The History of Coaches

by George Athelstane Thrupp

I have already mentioned that long waggons were the first stages; their use commenced before the year 1600, but for the poorer classes there was no other conveyance for many years, and it was late in the eighteenth century before stage coaches were able to give any accommodation to persons with a small purse.

The Stage Coach began to be used in 1640, the same description of vehicle as that in use for private or hackney work, but of a larger size. The body would hold eight persons at times, but generally only six; the passengers were screened from the weather by leather curtains. It was not until the year 1680 that plate glass was sufficiently cheap to be used for windows. The coachman sat on a bar between the two standard posts from which the body was slung, with his feet upon the footboard fixed to the top of the perch. Behind, between the great wheels, was the basket for luggage, in which the outside passengers also sat up to their knees in straw. The body swung about upon heavy leather straps through the rough country roads.

In 1649 Chamberlayne, in a work entitled “The Present State of Great Britain,” speaks up for coaches. “Besides the excellent arrangement of conveying men and letters on horseback, there is of late such an admirable commodiousness both for men and women, to travel from London to the principal towns in the country, that the like hath not been known in the world; and that is by stage coaches, wherein any one may be transported to any place sheltered from foul weather and foul ways, free from endamaging of one’s health and one’s body by hard jogging or over-violent motion on horseback; and this not only at the low price of about a shilling for every five miles, but with such velocity and speed in one hour as the foreign post can make but in one day.”

In 1662, when there were but six stage coaches, another writer of the day condemned them. “For,” he says, “these coaches make country gentlemen come to London on small occasion, which otherwise they would not do but upon urgent necessity; nay, the conveniency of the passage makes their wives often come up, who, rather than make such long journeys on horseback, would stay at home. Here, when they come to town, they must be in the fashion, get fine clothes, go to plays and treats, and by this means get such a habit of idleness and love of pleasure that they are uneasy ever after.”

Another writer in 1673 opposes stages. “Is it,” he asks, “for a man’s health to be laid fast in foul ways, and forced to wade up to the knees in mire; and afterwards sit in the cold till fresh teams of horses can be procured to drag the coach out of the foul ways? Is it for his health to travel in rotten coaches, and have their tackle, or perch, or axle-tree broken, and then to wait half the day before making good their stage?”

This gives us some idea of the badness of the roads, and the imperfection of the vehicles. These last, however, were not improved in the time of Hogarth, who, in 1730, painted a stage coach waiting in an inn-yard.

In the Diary of Sir William Dugdale we find records of his journeys by stage coaches between 1659 and 1680, to the towns of Norwich, Coventry, Chester, St Albans, Bedford, and Birmingham during the reign of Charles II.

Hackney coaches were first used in England in 1605 [Plates [13], [14], and [22]]. These were similar to the coaches used by the gentry; at first they did not ply for hire in the streets, but remained at the hiring-yards until they were wanted. As, however, many more persons wished to hire than could afford to keep a coach of their own, the demand increased rapidly. In 1635 the number was restricted to fifty. Still they increased in spite of the opposition of the court and king, who thought they would break up the roads, till, in 1650, there were as many as three hundred. In Paris they were introduced by Nicholas Sauvage, who lived in a street at the sign of St Fiacre, and from this circumstance hackney coaches were called in France “Fiacres,” and they became very common and popular. In 1772 the hire of fiacres in Paris was a shilling the first hour, and tenpence the second. In London, in 1662 there were four hundred hackney coaches, and the government began then to levy a yearly duty upon them of £5 each. In 1694 the number had increased to seven hundred, a substantial proof of their usefulness. Mr Pepys, in his amusing Diary, continually speaks of hiring coaches for use in London, and to go to Deptford and Woolwich, in his journeys to the dockyards in his business for the Admiralty.

Many of these were the old coaches of the nobility and gentry, and it is not until 1790 that we hear from Mr Felton that the hackney coaches were generally built of a smaller size, and much shorter in the under carriage than those of the gentry. Their hire appears to have been very moderate, to judge by the records of Dean Swift, who resided in London for three years in the days of Queen Anne (1710 to 1713), and who made frequent use of hackney coaches, and on wet days did not venture out without a coach or a sedan chair. It would seem he could ride from the city to the neighbourhood of St Giles for one or two shillings.

To return to stage coaches, we are told that in 1673 there were coaches from London to York, to Chester, and to Exeter, having each forty horses on the road, and carrying each six inside passengers. The coach occupied eight days in travelling to Exeter, but the fare was only forty shillings in the summer and fine weather; in winter the same coach was nearly ten days on the road, and the fare was increased to forty-five shillings. There were four-horse stage coaches going daily to places within twenty or thirty miles of London, and others that went to places within ten miles and returned the same day.