Early Carriages and Roads

by Sir Walter Gilbey

Mr. Thrupp gives the following description of the mail coaches as they appeared at the “King’s Birthday Parade,” an interesting display which appears to have been held for the first time in the year 1799, and which remained an annual function until 1835. The coaches assembled in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and drove through the streets past St. James’ Palace and back to the General Post Office, then in Lombard Street:—

“Each coach was new or turned out to look like new and was painted red with the Royal Arms on the door panel, and on the smaller panel above the name of the town to which the coach went; on the boot the number of the mail, and on each upper quarter one of the stars of the four Orders of the Knighthood of the United Kingdom, the Garter, the Bath, the Thistle and St. Patrick. The coaches were built just big enough to contain four inside and three or four outside, and coachman and guard. The body was hung upon a perch carriage and eight telegraph springs, the underworks being both solid and simple in construction.”

A writer in Baily’s Magazine (June, 1900), gives a description of this parade; only the coachmen and guards, in new uniforms, were allowed on the coaches, for which gentlemen used to lend their best teams; the procession generally consisted of about twenty-five coaches and was prolonged by the presence of a horseman between every two coaches.

THE MAIL COACHMAN AND GUARD.

The mail coaches in their daily routine assembled in Lombard Street between 8 and 8.20 p.m. every evening to receive the mails, and drew up in double file. Each was known by the name of the town to which it ran, and on the call of “Manchester,” “Liverpool,” or “Chester,” the coach bound thither broke rank and came up to the post-office door to receive the mails; the bags were tossed into the boot and the slamming of the lid of the boot was the signal to start.

Most of the mails for the Western counties started at 7 p.m. from the Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly, the mail bags being brought thither from the General Post Office in gigs drawn by fast-trotting horses, The stages for the West started from Hatchett’s; for the North, from the Peacock, Islington.

The mail guard was a considerable personage; when the modern style of build was adopted, the hind seat over the mail boot was strictly reserved to him, nobody being allowed to share it, as a precaution against robbery of the mails. To obtain an appointment as guard on a mail coach the applicant had to produce a recommendation from a Member of Parliament showing that he bore a high character, and a medical certificate to effect that he was of good constitution (exceedingly necessary in view of the nature of his work); if accepted as a probationer he had to spend a term in a coach factory and there learn how to repair a broken pole and patch up any other fracture that might occur on the road. His pay was only 10s. per week, but his perquisites were considerable; he might make as much as £3 or £4 a week, by taking charge of plate chests and valuables entrusted to his care; and it was the custom to allow the guard and coachman to divide all fares of 3s. or less between them.

The guard went the whole way with his coach; the coachman’s “stage” was generally forty or fifty miles out and home again. The latter’s wages were supplemented by tips from the passengers, who were admonished that the time had come to open their purses by the coachman’s polite “Gentlemen, I leave you here.”

The money thus collected by the driver of a first-class coach amounted, it is said, to £200 or £300 a year. The coachman was subject to numerous regulations which aimed at the security of passengers and mails. He might not allow anyone else to drive, without the consent of the coach proprietor or against the wishes of the other passengers; he might not leave his box unless a man was at the leaders’ heads; and there were many such minor instructions to be observed.