CHAPTER IX

COACH-PROPRIETORS

None among the servants of the public earned their living more hardly, or took greater risks in the ordinary way of business, than the coach proprietors. It was a business in which the few--the very few--became rich, and the majority lived a strenuous life, with empty pockets at the end of it. It was very truly said of them, as a class, that they lived hard, worked hard, swore hard, and died hard. To this was sometimes added that they held hard, by which you are to understand that what money they _did_ succeed in getting they grasped tightly. This last was, however, by no means a characteristic of the majority, who very often dissipated what they had made by successful ventures on one road by disastrous competition on another. There was never a more speculative business than that of a coach-proprietor, and never one so cursed with insane competition. Why embittered rivalries of this kind should have been more common on the road than in any other line is only to be explained by the hypothesis that a certain element of sporting emulation entered into it; and a kind of foolish pride that impelled a man to put and keep a line of coaches on a road to “nurse” a rival, not always with the hope of earning a profit for himself, but with the idea of cutting up another man’s ground.

The most outstanding figure among coach-proprietors was that of William Chaplin. He towered above all his contemporaries in the magnitude of his business, and was, when railways came to destroy it, first among those few who saw the folly of opposing steam, and were both acute enough and sufficiently fortunate to reap an additional advantage from the new order of things, instead of being ruined by it, as many less fortunate and less far-seeing men were.

[Illustration: MAIL-COACH HALFPENNY ISSUED BY WILLIAM WATERHOUSE.]

William James Chaplin--to give him his full baptismal name--was born at Rochester in 1787, the son of William Chaplin, at that time a coachman and proprietor in a small way of business on the Dover Road. Shortly after that date it would appear that the elder Chaplin extended his operations, and became a coach-master on a considerable scale on some of the main roads leading out of London. However that may have been, certain it is that his son was a practical coachman, and thoroughly versed in every detail of driving and stabling, as well as buying horses. To this intimate acquaintance with the conduct of a coach and of a coaching business, as greatly as to his own native shrewdness, he owed the extraordinary success that attended him. His centre of operations was at the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane, where he succeeded William Waterhouse, who had been established there as a mail-contractor since 1792. He it was who, perhaps in imitation of the Mail-coach Halfpenny dedicated to Palmer, issued the curious copper token pictured here. It is quite in accord with the general fragmentary character of the records of these not so remote times that nothing survives by which we may state the year when Chaplin succeeded Waterhouse at the “Swan with Two Necks,” but it was probably about 1825. In addition to this yard, he acquired in the course of time those of the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane, and the “Spread Eagle” and “Cross Keys,” Gracechurch Street, together with the “Spread Eagle” West End office, in Regent’s Circus, with the proprietorship of several hotels. Unlike most coach-proprietors, who restricted their operations to one or two roads, Chaplin’s coaches went in all directions, and he owned large stables at Purley on the Brighton Road, at Hounslow on the Western roads, and at Whetstone on the great road to the north. The “Swan with Two Necks,” was, when he acquired it, a yard extremely awkward of approach, being situated in a narrow lane, and inside a low-browed entrance that taxed the ingenuity of the coachmen to pass without accident. Once inside, you were in one of those old courtyards without which no old coaching inn was complete. Three tiers of galleries ran round three sides of the enclosed square, which, from the creepers that were trailed round the old carved wooden posts or depended from the balusters, and from the flower-boxes that decorated the windows, was a very rustic-looking place. Chaplin had not long settled himself here before he constructed underground stables beneath this yard, where some two hundred horses were stalled; but the place remained, otherwise unaltered, until about 1856, when all the buildings were demolished, and he set himself to raise on their site the huge pile of buildings that now fronts partly on to Gresham Street and partly to Aldermanbury. It was one of his last works, and was, of course, undertaken long after the coaching age had become a thing of the past, being, indeed, intended for the headquarters of the carrying business that had in the meantime come into existence. It is of somewhat curious interest to note that, although the great gloomy pile of unadorned brick bears not the slightest resemblance to the ancient coaching inn, yet a courtyard survives, and railway vans manœuvre where of old the mails arrived or set forth.

[Illustration: WILLIAM CHAPLIN.

_From the painting by Frederick Newnham._ ]

In 1838, when his coaching business had reached its full height, Chaplin owned or part-owned no fewer than 68 coaches, with 1,800 horses. Twenty-seven mails left London every night, and of these he horsed fourteen on the first stages out of and into town. The annual returns from his business were then put at half a million sterling.

At this critical period he resided at an hotel he owned and managed in the Adelphi, where he worked literally day and night, supervising the general affairs of his vast business, and yet finding time for correcting details. Those coachmen who thought themselves secure from observation in the midst of all these extensive operations wofully deceived themselves. They had to reckon with one to whom every detail was familiar--who had driven coaches himself, and was thoroughly informed in the opportunities that existed in the stables and on the road for cheating an employer. He knew the measure of every corn-box, and was cognisant of the “shouldering” of fares and “swallowing” of passengers that continually went on. For the guards thus to pocket the short fares, not entering them on the way-bill, afterwards sharing them with the coachman, was a practice that went back to the very early days of coaching, and not only lasted as long as coaching itself, but survived in a somewhat, altered form on omnibuses until the introduction, in recent years, of tickets and the bell-punch. It would have been impossible for coach-proprietors to end this practice without raising the wages of their servants, and thus they were obliged, so long as the coachmen and the guards performed their “shouldering” and “swallowing” discreetly, to allow it to continue. The practice was, indeed, a very lucrative one to those chartered peculators, who made a great deal more out of it than they would in the substitution of higher wages and a better code of morals. Like the omnibus-proprietors until recently, coach-masters were content so long as their takings reached a certain average sum, and it was only when they fell below that figure, or when a fare was “shouldered” or a passenger “swallowed” before their very eyes, that trouble began. Chaplin could thus afford to give the toast, as often he did give it, at festive gatherings of coachmen and guards, “Success to ‘shouldering,’ but” (with a peculiar emphasis) “do it well!”--or, in plainer speech, “don’t get found out!”

[Illustration: THE CANTERBURY AND DOVER COACH, 1830.

_After G. S. Treguar._ ]

Stories with Chaplin for a central figure were, of course, plentiful down the road. Stable-folk told how one of their kind, who had been requisitioning the contents of the corn-bin to an extravagant extent, going to it with sack and lantern one night when all was still, lifting the lid, found Chaplin himself snugly waiting within, who promptly arose in his wrath, and, to the accompaniment of a picturesquely lurid eloquence of which he was an undoubted master, dismissed him instanter. The fame of that exploit must have saved Chaplin much in forage.

Although in his after-career as Member of Parliament he was a silent representative, he could be eloquent in various ways. He had, as already hinted, the direct and forcible method in perfection, and yet could suit his style to all requirements. Coachmen, indeed, found him much more dangerous in his suave and polite moments, and much preferred to be sworn at and violently attacked, for his polite speeches generally had a sting in their tail, and earned him, among the brethren of the road, the descriptive, if also disrespectful, nickname of “Billy Bite-’em-Sly.”

The portrait of him shows a physiognomy altogether unexpected, after hearing these tales. One perceives rather a delicate and refined face than that mentally pictured, and it is only in the piercing eyes that his energy and determination are clearly seen.

Chaplin’s coaches were easily to be distinguished along the roads, not only by the device of the “Swan with Two Necks” painted on them, or later, in addition, by those of a “Spread Eagle,” “Cross Keys,” or a “White Horse,” as those inns came under his control, but by their colours, which were red and black--black upper-quarters and fore and hind boots, and red under-parts and wheels.

His coaching business gave employment to two thousand people, and included a horse-buying and veterinary department, under the control of James Nunn, who was accustomed to procure the greater number of the coach-horses from Horncastle Fair. J. F. Herring has left an excellent equestrian portrait of this indispensable personage.

[Illustration: JAMES NUNN, HORSE-BUYER AND VETERINARY SURGEON TO WILLIAM CHAPLIN.

_After J. F. Herring._ ]

Chaplin horsed the quickest mails out of London: the Devonport, the New Holyhead, the Bristol, and five other West-country mails starting from Piccadilly. Passengers who had booked from his City offices were carried to this point by omnibuses he established, and the mails were conveyed, with the guards, in two-wheeled mail-carts from the General Post Office. In the great number of coaches he ran there were, of course, included some of the very best. His were those famous coaches, the Manchester “Defiance,” a rival of Sherman’s even more famed Manchester “Telegraph,” the Birmingham “Greyhound,” the Cambridge “Telegraph,” Liverpool “Red Rover,” Bristol “Emerald,” Cheltenham “Magnet,” and many others doing their ten miles and more an hour. He also had half-shares in the brilliant “Tantivy,” London and Birmingham, the “Stamford Regent,” the Southampton “Comet,” and others.

The signs of the times, so patent to outsiders from 1830 and onwards, but generally hid from the vision of those most interested, were not unheeded by this remarkably shrewd business man, who, like his contemporary, Joseph Baxendale, had the power of seeing things and the possible future trend of affairs from an impersonal and unprejudiced point of view. He, above all other coach-proprietors, was deeply interested in the continuance of the old order of things, and it would not have been remarkable had he brought himself to the illogical conclusion that, because he was so interested, the old order must, could, should and would be maintained. Many other coach-proprietors _did_ arrive at such a conclusion, not, of course, by process of reasoning, but by force of being habitually engaged in a business that prejudiced their minds against steam and machinery. Their first instincts of scorn for anything that should presume to replace the horse effectually blinded them to the reality of the coming change.

Chaplin early decided that coaches must go, and that the proper policy was to make allies of the railways in early days, while they were not so sure of their own success, and would be substantially grateful for any helping hand. He and Benjamin Worthy Horne agreed with the London and Birmingham to be their very good friends in this matter, and not only withdrew all competitive coaches as the line advanced towards completion, but aided the railway in those months when a gap in the line between Denbigh Hall and Rugby cut the train journey in two. Between those two points their coaches filled the unwontedly humble position of feeders and go-betweens to the railway. The price of this amiable attitude was a share with Pickford & Co. in the goods and parcel cartage agency for the line, to the exclusion of all others. This monopoly, as Chaplin had foreseen, was an initially valuable one, and certain to constantly increase, side by side with the growing trade and mileage of the railway itself. He sold most of his coaches--who were those rash persons, greatly daring, who bought coaches in those last days?--and realised everything except what was considered necessary to start the new firm of Chaplin & Horne, carriers, and to carry on the branch coach-services on routes not yet affected by the rail. Having thus converted his fortune into hard cash and deposited it for the time being in the bank, the next consideration was what to do with it. All the preconceived ideas of investment were being uprooted, and railways, which offered many chances to the capitalist, were not in those times bracketed with Government securities as safe. Even supposing railways in general offered inducements, those were the days when they were not merely unproved, but when few had advanced beyond the point of obtaining their Parliamentary powers. They were, in fact, little but projects on paper. With these problems to consider, Chaplin did a singular thing. Leaving his fortune on deposit, he went away and utterly secluded himself in Switzerland for six weeks, to debate within himself this turning-point in a career. He was now fifty-one years of age, and might well have been content with what he had accumulated, and with the prospects of the new firm. With the advantages he had already secured he could have enjoyed a leisured life; but he took the decision to embark a large portion of his cash in the London and Southampton Railway, then under construction and very much under a cloud of depreciation. He aimed at becoming a director on that line, and had that desire speedily gratified, being further appointed Deputy Chairman in 1839. By 1843 he had succeeded to the chair, and, with one interval, remained Chairman of what became the London and South-Western Railway until 1858, when ill-health compelled his resignation. He had the satisfaction of seeing his belief in the future of that railway assured. He was also a director of the Paris and Rouen, the Rouen and Havre, and the Rhenish Railways; Sheriff of London, 1845–6; a Member of Parliament for Salisbury, 1847–57; in politics an advanced Liberal. He died at his residence, 2, Hyde Park Gardens, on April 24th, 1859, in his seventy-second year, leaving property to the value of over half a million sterling, including a quarter share in the firm of Chaplin & Horne. William Augustus Chaplin, the eldest among his eight sons and six daughters, succeeded him in the conduct of that business, and died, also in his seventy-second year, at Melton Mowbray, October 9th, 1896.

[Illustration: WILLIAM AUGUSTUS CHAPLIN.]

Benjamin Worthy Horne, whose chief place of business was the “Golden Cross,” Charing Cross, succeeded his father, William Horne, in 1828. William Horne, who was born in 1783, was originally a painter, but followed that trade only a few years after his apprenticeship had expired. He had at an early age married Mary Worthy, daughter of Benjamin Worthy, a wealthy wheelwright in Old Street, and in 1804 his eldest son, Benjamin Worthy Horne, was born. This marriage bringing him the command of some capital, he entered into partnership with one Roberts, a coach-proprietor established at the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane. But the partnership was dissolved at the expiration of twelve months, when Horne, making a bold stroke, purchased the “Golden Cross” of John Cross, who, having acquired a large fortune after many years in business there, was now retiring from it and entering upon a series of rash speculations which eventually ruined him and brought Thomas Cross, his son, down to poverty from the assured position of heir to that fortune, and thence to the dramatic reverse of soliciting employment as a coachman in the very yard his father once had owned.

Established thus at the “Golden Cross,” William Horne further developed the very fine coaching business he had acquired, and added to it the yards at the “Cross Keys,” Wood Street, and the “George and Blue Boar,” Holborn, together with an office at 41, Regent Circus. He soon had seven hundred horses in work, and was in the full tide of life and energy when he died in 1828, at the early age of forty-five. “His last journey,” says the obituary notice of him, “was but a short distance--St. Margaret’s churchyard, Westminster; and, as a man of talent, his remains were placed within a few feet of some of the greatest men of their age.”

Benjamin Worthy Horne was thus only twenty-four years of age when the management of this business fell to him. He soon had need of all those fierce energies that were his, for, in addition to a watchful eye upon the doings of his rivals, he had the stress and turmoil of the rebuilding of the “Golden Cross” to contend with. To him, indeed, fell the singular experience of having that central place of business rebuilt twice in three years, and the second occasion on another site. When it was first rebuilt, in 1830, Trafalgar Square was not in existence, and the inn was re-erected on the old spot at the rear of Charles I.’s statue, exactly where the south-eastern one of Landseer’s four lions, guarding the Nelson Column, now looks across towards the Grand Hotel.

But no sooner was the place rebuilt than the Metropolitan improvements in the meanwhile decided upon brought about the clearance of the site, and the present “Golden Cross” arose some distance away. At this time fifty-six coaches left that place daily, many of them bitterly competitive with those of other proprietors. Equally with his father, Benjamin Horne was an extremely keen business man, and eager to cut into any paying route. He had stables at Barnet and Finchley, to enable him to compete advantageously on the northern and north-western roads with Sherman, of the “Bull and Mouth,” and with others on those routes. As early as 1823, when the “Tally-Ho!” fast coach between London and Birmingham was first put on the road by Mrs. Ann Mountain, of the “Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill, to do the 109 miles in 11 hours, the success of her enterprise had roused the jealousy of William Horne, who speedily started the “Independent Tally-Ho!”--setting out an hour and a quarter earlier, in order to intercept the bookings of the original conveyance. Numerous other “Tally-Ho’s!” were then established, and the racing between them on the London and Birmingham road grew fast and furious, much to the advantage of the slower coaches, whose bookings were wonderfully increased by timid passengers refusing to go any longer by these breakneck rivals.

Benjamin Worthy Horne had at one time seven mails: the old Chester and Holyhead; the Cambridge Auxiliary; the Gloucester and Cheltenham; the Dover Foreign Mail; the Norwich, through Newmarket; the Milford Haven; and the Worcester and Oxford; in addition to the Hastings, a two-horsed affair, afterwards transferred to the “Bolt-in-Tun” office in Fleet Street.

Urged on, perhaps, by the partial success of the competitive “Tally-Ho!” he started in 1834, in alliance with Robert Nelson of the “Belle Sauvage” and Jobson of the “Talbot” at Shrewsbury, the “Nimrod” London and Shrewsbury coach, to compete with that pioneer of long-distance day coaches the “Wonder,” a highly successful venture established so early as 1825, by Sherman of the “Bull and Mouth,” and Taylor of the “Lion” at Shrewsbury. The bitterness and bad blood thus stirred up were almost incredible. It is not to be supposed that men so spirited as Sherman and Isaac Taylor were content to idly see this late-comer enter the field their own enterprise had opened, and be allowed to cut up their profits; and so the following season witnessed the appearance of the “Stag,” own sister to the “Wonder,” and by the same proprietors, timed to run a little in advance of the “Nimrod,” while the “Wonder” went slightly in the rear. Thus the hated rival was pretty well “nursed” all the way, and did not often succeed in securing a well-filled way-bill. The pace while this insane competition lasted was terrific, and the coachman of the “Nimrod” on the Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury stage was thrown off and killed. The coaches were originally fast, being timed at 11½ miles an hour; but in the furious racing that took place, day after day, the whole three often arrived together at the journey’s end, two hours before time. One shrinks from computing the pace an analysis of these figures would disclose. The fares by the “Wonder” and “Stag” were in the meanwhile reduced by one-third; and, partly in consequence of this “alarming sacrifice,” and a great deal more, we may suppose, in consequence of travellers being afraid to travel by these reckless competitors, £1500 were lost by Sherman and his allies in twelve months. But at the end of that time they had the satisfaction of seeing the “Nimrod” withdrawn, when the fares were raised to their old level.

We are not told how much Horne and his friends lost in this onslaught upon Sherman’s preserves, but it must have been a very considerable sum. Horne ran in opposition to many proprietors, and was powerful enough to wear down any competitors except the three or four men whose businesses ranked with his own for size. Those proprietors who agreed to work with rather than against him, were therefore the better advised. When putting a new coach on a route, his practice was to offer a share in the business to others accustomed to work along it. If they refused, and elected to oppose him, he became dangerous. He never allowed competition; and as he had the longer purse, generally beat his rivals. A strictly businesslike proprietor would accordingly always welcome Horne as a partner; but it generally happened that men who had for years past run coaches on certain roads fell unconsciously into the habit of thinking and acting as though they held a prescriptive right to the whole of the traffic along them, and not only refused to ally themselves with any one providing additional coaches, but endeavoured to shut him out altogether. Thus Horne, although ready to work with any proprietor, was in bitter opposition on many roads.

His was the Liverpool “Umpire,” a day coach; and his, too, the “Bedford Times,” so far as horsing it out of London was concerned. It was started about 1836, by Whitbread, the brewer, as a hobby, and ran from the “George and Blue Boar.” It is singular that it made the third Bedford coach running daily from that inn: Horne seems to have considered that Bedford could not have too many coaches. The others were the “Telegraph,” twice a day--8 a.m. and 2.45 p.m.--and the “Royal Telegraph” at 9 a.m. The “Times” started at 3 p.m., and went at 10½ miles an hour, including stops. This was a very smart and exclusive coach, built on the lines of the private drag, and ran to that monumental Bedford hotel, the “Swan.” The “Bedford Times” was further remarkable as one of the last-surviving of the coaches. It was not run off the road until 1848.

Horne prided himself on his drastic ways, and was fond of recounting his master-strokes in crushing out rivals. The particular coup on which he loved to dwell was that of driving up to an inn belonging to a middle-ground partner of one of his enemies, and buying up all the horses overnight, so that in the morning, when his own coach bowled by, the rival concern was brought to an ignominious standstill. This story, if true, reflected no credit on either himself or the other party to the transaction, who certainly was liable to an action for breach of contract. There is, however, no doubt at all that Horne was the man to have gone to the extravagant length of indemnifying the vendor--perhaps better described as his accomplice--against any action-at-law. He simply would not brook business rivalry.

[Illustration: THE “BEDFORD TIMES,” ONE OF THE LAST COACHES TO RUN, LEAVING THE “SWAN HOTEL,” BEDFORD.]

[Illustration: BENJAMIN WORTHY HORNE.]

He was a tall, lathy, irritable man, of eager face, quick, nervous speech, and rapid walk, with something of a military air in his alert, upright figure. The very antithesis of Chaplin, who was of short stature and possessed of a nature that nothing could ruffle, Horne must always expend his energies on the minor details of his extensive business, and himself do work that would have been better delegated to subordinates. In the end this wore him out, and brought him to a comparatively early death. Up early, no day was long enough for him, and he economised time by taking no regular meal until evening. He was generally to be seen eating his lunch out of a paper bag as he swung furiously along the streets. “There’s Horne,” said one of those many who did not love him, “with the devil at his elbow, as usual!”

It was, perhaps, well for him that Chaplin, calm and level-headed, came and entered into discussion on the railway question at that critical time when the fortunes of coach-proprietors were to be saved or lost by a simple declaration of policy. The time was 1837, the occasion the approaching opening of the first section of the London and Birmingham Railway. Should they hold out against the new order of things, as Sherman was bent upon doing, or should they enter into that alliance with the railway for which the railway people themselves were diplomatically angling? Chaplin thought they should, and proposed an amalgamation of their two interests. Horne was not so sure of railway success, and might have continued on his own way, but Chaplin, who was an old friend, urged his own views. “We shall lose £10,000 apiece if we don’t work with them,” he said, “and you won’t like that, Benny, my boy.” Eventually Horne agreed, and the firm of Chaplin & Horne was founded.

Dark rumours were current at the time that to this newly constituted firm a sum of several thousands of pounds was paid by the London and Birmingham directors as the price of their friendship; but, however that may be, the allied coach-proprietors agreed to withdraw their coaches from the Birmingham Road, and to throw the weight of their interest and influence on the side of the railway. In return, they were given the contract for the parcel agency of the line. Chaplin had perceived, as Baxendale had already done in the case of the goods traffic, that this agency would be very valuable, and to his far-seeing counsel Horne owed much.

Henry Horne, one of Benjamin Worthy Horne’s nine brothers, became a partner with him in 1836, and was a member of this firm of Chaplin & Horne for many years. He survived his brother, and was at the head of affairs when the London and North-Western Railway took over the parcel business and the London receiving offices in 1874. Henry was the kindest-hearted of men, and old coaching-men down on their luck always found him a sure draw for a loan or a gift. Wise by dint of long experience, he laid down a golden rule that it was cheaper in the end to give £50 than to lend £100.

When the fierce old fighting days of the road were ended and the business of Chaplin & Horne was set afoot, the restless energies of Benjamin Worthy Horne found an outlet in the management of the goods business in connection with the railway, and he was constantly in and out at Euston and Camden. In those early days the London and North-Western Railway headquarters staff was managed on somewhat lax and primitive lines, and if a departmental manager thought he wanted a little holiday, he took it, without a word to any one. To a strict and keen business man like Horne these proceedings seemed particularly strange, and were often, doubtless, the source of much annoyance and waste of time. He had the unchallenged run of the offices, and was so used to finding the various managers away, on some pretext or another, that he would humorously assume their absence on all occasions. With his abrupt manner, he would burst boisterously into a room, and exclaim--

Ah! Manager Number One out-- Gone fishing, no doubt!

At the next office, whether the manager happened to be in or not, he would enter with the same assumption of his absence, and say--

Manager Number Two Nothing to do-- Of course, gone fishing also!

To his especial aversion David Stevenson, the goods manager, whom he considered to have usurped many of his firm’s rights and privileges, he would enter tragically with--

Aha! Manager Stevenson-- Gone about his private theatricals!

and fix the enraged Stevenson with the haughty stare common to the transpontine drama of the time. The sting of it lay in the fact that Stevenson belonged to an amateur dramatic society.

The goods department at Camden was taken over by the London and North-Western Railway in Benjamin Worthy Horne’s time, long before the general parcels and receiving-office branch was absorbed. The decision to terminate the contract was a source of much annoyance to him, on account of the reason given, which was that the business was not efficiently conducted. Although he was a man who in general had a horror of going to law, this stigma upon his business methods so stung him that he brought an action against the railway company for breach of contract, in order to vindicate his position. This was going to law for an idea, and as the company had a perfect right to terminate the contract, the action of course failed; but it was made abundantly evident that the business was efficiently carried on, and that the railway was only proposing to take it over because the time was ripe for such a development. His heavy costs, amounting to £1200, were afterwards very handsomely refunded to Mr. Horne by the railway.

It remains to say that although there was no keener or more ruthless man of business than Benjamin Worthy Horne, he was privately a considerate and kindly man, helpful and charitable to those less successful than himself.

He had a pretty estate at Highlands, Mereworth, and a town residence at 33, Russell Square. He died at the latter place, April 14th, 1870, aged sixty-six, leaving property valued at £250,000.

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