STANTON DREW TURNPIKE GATE HOUSE.
CHAPTER X.
DARING ROBBERIES OF THE BRISTOL MAIL BY HIGHWAYMEN, 1726-1781.—BILL NASH, MAIL COACH ROBBER, CONVICT AND RICH COLONIST, 1832.—BURGLARIES AT POST OFFICES IN LONDON AND BRISTOL, 1881-1901.
The mail services between Bristol and the Southern Counties came into great prominence in 1903. The Postmaster-General was appealed to on the subject, and the phantom of the old Bristol and Portsmouth mail coach was conjured up to form a comparison detrimental to present-day arrangements. The discussion recalls somewhat vividly the mail coach traditions of the pre-railway period, and certainly the community of to-day has, at all events, fallen on better times as regards security of the mails, if not better night mail services. In the General Post Office letter in Lombard Street, 26th April, 1720, this note appears:—"The Bristol Mail was again robbed yesterday, in the same place as on Friday, by one highwayman."
Mist's Journal of Apl. 30, 1720, states:—"Last week the Oxford Stage Coach was robbed between Uxbridge and London, by the same highwaymen as is supposed who robbed the Bristol Mail, one of them having a scar on his forehead."
"A man lately taken up near Maidenhead Thicket, and charged with robbing the Cirencester Stage Coach, has been examined by a Justice of the Peace, who has committed him to Reading Gaol. He is said to be a butcher's son of Thame, in Oxfordshire."
The following particulars relate to a Bristol mail coach robbery in 1721. They were taken from a pamphlet written by Wilson, who was one of the highwaymen therein alluded to, and saved his neck by informing. Wilson was a person of education, but some of his statements were questionable. The pamphlet was full of moral reflections upon the evils of bad company, gambling, &c.; it ran through several editions, so it was no doubt popular. It will be interesting as indicating the difficulties attending the Bristol mail services of the period, and that death was the penalty for robbing his Majesty's mails. It runs thus in the heading:—