Early Carriages and Roads

by Sir Walter Gilbey

Until about 1815 the coachman’s box was not part of the body of the vehicle, and while the passengers rode comfortably on springs the unfortunate driver had a seat as comfortless as want of springs could make it. When this was done away with, it was quite in accord with British traditions that strong objections should be made, the chief being founded on the idea that if the coachman were made so comfortable he would go to sleep on his box. The Manchester Telegraph, celebrated as one of the smartest coaches of the day, was the first which was thus altered.

The guard was responsible for the punctuality of the coach, and each evening when leaving the General Post Office he was handed a watch officially set and officially locked in a case in such wise that it could not be tampered with. The guard also carried what was called a “snow book” from the fact that entries therein were most usually caused by heavy snowstorms. In this he recorded any such incidents as the hire of extra horses when these might be needed, of saddle horses to carry the mail bags forward if the coach came to grief, or of any other outlay.

“THE ROAD” IN WINTER.

Mention of the guard’s “snow book” suggests that a winter’s journey in the coaching days was an undertaking not to be lightly faced. One morning in March, 1812, the Bath coach arrived at Chippenham with two outside passengers frozen to death in their seats, and a third in a dying state. A snow shovel strapped behind his seat was a regular item of the guard’s winter equipment, but only too often a shovel was useless. In the winter of 1814, the Edinburgh mail had to be left in the snow and the mail bags forwarded to Alnwick on horseback; in the same week eight horses were needed to draw the York coach to Newcastle. When a coach was snow-bound it was the guard’s duty to get the mails forward; this he did when possible by taking two of the horses and riding one while the other carried the bags. Some of the best of Pollard’s coaching pictures represent such incidents as occurred in the severe winters of 1812, 1814, and 1836.

The winter of 1814 was long remembered for the great and prolonged fog which disorganised traffic; the fog was followed by a singularly severe snow storm which continued for forty-eight hours; while it lasted no fewer than thirty-three mails in one day failed to arrive at the General Post Office.

The Christmas season of 1836 is historical in meteorological annals for the unprecedented severity of the snowfall. The storm lasted for the best part of the week, and for ten days travelling was suspended. Christmas night was the worst, and scarcely a single coach ventured to quit London on the 26th and 27th, St. Albans was literally full of mails and stages that could not get forward; on December 27, no fewer than fourteen mail coaches were abandoned snow-bound on various roads; and the Exeter mail, on December 26, was dug out five times on the way to Yeovil. In flat and open country all traces of the roads were lost, and the coachman had to trust the safety of the vehicle to his horses’ instinct. In some places the snow drifts gathered to an enormous depth and made the roads utterly impassable.

It was an article of the coaching creed to “get forward” if humanly possible; and the feats of endurance and courage accomplished by guards and coachmen in these old times prove them to have been a remarkably fine class of public servant, deserving all that has been written of them.

PASSENGER FARES.

Passenger fares by mail coach were higher than by the ordinary stage; on the former the rates were from 4d. to 5d. per mile for “outsides,” and 8d. to 10d. per mile for “insides”; on the stage coach the outside passenger paid from 2½d. to 3d. per mile, and the inside from 4d. to 5d. Posting cost about eighteenpence per mile, and was therefore reserved to rich men.