PLATE XIII.
Old Chepstow Bridge, rebuilt in 1816, with Post-chaise crossing it.
From an old picture signed W. Williams, 1783.
A novel custom was associated with the Old Passage. A man suspected of possible infection of hydrophobia, was put into the salt water, and towed about in the Severn at the stern of a boat. In the event of a man having been bitten by a stray dog, this operation made his village acquaintances much easier in their minds about him. They had also the fun, and in any case the patient would not be the worse for a thorough good washing!
The appliances of the ferry were a steam boat and various sailing boats, including one known as the Mail-boat, as well as on the Beachley side, an apparatus acting as a telegraph. This consisted of an arrangement of board which, when at rest, resembled a wooden window shutter about a couple of yards square, fastened to one of the buildings; and, by some code of signals of an exceedingly simple sort, requisite directions were conveyed across the river as to the boat service.
On our side there was one solidly built pier, serviceable for shipment of passengers or goods at all states of the tide, and accessible for all kinds of carriage use from the good road which terminated at the top in front of a small kind of hotel; it likewise had the desirable security, for the greater part of its length, of strong posts with chains between them. On the Aust side there was a high- and also a low-water pier, not far apart, a little way below the inn, and if the tide served for boats to reach these all went fairly well after disembarking, but it was a different matter at half-tide. The half-tide pier was a considerable distance from the others—a quarter or half a mile away beneath the cliffs, and mud and stones and the roughest imaginable affairs in the guise of road had to be got through or over on the way to the inn. The effect of this on the springs, paint, &c., of a good Long Acre-built barouche, when by some unhappy necessity it had to be committed to such a method of transit, may be easily imagined. The passage for a carriage was, at the best, not well arranged. A muster of fishermen or boatmen was made, and the carriage was turned on the pier and dragged more or less rapidly on board, and there, I presume, secured from movement, but, certainly, by no means from danger, for part of the freight might consist of half a dozen or a dozen bullocks, which shifted to one side or the other as the vessel lurched. On the whole the transit by the Old Passage Ferry, so well known in former days, was one link in a chain of necessities which left much room for changing times to improve.
The great change in the method of travelling may be said to have been publicly inaugurated in the spring of 1830[[22]] by the opening of the Canterbury and Whitstable line of railway.
In the same year the Bill for the Warrington railway was passed by both Houses of Parliament, and permission was also granted to construct a line from Leicester to Swannington, Robert Stephenson being appointed chief engineer to both lines. But the great railway event of that year was the opening, with an imposing ceremonial, on September 15th, of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This left nothing to be desired in showing high appreciation of the importance of advance in methods of locomotion. Although a complete success, from the point of view of capabilities of safe and also of rapid travelling, the day was one of great trouble and anxiety. As the train neared Manchester the mob crowded on the lines, and while to have gone forward at any moderate pace would have been death to hundreds, on the other hand, the slow movement allowed the populace to swarm on the carriages and display their political aversion to “the Duke” (Wellington) by throwing brickbats, and by other objectional irregularities. The riot was not so much remembered as the accident which resulted in the death of Huskisson. I can recollect the unsophisticated story of something being seen going along the line at such a speed that it was hardly discernible; and also that a horn was used for train signalling in place of the steam whistle. Carelessness of life through ignorance of the danger was everywhere conspicuous; discipline was much needed. My father while waiting at a station took pleasure in walking along the line to while away the time. Tying horse-carriages on open trucks was not an unusual practice with carriage-people who could afford to pay for the luxury. My father long travelled in his own carriage thus attached, and stepped from the truck on which it stood to the next, but of course at considerable danger to his person.
PLATE XIV.
A West of England Royal Mail en route.
Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W.