CHAPTER I

THE LATER MAILS

The Bristol Mail opened the mail-coach era by going at eight miles an hour, but that was an altogether exceptional speed, and the average mail-coach journeys were not performed at a rate of more than seven miles an hour until long after the nineteenth century had dawned. In 1812, when Colonel Hawker travelled to Glasgow, it took the mail 57 hours’ continuous unrelaxing effort to cover the 404 miles--three nights and two days’ discomfort. By 1836 the distance had been reduced by eight miles, and the time to 42 hours. By 1838 it was 41 hours 17 minutes. Nowadays it can be done by quickest train in exactly eight hours; the railway mileage 401½ miles. In 1812 it cost an inside passenger all the way to Glasgow, for fare alone, exclusive of tips to coachmen and guards, and the necessary expenditure for food and drink all those weary hours, no less than £10 8s.; about 6⅙d. a mile. To-day, £2 18s. franks you through, first-class; or 33s. third--itself infinitely more luxurious than even the consecrated inside of a mail-coach.

The mails starting from London were perfection in coaches, harness and horses; but as the distance from the Metropolis increased so did the mails become more and more shabby. Hawker, travelling north, found them slow and slovenly, the harness generally second-hand, one horse in plated, another in brass harness; and when they _did_ have new (which, he tells us, was very seldom) it was put on like a labourer’s leather breeches, and worn till it rotted, without ever being cleaned.

Of course, very few people ever did, or could have had the endurance to, travel all that distance straight away, and so travel was further complicated, delayed, and rendered more costly by the halts necessary to recruit jaded nature.

Hawker evidently did it in four stages: to Ferrybridge, 179 miles, where he rested the first night and picked up the next mail the following; thence the 65 miles onward to Greta Bridge; on again, 59 miles, to Carlisle; and thence, finally, to Glasgow in another 101 miles. In his diary he gives “a table to show for how much a gentleman and his servant (the former inside, with 14 lb. of luggage; the latter outside, with 7 lb.) may go from London to Glasgow.”

_Self._ £ s. d. £ s. d. Inside, to Ferrybridge 4 16 0 Inside, to Greta Bridge 1 12 6 Inside, to Carlisle 1 9 6 Inside, to Glasgow 2 10 0 --------- 10 8 0

_Servant._ Outside, to Ferrybridge 2 10 0 Outside, to Greta Bridge 1 2 0 Outside, to Carlisle 1 0 0 Outside, to Glasgow 1 13 0 --------- 6 5 0

_Tips._ Inside, 6 long-stage coachmen @ 2s. 0 12 0 Inside, 12 short-stage coachmen @ 1s. 0 12 0 Inside, 7 guards @ 2s. each 0 14 0 Outside, for man, @ half price above 0 19 0 --------- 2 17 0 ----------- Total £19 10 0 ===========

Such were the costs and charges of a gentleman travelling to pay a country visit in 1812, exclusive of hotel bills for self and servant on the way.

The great factor in the acceleration of the mails was the improvement in the roads, a work carried out by the Turnpike Trusts in fear of the Post Office, whose surveyors had the power, under ancient Acts, of indicting roads in bad condition. Great bitterness was stirred up over this matter. The growing commercial and industrial towns--Glasgow prominent among them--naturally desired direct mail-services, and the Post Office, using their needs as means for obtaining, not only roads kept in good condition, but sometimes entirely new roads and short cuts, declined to start such services until such routes were provided. It was not within the power of the Department to compel new roads, but only to see that the old ones were maintained; but in the case of Glasgow, to whose merchants a direct service meant much, the Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce, and individual persons contributed large sums for the improvement of the existing road between that city and Carlisle, and a Turnpike Trust was formed for one especial section, where the road was entirely reconstructed. These districts were wholly outside Glasgow’s sphere of responsibilities, but all this money was expended for the purpose of obtaining a direct mail through Carlisle, instead of the old indirect one through Edinburgh; and when obtained, of retaining it in face of the continued threats of the Post Office to take it off unless the road was still further improved. It certainly does not seem to have been a remarkably good road, even after these improvements, for Colonel Hawker, travelling it in 1812, describes it as being mended with large soft quarry-stones, at first like brickbats and afterwards like sand.

But the subscribers who had expended so much were naturally indignant. They pointed out that the district was a wild and difficult one and the Trust poor, in consequence of the sparse traffic. The stage-coaches, they said, had in some instances been withdrawn because they could not hold their own against the competition of the mail, and the Trust lost the tolls in consequence; while the mail, going toll-free and wearing the road down, contributed nothing to the upkeep. They urged that the mail should at least pay toll, and in this they were supported by every other Turnpike Trust.

The exemption of mail-coaches from payment of tolls, a relief provided for by the Act of 25th George III., was really a continuation of the old policy by which the postboys of an earlier age, riding horseback and carrying the mailbags athwart the saddle, had always passed toll-free. Even the light mail-cart partook of this advantage, to which there could then have been no real objection. It had been no great matter, one way or the other, with the Turnpike Trusts, for the posts were then infrequent and the revenue to be obtained quite a negligeable quantity; but the appearance of mail-coaches in considerable numbers, running constantly and carrying passengers, and yet contributing nothing towards the upkeep of the roads, soon became a very real grievance to those Trusts situated on the route of the mails, but in outlying parts of the kingdom, little travelled, and where towns were lacking and villages poor, few, and far between. Little wonder, then, that the various Turnpike Trusts in 1810 approached Parliament for a redress of these disabilities. They pointed out that not only was there a greater wear and tear of the roads now the mail-coaches were running, but that travellers, relying on the fancied security of the mails, had deserted the stages, which in many cases had been wholly run off the road. Pennant, writing in 1792, tells how two stages plying through the county of Flint, and yielding £40 in tolls yearly, had been unable to compete with the mail, and were thus withdrawn, to the consequent loss of the Trust concerned. It was calculated, so early as 1791, by one amateur actuary, that the total annual loss through mail exemptions was £90,000; but another put it at only £50,000 in 1810.

The case of the remote country trusts was certainly a hard one. Like all turnpikes, they were worked under Acts of Parliament, which prescribed the amounts of tolls to be levied, and they were, further, authorised to raise money for the improvement of the roads on the security of the income arising from these taxes upon locomotion. The security of money sunk in these quasi-Government enterprises had always been considered so good that Turnpike Trust bonds and mortgages were a very favourite form of investment; but when Parliament turned a deaf ear to the bitter cry of the remote Trusts, the position of those interested in the securities began to be reconsidered. The woes of these undertakings were further added to by the action of the Post Office, which, zealous for its new mail-services, sent out emissaries to report upon the condition of the roads. The reports of these officials bore severely against the very Trusts most hardly hit by the mail-exemption, and the roads under their control were frequently indicted for being out of repair, with the result that heavy fines were inflicted. It had been suggested that as the Post Office on one hand required better roads, and on the other deprived the rural Trusts of a great part of their income, the Government should at least pay off the debts of the various turnpikes. But nothing was done; the mails continued to go free, and in the end the iniquity was perpetrated of suffering the local Turnpike Acts to lapse and the roads to be dispiked before the Trusts had paid off their loans. The greater number of Trust “securities” therefore became worthless, and the investors in them ruined.

[Illustration: THE WORCESTER MAIL, 1805.

_After J. A. Atkinson._ ]

Mail-coaches continued to go toll-free to the very last in England, although from 1798 they had paid toll in Ireland. In Scotland, too, the Trusts were treated with tardy justice, and in 1813 an Act was passed repealing the exemption in that kingdom. But what the Post Office relinquished with one hand it took back with the other, clapping on a halfpenny additional postage for each Scotch letter. It was like the children’s game of “tit-for-tat.” But it did not end here. The Trusts raised their tolls against the mail-coaches, and smiled superior. It was then the Department’s call, and it responded by immediately taking off a number of the mails. That ended the game in favour of St. Martin’s-le-Grand.

Although Parliament never repealed the exemption for the whole of the United Kingdom, it caused an estimate to be prepared of the annual cost of paying tolls, should it ever be in a mind to grant the Trusts that relief. It thus appeared, from the return made in 1812, that the cost for Scotland would have been £11,229 16s. 8d.; for England, £33,536 2s. 3d.; and for Wales, £5224 3s. 10d.: total, £49,990 2s. 9d. per annum.

The mails, travelling as they did throughout the night, were subject to many dangers. They were brilliantly lighted, generally with four, and often with five, lamps, and cast a very dazzling illumination upon the highway. It is true that no certainty exists as to the number of lamps mail-coaches carried, and that old prints often show only two; so that the practice in this important matter probably varied on different routes and at various times. But the crack mails at the last certainly carried five lamps--one on either side of the fore upper quarter, one on either side of the fore boot, and another under the footboard, casting a light upon the horses’ backs and harness. These radiant swiftnesses, hurtling along the roads at a pace considerably over ten miles an hour, were highly dangerous to other users of the roads, who were half-blinded by the glare, and, alarmed by the heart-shaking thunder of their approach and fearful of being run down, generally drove into the ditches as the least of two evils. The mails were then, as electric tramcars and high-powered motor-cars are now, the tyrants of the road.

But they were not only dangerous to others. Circumstances that ought never to have been permitted sometimes rendered them perilous to all they carried. The possibilities of that time in wrong-doing are shown in the practice of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (who assuredly was not the only one) being allowed to send his refractory carriage-horses to the mails, to be steadied. On such occasions the passengers from Oswestry found themselves in for a wild start and a rough stage, and Sir Watkin had the steam taken out of his high-mettled horses at an imminent risk to the lives and limbs of the lieges.

From 1825, when the era of the fast day-coaches began, the mails gradually lost the proud pre-eminence they had kept for more than forty years. Even though they had been accelerated from time to time as roads improved, they went no quicker than the new-comers, and very often not so quick, from point to point. They suffered the disabilities of travelling by night, when careful coachmen dared not let their horses out to their best speed, and of being subject to the delays of Post Office business; and so, although they might, and did, make wonderful speed between stages, the showing on the whole journey could not compare with the times of the fast day-coaches, which halted only for changing horses and for meals, and, enjoying the perfection of quick-changing, often got away in fifty seconds from every halt. Going at more seasonable hours, the day-coaches now began to seriously compete with the mails, whose old-time supporters, although still sensible of the dignity of travelling by mail, were equally alive to the comfort and convenience of going by daylight. Modern writers, enlarging upon the times of our ancestors, lay great stress upon the endurance our hearty grandfathers “cheerfully” displayed, and show us great, bluff, burly, red-cheeked men, who enjoyed this long night-travelling. But that is an absurdity. They did _not_ enjoy it; they were not all bluff and burly; and that they welcomed the change that gave them swift travelling by day instead of night is obvious from the instant success of the fast day-coaches, and from the later business-history of the mails. Mail-contractors, who in the prosperous days of no competition were screwed down by the Post Office to incredible mileage figures, began to grumble; but for long they grumbled in vain. Even in 1834 the Post Office continued to pay only 2d. a mile on 42 mails, 1½d. a mile on 34, and only one received as much as 4d. The Liverpool and Manchester carried the mailbags for nothing, and three actually paid the Post Office for the privilege. At this time the old rule forbidding more than three outside passengers on the mails was relaxed. This indulgence began in Scotland, where the contractors, in consideration of the sparseness of the population and the scarcity of chance passengers on the way, were allowed a fourth outside passenger; and eventually many of the mails, like the stages, carried from eight to twelve outsides. This, however, did not suffice, for those passengers did not often present themselves; and at last the contractors really did not care to obtain the Post Office business, finding it pay better to devote their attention to fast day-coaches on their own account.

[Illustration: THE MAIL.

_After J. L. Agasse, 1824._ ]

Thus the Post Office found itself in a novel and unwonted position. Coach-proprietors and contractors, instead of anxiously endeavouring to obtain the mail-contracts, held aloof, and the Post Office surveyors, when renewals were necessary, found _they_ had to make the advances and do the courting. Then the tables were turned with a vengeance! For Benjamin Horne’s “Foreign Mail,” carrying what were called the “black bags” (_i.e._ black tarpaulin to protect the mail from sea-water) between London and Dover, 1s. 3¾d. per double mile was paid; 11⅙d. for the Carmarthen and Pembroke; and 8d., and then 9d., for the Norwich Mail, by Newmarket, strongly opposed as it was by the Norwich “Telegraph,” and therefore loading badly on that lonely road. For the Chester, originally contracted for at 1s. a mile, then down to 3d., and in 1826 up to 4d., 6d. was paid, on account of passengers going by the direct Holyhead Mail, and the Holyhead itself was raised to the same figure when fast day-stages had begun to run from Shrewsbury.

A Committee of the House of Commons had sat upon this question before these prices were given, and much evidence was taken; but these revised tariffs did by no means end the matter. Substantial contractors would in many instances have nothing to do with the Post Office, and the Department could not run the risk of employing irresponsible men who could not be held to their undertakings. In some few instances ordinary night-stages were given the business, and it was seriously proposed to employ the guards of existing stage-coaches to take charge of the bags, but this was never carried out. In the midst of all these worries, when it seemed as though the despatch of the mails must needs, in the altered conditions of the time, be eventually changed from night to day, railways came to relieve official anxieties, which existed not only on account of the increasing cost, but also on the score of the continually growing bulk of mail-matter, piled up to mountainous heights on the roof, instead of, as originally, being easily stowed away in the depths of the hind boot. It was considered a great advantage of the mail-coaches built by Waude in these last days that they were not only built with a low centre of gravity, but that, with a dropped hind axle, they made a deeper and more capacious boot possible, in which were stowed the more valuable portions of the mail. Had railways not at the very cynthia of the moment come to supply a “felt want,” certainly the mails must on many roads have been carried by mail-vans devoted exclusively to the service. But in 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway carried mailbags, and in anticipation of the opening throughout of the London and Birmingham, the first long route, in September 1838, an Act of Parliament was passed on August 14th in that year, authorising the conveyance of mails by railways. We must not, however, suppose that such instant advantage was always taken of new methods. That would not be according to the traditions of the Post Office. Accordingly, we find that, although what is now the London and South-Western Railway was opened between Nine Elms and Portsmouth in May 1840, it was not until 1842 that the Portsmouth Mail went by rail. For two years it continued to perform the 73 miles 3 furlongs in 9 hours 10 minutes, when it might have gone by train in 6 hours 10 minutes less.

With these changes, London lost an annual spectacle of considerable interest. From 1791 the procession of the mail-coaches on the King’s birthday had been the grand show occasion of the Post Office year. No efforts and no expense were spared by the loyal contractors (loyal in spite of the ofttimes arbitrary dealings of the Post Office with them) to grace the day; and Vidler and Parratt, who for many years had the monopoly of supplying the coaches, equalled them in the zeal displayed. The coaches were drawn up at twelve, noon, to the whole number of twenty-seven, at the factory on Millbank, beautiful in new paint and new gilding; the Bristol Mail, as the senior, leading, the others in the like order of their establishment. On this occasion the Post Office provided each guard with a new gold-laced hat and scarlet coat, and the mail-contractors who horsed the coaches, not to be outdone, found scarlet coats for their coachmen, in addition to providing new harness. The coachmen and guards, unwilling to be beaten in this loyal competition, provided themselves with huge nosegays, as big as cauliflowers. When, as in the reign of William IV., the King’s birthday fell in a pleasant time of the year, the procession of the mails was a beautiful and popular sight, attracting not only the general public, but the very numerous sporting folks, who welcomed the opportunity of seeing at their best, and all together, the one hundred and two noble horses that drew the mails from the Metropolis to all parts of the kingdom. Everything, indeed, was very special to the occasion. Each coach was provided with a gorgeous hammer-cloth, a species of upholstery certainly not in use on ordinary journeys. No one was allowed on the roof, but the coachman and guard had the privilege of two tickets each for friends for the inside. Great, as may be supposed, was the competition for these. For the contractors themselves there was the cold collation provided by Vidler and Parratt at Millbank, at three o’clock, when the procession was over.

[Illustration: THE BRISTOL MAIL AT HYDE PARK CORNER, 1838.

_After J. Doyle._ ]

The route varied somewhat with the circumstances of the time, always including the residence of the Postmaster-General for the time being. Punctually at noon it started off, headed by a horseman, and with another horseman between each coach. Nearing St. James’s Palace, it was generally reduced to a snail’s pace, for the crowd always assembled densely there, on the chance of seeing the King; and the authorities of that period were not clever at clearing a route. Imagine now the front of Carlton House Palace, or St. James’s, and the Londoners of that age assembled in their thousands. The procession with difficulty approaches, and halts. Two barrels of porter--Barclay & Perkins’ best--are in position in front of the Royal residence, and to each coachman and guard is handed a capacious pewter pot--it is a sight to make a Good Templar weep. The King and Queen and the Royal family now appear at an open window, the King removing his hat and bowing, to a storm of applause--as though he had done something really clever or wonderful. Now the coachman of the Bristol Mail uncovers, and holding high the shining pewter, exclaims: “We drink to the health of His Gracious Majesty: God bless him!” and suiting the action to the words, dips his nose into the pot, which in an incredibly short time is completely inverted and emptied. Fifty-three other voices simultaneously repeat the same words, and fifty-three pint pots are in like manner drained in the twinkling of an eye. The King and his family now retire, and the procession prepares to move on; but the mob, moved by loyalty and the sight of the beer-barrels, grows clamorous: “King, King! Queen, Queen!” cry a thousand voices; while a thousand more yell, “Beer, beer!” When at length the King does return, to bow once more, he gazes upon two thousand people struggling for two half-empty barrels, which in the scuffle have upset, and speedily become empty. Meanwhile the coaches have moved off, to complete their tour to the General Post Office, and thence back to Millbank.

These processions, from some cause or another not now easily to be discovered, were omitted in 1829 and 1830. May 17th, 1838, when twenty-five mails paraded, was the last occasion; for already the railway was threatening the road, and when Queen Victoria’s birthday recurred the ranks of the mails were sadly broken.

This memorable year, 1837, then, was the last unbroken year of the mail-coaches starting from London. Since September 23rd, 1829, when the old General Post Office in Lombard Street was deserted for the great building in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, they had come and gone. The first ever to enter its gates, as the result of keen competition, had been the up Holyhead Mail of that date; the last was the Dover Mail, in 1844.

The mail-coaches loaded up about half-past seven at their respective inns, and then assembled at the Post Office Yard to receive the bags. All, that is to say, except seven West of England mails--the Bath, Bristol, Devonport, Exeter, Gloucester, Southampton and Stroud--whose coaches started from Piccadilly, the bags being conveyed to them at that point by mail-cart. There were thus twenty-one coaches starting nightly from the General Post Office precisely at 8 o’clock. Here is a list of the mails setting out every night throughout the year:--

A LIST OF MAIL-COACHES STARTING NIGHTLY FROM LONDON IN 1837.

+--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+ | | | | | Average | | | | | | speed | | Mails. |Miles.| Inn whence starting.| Time. | per hour,| | | | | | stops | | | | | | included.| +--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+ | | | | H. M. | M. F. | | Bristol | 122 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 45 | 10 3 | | Devonport | 216 | Spread Eagle, | 21 14 | 10 1¾ | | (“Quicksilver”) | | Gracechurch Street| | | | Birmingham | 119 | King’s Arms, | 11 56 | 9 7¾ | | | | Holborn Bridge | | | | Bath | 109 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 0 | 9 7¾ | | Manchester | 187 | ” ” ” | 19 0 | 9 6⅔ | | Halifax | 196 | ” ” ” | 20 5 | 9 6 | | Liverpool | 203 | ” ” ” | 20 50 | 9 6 | | Holyhead | 261 | ” ” ” | 26 55 | 9 5⅔ | | Norwich, by Ipswich| 113 | ” ” ” | 11 38 | 9 5⅔ | | Exeter | 173 | ” ” ” | 18 12 | 9 4 | | Hull (New Holland | 172 | Spread Eagle, | 18 12 | 9 4 | | Ferry) | | Gracechurch Street| | | | Leeds | 197 | Bull and Mouth | 20 52 | 9 3½ | | Glasgow | 396 | ” ” | 42 0 | 9 3⅖ | | Southampton | 80 | Swan with Two Necks | 8 30 | 9 3⅓ | | Edinburgh | 399 | Bull and Mouth | 42 23 | 9 3⅓ | | Chester | 190 | Golden Cross | 20 16 | 9 3 | | Gloucester and | 224 | ” ” | 24 0 | 9 2⅔ | | Carmarthen | | | | | | Worcester | 115 | Bull and Mouth | 12 20 | 9 2½ | | Yarmouth | 124 | White Horse, Fetter | 13 30 | 9 1½ | | | | Lane | | | | Louth | 148 | Bell and Crown, | 15 56 | 9 0 | | | | Holborn | | | | Norwich, by | 118 | Belle Sauvage | 13 5 | 9 0 | | Newmarket | | | | | | Stroud | 105 | Swan with Two Necks | 11 47 | 9 0 | | Wells | 133 | Bell and Crown | 14 43 | 9 0 | | Falmouth | 271 | Bull and Mouth | 31 55 | 8 4 | | Dover | 73 | Golden Cross | 8 57 | 8 1¼ | | Hastings | 67 | Bolt-in-Tun, Fleet | 8 15 | 8 0 | | | | Street | | | | Portsmouth | 73 | White Horse | 9 10 | 7 7-5/7| | Brighton | 55 | Blossoms Inn | 7 20 | 7 4 | +--------------------+------+---------------------+-------+----------+

With the exception of the Brighton, Portsmouth, Dover and Hastings, they were all splendidly-appointed four-horse coaches; but those four places being only at short distances, speed was unnecessary, and they were only provided with pair-horse mails. Had a speed similar to that maintained on most other mails been kept up, letters and passengers would have reached the coast in the middle of the night.

The so-called “Yarmouth Mail” was, we are told by those who travelled on it, an ordinary stage-coach, carrying the usual four inside and twelve outside, chartered by the Post Office to carry the mail-bags; but the old print, engraved here, does not bear out that contention.

The _arrival_ of the mails in London was an early morning affair. First of all came the Leeds, at five minutes past four, followed at an interval of over an hour--5.15--by the Glasgow, and then, at 5.39, by the Edinburgh. All arrived by 7 o’clock.

There was then, as now, no Sunday delivery of letters in London, and Saturday nights were, by consequence, saturnalias for the up-mails. Although the clock might have been set with accuracy by their passing at any other time, their coming into London on Sundays was a happy-go-lucky, chance affair. The coachmen would arrange to meet on the Saturday nights at such junctions of the different routes as Andover, Hounslow, Puckeridge, and Hockliffe, and so in company have what they very descriptively termed a “roaring time.”

[Illustration: THE YARMOUTH MAIL, AT THE “COACH AND HORSES,” ILFORD.

_After J. Pollard._ ]

In 1836 the fastest mail ran on a provincial route. This was the short 28-miles service between Liverpool and Preston, maintained at 10 miles 5 furlongs an hour. The slowest was the 19-miles Canterbury and Deal, at 6 miles an hour, including stops for changing. The average speed of all the mails was as low as 8 miles 7 furlongs an hour.

In 1838 there were 59 four-horse mails in England and Wales, 16 in Scotland, and 29 in Ireland, in addition to a total number of 70 pair-horse: some 180 mails in all. It was in this year that--the novelty of railways creating a desire for fast travelling--the Post Office yielded to the cry for speed, and, abandoning the usual conservative attitude, went too far in the other direction, overstepping the bounds of common safety. For some time the mails between Glasgow and Carlisle, and Carlisle and Edinburgh were run to clear 11 miles an hour, which meant an average pace of 13 miles an hour. These were popularly called the “calico mails,” because of their lightness. The time allowed between Carlisle and Glasgow, 96 miles, was 8 hours 32 minutes, and it was a sight to see it come down Stanwix Brow on a summer evening. It met, however, with so many accidents that cautious folk always avoided it, preferring the orthodox 10 miles an hour--especially by lamplight in the rugged Cheviots. Even at that pace there had been more than enough risk, as these incidents from Post Office records of three years earlier clearly show:--

_1835._ February 5. Edinburgh and Aberdeen Mail overturned. 9. Devonport Mail overturned. 10. Scarborough and York Mail overturned. 16. Belfast and Enniskillen Mail overturned. 16. Dublin and Derry Mail overturned. 17. Scarborough and Hull Mail overturned. 17. York and Doncaster Mail overturned. 20. Thirty-five mail-horses burnt alive at Reading. 24. Louth Mail overturned. 25. Gloucester Mail overturned.

No place was better served by the Post Office than Exeter in the last years of the road, and few so well. Before 1837 it had no fewer than three mails, and in that year a fourth was added. All four started simultaneously from the General Post Office, and reached the Queen City of the West within a few hours of one another every day. On its own merits, Exeter did not deserve or need all these travelling and postal facilities, and it was only because it stood at the converging-point of many routes that it obtained them. Only one mail, indeed, was dedicated especially to Exeter, and that was the last-established, the “New Exeter,” put on the road in 1837. The others continued to Devonport or to Falmouth, then a port, a mail-packet and naval station of great prominence, where the West Indian mails landed, and whence they were shipped. To the mail-coaches making for Devonport and Falmouth, Exeter was, therefore, only an incident.

[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING KEW BRIDGE.

_After J. Pollard._ ]

The “Old Exeter” Mail, continued on to Falmouth, kept consistently to the main Exeter Road, through Salisbury, Dorchester and Bridport. Before 1837 it had performed the journey to Exeter in 20 hours and to Falmouth in 34¾ hours, but was then accelerated one hour as between London and Exeter, and although slightly decelerated onwards, the gain on the whole distance was 49 minutes.

Five minutes in advance of this ran the “Quicksilver” Devonport Mail, as far as Salisbury, where, until 1837, it branched off, going by Shaftesbury, Sherborne and Yeovil, a route 5¾ miles shorter than the other. It was 1¾ hours quicker than the “Old Exeter” as far as that city. Here is the time-table of the “Quicksilver” at that period, to Exeter:--

LEAVING GENERAL POST OFFICE AT 8 P.M.

+--------+-------------+------------+ | Miles. | Places. | Due. | +--------+-------------+------------+ | 12 | Hounslow | 9.12 p.m. | | 19 | Staines | 9.56 ” | | 29 | Bagshot | 11.0 ” | | 67 | Andover | 2.42 a.m. | | 84 | Salisbury | 4.27 ” | | 105 | Shaftesbury | 6.41 ” | | 126 | Yeovil | 8.56 ” | | 135 | Crewkerne | 10.12 ” | | 143 | Chard | 11.0 ” | | 156 | Honiton | 12.31 p.m. | | 173 | Exeter | 2.14 ” | +--------+-------------+------------+

Thus 18 hours 14 minutes were allowed for the 173 miles. In 1837 the “Quicksilver” was put on the “upper road” by Amesbury and Ilminster, and her pace again accelerated; this time by 1 hour 38 minutes to Exeter and 4 hours 39 minutes to Falmouth. This then became the fastest long-distance mail in the kingdom, maintaining a speed, including stops, of nearly 10¼ miles an hour between London and Devonport. It should be remembered, when considering the subject of speed, that the mails had not only to change horses and stay for supper and breakfast, like the stage-coaches, but also had to call at the post offices to deliver and collect the mailbags, and all time so expended had to be made up. The “Quicksilver” must needs have gone some stages at 12 miles an hour.

Time also had to be kept in all kinds of weather, and the guard--who was the servant of the Post Office, and not, as the coachman was, of the mail-contractors--was bound to see that time was kept, and had power, whenever it was being lost, to order out post-horses at the expense of the contractors. Six, and sometimes eight, horses were often thus attached to the mails. The route of the “Quicksilver” from 1837 was according to the following time-bill:--

LEAVING GENERAL POST OFFICE AT 8 P.M.

+------+--------------+-----------+ |Miles.| Places. | Due. | | +--------------+-----------+ | 12 | Hounslow | 9.8 p.m.| | 19 | Staines | 9.48 ” | | 29 | Bagshot | 10.47 ” | | 67 | Andover | 2.20 a.m.| | 80 | Amesbury | 3.39 ” | | 90 | Deptford Inn | 4.34 ” | | 97 | Chicklade | 5.15 a.m.| | 125 | Ilchester | 7.50 ” | | 137 | Ilminster | 8.58 ” | | 154 | Honiton | 11.0 ” | | 170 | Exeter | 12.34 p.m.| +------+--------------+-----------+ | Time: 16 hours 34 minutes. | +---------------------------------+

The complete official time-bill for the whole distance is appended:--

TIME-BILL, LONDON, EXETER AND DEVONPORT (“QUICKSILVER”) MAIL, 1837.

+---------+---------+-------+--------+-------------------------------+ |Contrac- |Number of| | | | | tors’ | Passen- | | Time |Despatched from the General | | Names. | gers. |Stages.|Allowed.| Post Office, the    of   , | +---------+----+----+-------+--------+ 1837 at 8 p.m. | | |In. |Out.| M. F. | H. M. |Coach No. {With timepiece | | | | | | | sent out {safe, No.    to   .| | | | | | |Arrived at the Gloucester | | | | | | | Coffee-House at   . | | | | | | | | | | | |{12 2 |} |Hounslow. | | Chaplin | | |{ 7 1 |} 2 47 |Staines. | | | | |{ 9 7 |} |Bagshot. Arrived 10.47 p.m. | | | | | | | | | | | |{ 9 1 |} |Hartford Bridge. | | Company | | |{10 1 |} 2 54 |Basingstoke. | | | | |{ 8 0 |} |Overton. | | | | |{ 3 5 |} |Whitchurch. Arrived 1.41 a.m. | | | | | | | | | Broad | | |{ 6 7 | 0 39 |Andover. Arrived 2.20 a.m. | | | | |{13 7 | 1 19 |Amesbury. Arrived 3.39 a.m. | | | | | | | | | Ward | | | 9 5 | 0 55 |Deptford Inn. Arrived 4.34 a.m.| | Davis | | |{ 0 5 |} |Wiley. | | | | |{ 6 5 |} 0 41 |Chicklade. Arrived 5.15 a.m. | | | | | | |(Bags dropped for Hindon, 1 | | | | | | | mile distant.) | | | | |{ 6 6 |} |Mere. | | Whitmash| | |{ 7 0 |} 2 59 |Wincanton. | | | | |{13 4 |} |Ilchester. | | | | |{ 4 1 |} |Cart Gate. Arrived 8.14 a.m. | | | | | | | | | | | |{ 2 6 |} |Water Gore, 6 miles from South | | | | |{ |} | Petherton. | | Jeffery | | |{ |} 0 44 |Bags dropped for that place. | | | | |{ 5 1 |} |Ilminster. Arrived 8.58 a.m. | | | | | | | | | Soaring | | | 8 1 |} 0 25 |Breakfast 25 minutes. Dep. 9.23| | | | | |} 0 46 |Yarcombe, Heathfield Arms. | | | | | | | Arrived 10.9 a.m. | | | | | | | | | Wheaton | | | 8 7 | 0 51 |Honiton. Arrived 11 a.m. | | | | | | | | | | | |{16 4 | 1 34 |Exeter. Arrived 12.34 p.m. | | Cockram | | |{ | 0 10 |Ten minutes allowed. | | | | |{10 3 |} |Chudleigh. | | | | |{ 9 3 |} 1 57 |Ashburton. Arrived 2.41 p.m. | | | | | | | | | | | |{13 2 |} |Ivybridge. | | | | |{ 6 6 |} |Bags dropped at Ridgway for | | Elliott | | |{ |} 2 33 | Plympton, 3 furlongs distant.| | | | |{ 4 0 |} |Plymouth. Arrived at the Post | | | | |{ 1 7 |} | Office, Devonport, the    of | | | | | | |   , 1837, at 5.14 p.m. by | | | | | | | timepiece. At    by clock. | | | | +-------+--------+Coach No. { Delivered timepiece| | | | |216 1 | 21 14 | arr.   .{ safe, No.    to   .| +---------+----+----+-------+--------+-------------------------------+

The time of working each stage is to be reckoned from the coach’s arrival, and as any lost time is to be recovered in the course of the stage, it is the coachman’s duty to be as expeditious as possible, and to report the horsekeepers if they are not always ready when the coach arrives, and active in getting it off. The guard is to give his best assistance in changing, whenever his official duties do not prevent it.

By command of the Postmaster-General. GEORGE LOUIS, _Surveyor and Superintendent._

The “New Exeter” Mail went at the moderate inclusive speed of 9 miles an hour, and reached Exeter, where it stopped altogether, 1 hour 38 minutes later than the “Quicksilver.” The fourth of this company went a circuitous route down the Bath Road to Bath, Bridgewater, and Taunton, and did not get into Exeter until 3.57 p.m. Halting ten minutes, it went on to Devonport, and stopped there at 10.5 that night.

The tabulated form given on opposite page will clearly show how the West of England mails went in 1837.

The starting of the “Quicksilver” and the other West-country mails was a recognised London sight. That of the “Telegraph” would have been also, only it left Piccadilly at 5.30 in the morning, when no one was about besides the unhappy passengers, except the stable-helpers. Chaplin, who horsed the “Quicksilver” and other Western mails from town, did not start them from the General Post Office, but from the Gloucester Coffee-House, Piccadilly. The mail-bags were brought from St. Martin’s-le-Grand in a mail-cart, and the City passengers in an omnibus. The mails set out from Piccadilly at 8.30 p.m.

THE WEST OF ENGLAND MAILS, 1837.

+-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | | | |Devonport | | | | | |Old Exeter | (“Quick- | |Devonport | |Miles| Places. | Mail, | silver”) |New Exeter |Mail, by | | | | continued |Mail, con-| Mail. |Bath and | | | | to |tinued to | |Taunton. | | | | Falmouth. | Falmouth.| | | +-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | |General Post | | | | | | | Office, | | | | | | |London dep.| 8.0 p.m. | 8.0 p.m.| 8.0 p.m. | 8.0 p.m.| | 12 |Hounslow arr.| | | | 9.12 ” | | 19 |Staines | | | 9.56 ” | | | 23 | Slough | | | | | | 29 | Maidenhead | | | |10.40 ” | | 58 | Newbury | | | | 1.53 a.m.| | 77 | Marlborough | | | | 3.43 ” | | 91 | Devizes | | | | 5.6 ” | | 109 | Bath | | | | 7.0 ” | | 149 | Bridgewater | | | |11.30 ” | | 160 | Taunton | | | |12.35 p.m.| | 180 | Cullumpton | | | | 2.42 ” | | 29 |Bagshot | |10.47 p.m.| | | | 67 |Andover | | 2.20 a.m.| 2.42 a.m. | | | 84 | Salisbury | 4.52 a.m. | | 4.27 ” | | | 124½|Dorchester | 8.57 ” | | 8.53 ” | | | 126 | Yeovil | | | | | | 137 |Bridport |10.5 ” | |11.0 ” | | | 143 | Chard | | | | | | 80 |Amesbury | | 3.39 ” | | | | 125 |Ilchester | | 7.50 ” | | | | | Honiton | |11.0 ” |12.31 p.m. | | | | EXETER {arr.| 2.59 p.m. |12.34 p.m.| 2.12 ” | 3.57 ” | | | dep.| 3.9 ” |12.44 ” |===========| 4.7 ” | | 210 |Newton Abbot arr.| | | | 6.33 ” | | 218 |Totnes | | | | 7.25 ” | | 190 | Ashburton | | 2.41 ” | | | | 214 | Plymouth | | 5.5 ” | | | | | DEVONPORT {arr.| | 5.14 ” | |10.5 ” | | | {dep.| | 5.41 ” | |==========| | 234 | Liskeard arr.| | 7.55 ” | | | | 246 | Lostwithiel | | 9.12 ” | | | | 252 | St. Austell | |10.20 ” | | | | 266 | Truro | |11.55 ” | | | | 271 | FALMOUTH | 3.55 a.m. | 1.5 a.m.| | | +-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+ | | |31 h. 55 m.|29 h. 5 m.|18 h. 12 m.|26 h. 5 m.| +-----+-----------------+-----------+----------+-----------+----------+

It was at Andover that the “Quicksilver,” from 1837, leaving its contemporary mails, climbed up past Abbot’s Ann to Park House and the bleak Wiltshire downs, along a lonely road, and finally came, up hill, out of Amesbury to the most exposed part of Salisbury Plain, at Stonehenge, in the early hours of the morning. The “Quicksilver” was a favourite subject with the artists of that day, who were never weary of pictorially representing it. They have shown it passing Kew Bridge, and the old “Star and Garter,” on the outward journey, in daylight--presumably the longest day in the year, because it did not reach that point until 9 p.m. Two of them have, separately and individually, shown us the famous attack by the lioness in 1816; and two others have pictured it on the up journey, passing Windsor Castle, and entering the City at Temple Bar; but no one has ever represented the “Quicksilver” passing beneath that gaunt and storm-beaten relic of a prehistoric age, Stonehenge. One of them, however, did a somewhat remarkable thing. The picture of the “Quicksilver” passing within sight of Windsor was executed and published in 1840, two years after the gallant old mail had been taken off that portion of the road, to be conveyed by railway. Perhaps the print was, so to speak, a post-mortem one, intended to keep the memory of the old days fresh in the recollection of travellers by the mail.

The London and Southampton Railway was opened to Woking May 23rd, 1838, and to Winchfield September 24th following, and by so much the travels of the “Quicksilver” and the other West-country coaches were shortened. For some months they all resorted to that station, and then to Basingstoke, when the line was opened so far. June 10th, 1839. This shortening of the coach route was accompanied by the following advertisement in the _Times_ during October 1838, the forerunner of many others:--

[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, ARRIVING AT TEMPLE BAR, 1834.

_After C. B. Newhouse._ ]

“Bagshot, Surrey--49 Horses and harness. To Coach Proprietors, Mail Contractors, Post Masters, and Others.--To be Sold by Auction, by Mr. Robinson, on the premises, ‘King’s Arms’ Inn, Bagshot, on Friday, November 2, 1838, at twelve o’clock precisely, by order of Mr. Scarborough, in consequence of the coaches going per Railway.

“About Forty superior, good-sized, strengthy, short-legged, quick-actioned, fresh horses, and six sets of four-horse harness, which have been working the Exeter ‘Telegraph,’ Southampton and Gosport Fast Coaches, and one stage of the Devonport Mail. The above genuine Stock merits the particular Attention of all Persons requiring known good Horses, which are for unreserved sale, entirely on Account of the Coaches being removed from the Road to the Railway.”

In Thomas Sopwith’s diary we find this significant passage: “On the 11th May, 1840, the coaches discontinued running between York and London, although the railways were circuitous.” Thus the glories of the Great North Road began to fade, but it was not until 1842 that the Edinburgh Mail was taken off the road between London, York, and Newcastle. July 5th, 1847, witnessed the last journey of the mail on that storied road, in the departure of the coach from Newcastle-on-Tyne for Edinburgh. The next day the North British Railway was opened.

The local Derby and Manchester Mail was one of the last to go. It went off in October 1858. But away up in the far north of Scotland, where Nature at her wildest, and civilisation and population at their sparsest, placed physical and financial obstacles before the railway engineers, it was not until August 1st, 1874, that the mail-coach era closed, in the last journey of the mail-coach between Wick and Thurso. That same day the Highland Railway was opened, and in the whole length and breadth of England and Scotland mail-coaches had ceased to exist.

[Illustration: THE “QUICKSILVER” DEVONPORT MAIL, PASSING WINDSOR CASTLE.

_After Charles Hunt, 1840._ ]

The mail-coaches in their prime were noble vehicles. Disdaining any display of gilt lettering or varied colour commonly to be seen on the competitive stage-coaches, they were yet remarkably striking. The lower part of the body has been variously described as chocolate, maroon, and scarlet. Maroon certainly was the colour of the later mails, and “chocolate” is obviously an error on the part of some writer whose colour-sense was not particularly exact; but we can only reconcile the “scarlet” and “maroon” by supposing that the earlier colouring was in fact the more vivid of the two. The fore and hind boots were black, together with the upper quarters of the body, and were saved from being too sombre by the Royal cipher in gold on the fore boot, the number of the mail on the hind, and, emblazoned on the upper quarters, four devices eloquent of the majesty of the united kingdoms and their knightly orders. There shone the cross of St. George, with its encircling garter and the proud motto, “_Honi soit qui mal y pense_”; the Scotch thistle, with the warning “_Nemo me impune lacessit_”; the shamrock and an attendant star, with the _Quis separabit?_ query (not yet resolved); and three Royal crowns, with the legend of the Bath, “_Tria juncta in uno_.” The Royal arms were emblazoned on the door-panels, and old prints show that occasionally the four under quarters had devices somewhat similar to those above. The name of each particular mail appeared in unobtrusive gold letters. The under-carriage and wheels were scarlet, or “Post Office red,” and the harness, with the exception of the Royal cypher and the coach-bars on the blinkers, was perfectly plain.

One at least of the mail-coaches still survives. This is a London and York mail, built by Waude, of the Old Kent Road, in 1830, and now a relic of the days of yore treasured by Messrs. Holland & Holland, of Oxford Street. Since being run off the road as a mail, it has had a curiously varied history. In 1875 and the following season, when the coaching revival was in full vigour, it appeared on the Dorking Road, and so won the affections of Captain “Billy” Cooper, whose hobby that route then was, that he had an exact copy built. In the summer of 1877 it was running between Stratford-on-Avon and Leamington. In 1879 Mr. Charles A. R. Hoare, the banker, had it at Tunbridge Wells, and also ordered a copy. Since then the old mail-coach has been in retirement, emerging now and again as the “Old Times” coach, to emphasise the trophies of improvement and progress in the Lord Mayor’s Shows of 1896, 1899 and 1901, in the wake of electric and petrol motor-cars, driven and occupied by coachmen and passengers dressed to resemble our ancestors of a hundred years ago.

[Illustration: MAIL-COACH BUILT BY WAUDE, 1830.

_Now in possession of Messrs. Holland & Holland._ ]

The coach is substantially and in general lines as built in 1830. The wheels have been renewed, the hind boot has a door inserted at the back, and the interior has been relined; but otherwise it is the coach that ran when William IV. was king. It is a characteristic Waude coach, low-hung, and built with straight sides, instead of the bowed-out type common to the products of Vidler’s factory. It wears, in consequence, a more elegant appearance than most coaches of that time; but it must be confessed that what it gained in the eyes of passers-by it must have lost in the estimation of the insides, for the interior is not a little cramped by those straight sides. The guard’s seat on the “dickey”--or what in earlier times was more generally known as the “backgammon-board”--remains, but his sheepskin or tiger-skin covering, to protect his legs from the cold, is gone. The trapdoor into the hind boot can be seen. Through this the mails were thrust, and the guard sat throughout the journey with his feet on it. Immediately in front of him were the spare bars, while above, in the still-remaining case, reposed the indispensable blunderbuss. The original lamps, in their reversible cases, remain. There were four of them--one on either fore quarter, and one on either side of the fore boot, while a smaller one hung from beneath the footboard, just above the wheelers. The guard had a small hand-lamp of his own to aid him in sorting his small parcels. The door-panels have apparently been repainted since the old days, for, although they still keep the maroon colour characteristic of the mail-coaches, the Royal arms are gone, and in their stead appears the script monogram, in gold, “V.R.”

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