On September 8th, 1837, a coachman named Burnett was killed at Speenhamland, on the Bath Road. He was driving one of the New Company's London and Bristol stages, and alighted at the "Hare and Hounds," very foolishly leaving the horses unattended, with reins on their backs. He had been a coachman for 20 years, but experience had not been sufficient to prevent him thus breaking one of the first rules of the profession. He had no sooner entered the Inn than the rival Old Company's coach came down the road. Whether the other coachman gave the horses a touch with his whip as he passed, or if they started of their own accord, is not known, but they did start, and Burnett, rushing out to stop them, was thrown down and trampled on, so that he died.
There departed this life at Bristol, in November, 1904, a somewhat notable individual in the person of Richard Griffiths, who was born at Westminster, in the year 1811, and entered the service of the Post Office as a Mail Guard on the 17th November, 1834. At the commencement of his service he was employed as Guard to the London and Norwich, via Newmarket Mail Coach, upon which duty he remained until the coach ceased running on the 5th January, 1846, when he was transferred to the London and Dover Railway, and acted as Mail Train Guard thereon. When a Travelling Post Office was established in 1860 on the Dover line of railway, and the necessity for a Guard to the Mail bags thus removed, Griffiths was ordered to the South Wales Railway, where he remained as Mail Train Guard until superannuated on the 25th August, 1870. He lived at Eastville, in Bristol, under the care at last of Mrs. Barrett, a kind old dame, who made him very comfortable, and on his demise, after being on pension for 34 years, he bequeathed his old battered Mail Coach horn to her (see illustration). It is probable that the horn was used on the last Norwich Coach out of London. The maker's name on it is "J.A. Turner, 19 Poultry."
On November 9, 1822, attention was drawn to the "Musical Coachman" thus:—"The blowing of the horn by the coachman and guards of our mail-coaches has usually been considered a sort of nuisance: now, by the persevering labours of these ingenious gentlemen, converted into an instrument of public gratification. Most of the guards of the stage-coaches now make their entrance and exit to the tune of some old national ballad, which, though it may not, perhaps, be played at present in such exact time and tune as would satisfy the leader of the opera band, is yet pleasant in comparison to the unmeaning and discordant strains which formerly issued from the same quarter."
AN OLD MAIL COACH GUARD'S POST HORN.
April, 1832:—"The Tipsy Member" finds mention thus: "An M.P. applied to the Post Office to know why some of his franks had been charged; The answer was, 'We supposed, sir, they were not your writing; the 'hand' is not 'the same.' 'Why, not precisely; but the truth is I happened to be a little tipsy when I wrote them.' 'Then, sir, you will be so good in future as to write 'drunk' when you make 'free.'"
In this book are depicted an old State Coach, the Mail Coach, the primitive Railway Train, and a Railway Engine of the latest pattern, all indicative of progress in locomotion. To complete the series, and for the purpose of historical record, subjoined is a picture of the first Motor vehicle used (1904-1905) in Bristol for the rapid transport of His Majesty's Mails by road. No doubt, in process of time, this handy little 5-horse power car, built to a Bristol Post Office design, to carry loads of 3½ cwt., and constructed by the Avon Motor Company, Keynsham, near Bristol, will have numerous fellow cars darting about in the roads and crowded thoroughfares of Bristol for the collection of letters and parcels in conjunction with larger cars of higher horse power to do the heavy station traffic and country road work.
Still, little "Mercury" will have the credit of being the pioneer car in the Bristol Post Office Service. During its trials the car did really useful service, and did not once break down.
THE "AVON" TRIMOBILE, USED BY THE BRISTOL POST OFFICE.