goods and merchandise. On this especially interesting point the writer of the article says: "Those who have made it their business to be rightly informed of this matter have, upon inquiry, found that carriage is now 30 per cent cheaper than before the roads were amended by turnpikes." He proceeds to give a number of examples of such reductions in freight, among them being the following:—

"From Birmingham to London it is said there is not less than 25 or 30 waggons sent weekly; 7s. per hundred was formerly paid, the price now paid is from 3 to 4s. per hundred.

"From Portsmouth to London the common price was 7s. per hundred, the Government paid so in Queen Anne's war, and now only 4 to 5s. per hundred is paid; and in the late war arms and warlike stores for his Majesty's service were carried at the rate of 4 or 5s. per hundred.

"From Exeter to London, and from other towns in the west of like distance the carriage of wool and other goods is very great, especially in times of war.—12s. per hundred was formerly paid, now only 8s. per hundred. The same can be affirmed with respect to Bristol, Gloucester and the adjacent counties."

While the traders and the consumers were, presumably, both benefitting from these reduced charges, the carriers also gained, by reason of the greater loads they were able to take with the same number of horses. On this point the writer says: "The roads in general were formerly so bad and deep, so full of holes and sloughs that a team of horses could scarce draw from any place of 60 miles distant, or upwards, above 30 hundred weight of goods; whereas the same team can now draw with more ease 50 or 60 hundred." On the other hand he did not overlook the fact that the keeping up of the turnpike roads was "a prodigious expense to the nation," so that, in his opinion, the reduction in transport charges was only "a seeming alleviation" of the general burden.

At the time Defoe made his tour of England the turnpike system was still in its infancy; but he is very eulogistic over the improvements then already made.

Having, as already mentioned on p. [65], described the roads from London to the North across the clay-belt of the Midlands, Defoe tells how "turnpikes or toll-bars" had been set up on "several great roads of England, beginning at London, and proceeding through almost all those dirty deep roads" in the midland counties especially, "At which Turn-pikes all Carriages, Droves of Cattle and Travellers on Horse-back are obliged to pay an easy Toll; that is to say, a Horse a Penny, a Coach three Pence, a Cart four Pence, at some six Pence to eight Pence, a Waggon six Pence, in some a Shilling, and the like; Cattle pay by the Score, or by the Head, in some Places more, in some less." Several of these turnpikes had been set up of late years and "great Progress had been made in mending the most difficult Ways."