Coaching, with Anecdotes of the Road

by Lord William Pitt Lennox

After a most boisterous night the cart arrived opposite to Nairn, where, the guard blowing his horn, several persons instantly came forward and advised him not to attempt to cross the bridge, a great part of it having fallen. Finding it, however, impossible to get a boat, he drove the cart back to Auldearn, where he remained till three o'clock in the morning, when he again set out on his way to Inverness; and, there being still from two to three feet in breadth of the bridge standing, he, with great peril, passed it.

Great apprehensions were entertained that the bridge of Daviot would have been swept away, although founded on a rock considerably beyond the usual height of the water. If this bridge had been carried away the communication with the south by this road, at least for carriages and carts, would have been completely cut off, as there is no place within four miles of the Highland road where the river is fordable. After much toil and perseverance the guard reached his destination at Inverness.

In July, 1827, the Bath mail-coach was overturned on its way from London, between Reading and Newbury, in consequence of the horses taking fright and bolting from the road into a gravel-pit. The coachman was thrown from the box among the horses, and received several contusions from being trod upon. The guard and a foreigner, who were on the top, were precipitated by the shock to such a distance, and with such violence, as would probably have proved fatal to them had not the earth and gravel on which they lighted been saturated with the rain that fell in the course of the day; and to the same cause may be ascribed the trifling injury done to the horses and the coach. In a few minutes after the accident took place a Bath coach came up. The passengers rendered every assistance in their power, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in extricating the inside passengers from the mail. Among them was a naval officer who was going to join his ship at Plymouth, but he had suffered so much from the concussion that he was speechless and unable to move. He was conveyed to a small cottage on the roadside, but died the following day.

In December of the same year, as the Salisbury coach was on its journey to London, the fog was so thick that the coachman could not see his way, and on entering Bedfont, near Hounslow, the horses went off the road into the pond called the King's Water, dragging the coach along with them. One of the passengers, Mr. Lockhart Wainwright, a young man of five-and-twenty years of age, belonging to the Light Dragoons, was killed on the spot. The water was about two feet deep, with a soft bottom of mud about two feet more. Whether he was suffocated in the mud or killed by a blow was not ascertained.

In the inside of the coach were four females—the wife of the deceased, her maid, a Swiss governess in the family of the Marquis of Abercorn, and another lady. They all narrowly escaped drowning. Nothing but the speedy assistance from Bedfont could have saved them. Above one hundred persons were assembled in a few moments, most of them soldiers from Bedfont. The soldiers leaped into the water and extricated the ladies from their perilous situation; the body of the coach lying on its side, with one of the horses drowned, and the rest kicking and plunging violently. The inside passengers were bruised, but not dangerously. Mr. Wainwright owed his death to his humanity. The night being very severe he had given his place inside to his wife's maid, and mounted the box beside the coachman, with whom he was conversing at the time of the accident.

In April, 1826, the Dorking coach left the "Elephant and Castle" at nine o'clock, full inside and out, and arrived safe at Ewell, when the driver and proprietor, Joseph Walker, alighted for the purpose of delivering a parcel from the back part of the coach, and gave the reins to a boy who sat on the box.

While he was delivering the parcel to a person who stood near the after wheel of the coach the boy cracked the whip, and the horses set off at full speed. Several attempts were made to stop them, but in vain; they passed Ewell church, and tore away about twelve yards of strong paling, when, the wheels mounting a small eminence, the coach was overturned, and the whole of the passengers were thrown from the roof. Some of them were in a state of insensibility, showing no symptoms of life. One female, who was thrown upon some spikes, which entered her breast and neck, was dreadfully mutilated, none of her features being distinguishable; she lingered until the following day, when she expired in the greatest agony.

While the "True Blue" coach, which ran daily between Leeds and Wakefield, was descending Belle-hill (the precaution of locking the wheel not having been observed) the horses got into a gallop, and at the bottom, the coach being on the wrong side of the road, came in contact with a coal-cart with such violence as to break the shaft of the cart and to tear away the wheel of the coach with a part of the axletree. The coachman was thrown from the box and pitched with his head upon the ground, by which his skull was dreadfully fractured, and he died instantly. The coach went forward on three wheels for ten yards, and then fell over. One of the outside passengers received a severe internal injury, and very faint hopes were entertained of his recovery. Another of the outside passengers was thrown under the coach, and had his thigh broken in two places. He was conveyed to the Leeds General Infirmary, and suffered the amputation of his limb, but died in the course of the night.

In August, 1828, as the Devonport Mail was leaving London, the horses, which were thoroughbred, took fright, and ran off at full speed. The coachman was unable to stop them, and in passing Market Street, the near wheels of the coach coming in contact with the lamp-post at the corner, the pole and splinter-bar were broken, the horses broke loose from the carriage, and galloped off, dragging the pole and broken bar after them, till the near leader rushed against the lamp-post at the corner of Bury Street, the next street to Market Street, with such force that she broke the spine of her back.

Another accident occurred on the 20th. The turnpike gate at Matterby, between Winchester and Alresford, is placed at the foot of a hill. The horses of the London and Poole Mail, having become unmanageable at the top of the hill, descended it at a furious gallop, and came so violently in contact with the gate-post, that the post itself was broken off and carried to a considerable distance. One of the wheel-horses had his brains knocked out by the concussion, and the passengers were thrown nearly twenty yards from the coach. One of them was severely injured, but none were killed. The coachman had three ribs and his right arm broken, his eye knocked out, and his head otherwise so bruised and cut that blood flowed copiously from his mouth, nose, and ears. The guard saved himself by lying down on the footboard. The coach, notwithstanding the shock, was not overturned.