Then upstart helcart-coaches were to seeke,
A man could scarce see twenty in a weeke.
But now I thinke a man may daily see
More than the wherries on the Thames can be.”
COACHES IN ST. JAMES’S PARK
From the Crace Collection in the British Museum.
In the year 1601 the attention of Parliament was called to the increase of coaches, and a Bill was brought in “to restrain the excessive use of coaches.” This, however, was rejected on the second reading.
Attacked or defended, the stage coach, once started, could never be abolished. The first stage coach of the City was the hackney coach, which was established by one Captain Busby in 1625. He posted four coaches at the Maypole in the Strand, with instructions to his men to carry people to any part of the town. Twelve years later there were fifty; in 1652 there were two hundred; in 1694, seven hundred. The coach hire was eighteenpence the first hour, one shilling afterwards. The first coaches had no windows, but, in their place, perforated metal shutters; the glass coach was introduced about the year 1667. Lady Peterborough forgot that there was glass over the door and ran her head through it.
The sedan chair was introduced by Sir Saunders Duncombe in 1634. As for stage vehicles there were at first “long waggons,” and these as early as 1564. The following extracts from Journals (Archæologia) show that there were many stage coaches as early as 1659 and 1660:—