Chapter 2 of 21 · 3996 words · ~20 min read

Part 2

The mail at this final period was not, throughout, one of the crack coaches run under the direction of the Post Office; coming only thirteenth in the list for speed, and showing a performance of an average 9·34 miles per hour as compared with that of the swift Bristol mail, speeding along the road at 10·3, almost a mile an hour quicker. Analysed, however, it discloses for the 95 miles along Telford’s splendid Carlisle and Glasgow Road an even slightly higher speed than that of the Bristol mail itself; and there were for many years after the disappearance of the coaches admiring oldsters who recollected with an admiration not unmixed with terror the terrific speed of the up Glasgow mail as it tore down the side of Stanwix Brow, outside Carlisle.

[Sidenote: _THE MAILS_]

The accompanying official time-bills of the London and Carlisle and the Carlisle and Glasgow mails, as run in 1837, will prove interesting:

GENERAL POST OFFICE-THE EARL OF LICHFIELD. HER MAJESTY’s POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

_Time Bill, London and Carlisle Mail._

+------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+ |Contractors’| Miles | Time | | | Names. | and |allowed.| | | |furlongs.| | | +------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+ | | | |Despatched from the General Post | | | | | Office the of 183 , at 8 p.m.| | | | | |Coach No. sent out. | | | | | | | | | H. M. | | | | | |With timepiece safe No. | | | | |to . | |Sherman | 11 2 | 1 18 |Arrived at Barnet, 9.18 | | | 8 4 | |Hatfield. | | | 5 4 | 1 28 |Arrived at Welwyn, 10.46. | | | | | | |W. & G. | 6 3 | |Stevenage. | | Wright | 5 7 | 1 20 |Arrived at Baldock, 12.6. | | | 7 5 | |Biggleswade. | | | 1 4 | 0 56 |Arrived at Caldecot, 1.2 a.m. | | | 8 4 | 0 53 |Arrived at Eaton Socon, 1.55. | | | | | | |Arnold | 5 4 | |Buckden. | | | 5 1 | 1 4 |Arrived at Alconbury, 2.59. | | | | | | |Coveney | 9 2 | 0 57 |Arrived at Stilton, 3.56. | | | | | | |T. Whincup | 8 5 | |Wansford. | | | 6 0 | 1 32 |Arrived at Stamford, 5.28. | | | | | | |H. Whincup | 8 0 | 0 50 |Arrived at Stretton, 6.18. | | | | | | |Burbidge | 5 1 | |Colsterworth. | | | 8 1 | 1 22 |Arrived at Grantham, 7.40. | | | | | by timepiece, by clock. | | | | | | | | | |Coach No. gone forward. | | | | | | | | | |Delivered the time-piece | | | | |safe, No. to . | | | | 0 40 |Forty minutes allowed. | | | 6 0 | 0 36 |Arrived at Foston, 8.56. | | | | | | |Lawton | 8 0 | 0 48 |Arrived at Newark, 9.44. | | | 13 1 | 1 19 |Arrived at Ollerton, 11.3. | | | | | | |Lister | 8 4 | 0 49 |Arrived at Worksop, 11.52. | | | | | | |Dawson | 8 3 | 0 48 |Arrived at Bagley, 12.40. | | | 4 1 | 0 23 |Arrived at Wadsworth, 1.3 p.m. | | | | | | |Dunhill | 4 1 | 0 23 |Arrived at Doncaster, 1.26. | | | | | | |Outhwaite | 14 3 | 1 27 |Arrived at Pontefract, 2.53. | | | 10 0 | 0 59 |Arrived at Aberford, 3.52. | | | | | | |Cleminshaw | 7 4 | 0 44 |Arrived at Wetherby, 4.36. | | | | | | | | | |Coach No. gone | | | | | forward. | | | | | By timepiece | | | | | at ; by | | | | | clock ; | | | | | off at , | | | | | by timepiece. | | | | 0 35 |Thirty-five minutes allowed. | | | 12 1 | 1 12 |Arrived at Boroughbridge, 6.23. | | | | | | |Cook | 12 1 | 1 12 |Arrived at Leeming Lane, 7.35. | | | | | | |Couldwell | 11 0 | 1 6 |Arrived at Catterick Bridge, 8.41. | | | | | | |Fryer | 9 0 | 0 54 |Arrived at Foxhall, 9.35. | | | | | | |Martin | 4 4 | 0 27 |Arrived at New Inn, | | | | | Greta Bridge, 10.2. | | | 10 0 | 1 8 |Arrived at New Spital, 11.10. | | | 9 4 | 1 5 |Arrived at Brough, 12.15. | | | | | | |Fryer | 8 0 | 0 52 |Arrived at Appleby, 1.7 a.m. | | | | | | |Doulim | 13 4 | 1 21 |Arrived at Penrith, 2.28. | | | | | | |Teather | 9 3 | 0 55 |Arrived at Hesketh, 3.23. | | | | | | |Barton | 8 6 | 0 54 |Arrived at the Post Office, | | | | | Carlisle, the of , | | | | | 183 , at 4.17 a.m. | | | | | Coach No. arrived. | | +---------+--------+ By timepiece ; by | | |302 7 | 32 17 | clock . | +------------+---------+--------+-------------------------------------+

_Time Bill, Carlisle and Glasgow Mail._

In their last years, however, the Carlisle and Glasgow and the Carlisle and Edinburgh mails were run to clear 11 miles an hour: the time between Carlisle and Glasgow being cut down to 8 hours 32 minutes. Cautious folk steered clear of such performances, for accidents were frequent. But it was not speed that caused the dreadful accident to the up Manchester mail from Carlisle, overturned at Penrith on September 25th, 1835. The coach was passing the “Greyhound” inn when the horses, startled by a sudden thunderstorm, upset the coach. A gentleman on the roof was killed, and three other outsiders and the coachman were stunned.

But this was not the full measure of the Glasgow mails. The London and Manchester mail, once proceeding no further than Manchester, was extended by a second coach to Carlisle. This and the regular old Glasgow mail were in later years timed to meet at Penrith at four o’clock in the morning, and went on together to Carlisle. Carlisle was thus a busy centre for the mails, and in addition sent out, besides its local coaches and a mail for Edinburgh, a four-horse mail-coach for Portpatrick, carrying the mails for the north of Ireland. This also went along the main road so far as Gretna, whence it branched for Dumfries; continuing from that town to Portpatrick as a two-horse affair.

The cost of being conveyed by mail-coach from London to Glasgow was enormous. It is possible to voyage in these days to America, a distance of 3,000 miles, for less. In 1812 it cost an inside passenger, all the way to Glasgow, for fare alone, apart from the necessary tips to coachmen and guards, and exclusive of expenditure for food and drink all those weary hours, no less than £10 8_s._: at the rate of about 6-1/8_d._ a mile. To-day, the fastest train takes exactly eight hours, and the first-class fare, answering to the mail-coach fare, is £2 18_s._; while one may travel, third class, in greater luxury than the old passengers by mail, for 33_s._

[Sidenote: _DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVELLING_]

III

No one ever in coaching days thought it worth while to write the story of the Glasgow mail. The hard, dry facts of it may be sought, and with some diligence found and collated, in Parliamentary Papers, and in the pages of Cary, or in the coaching information common to directories of that age; but intimate accounts are sought in vain. Travellers who experienced the miseries of long-distance journeys were only too glad to be done with them, and to dismiss the memory of their sufferings. To have passed nearly forty-two hours continuously on the roof of a coach in severe weather, with every hair standing up like a porcupine’s quills, and with rain, dew, and hoar-frost as one’s dreary portion, forbade all that glamour with which that old era is regarded at this convenient distance of time.

Those who could endure such a journey without a break were few; and to those few, obliged from any cause to hasten from end to end, the recollection must have seemed a veritable phantasmagoria of dimly shifting scenes and aching, weary limbs.

[Illustration: THE GLASGOW MAIL LEAVING THE YARD OF THE “BULL AND MOUTH.”

[_After C. Cooper Henderson._ ]

Thus it is that we obtain only brief and disconnected glimpses of the mail’s progress. The most eloquent picture of misery is undoubtedly that presented by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, writing in November 1800, describing a journey from Carlisle to London:

“After passing a sleepless night at Carlisle, I was hurried away next morning without a morsel of breakfast, and grew so very sick and ill in a little while that I had almost fainted twice. When we stopt at Penrith and took up an old gentleman, I then got a large dram of gin, which did me much service; and we proceeded through snow and ice far and far, and farther than I can tell, till I fell asleep and got a much better night’s rest than at that accursed Carlisle. During the night (but Heaven knows where) we picked up two men going to London; and, lo! about daylight another qualm seized me. And when we got to Stilton, it blew such a hideous storm, with hail, snow, and wind, that for an hour and twenty minutes the six horses would not move forward, but attempted always to retreat to the stables. Such kicking, such rearing of beasts, such cursing and swearing of men (who had a stronger smack of the big brute in them than even their cattle), I never met with before; and after every cudgel in the house—yea, even my landlady’s private stick wherewith she corrects her spouse—had been bent or broken over their backs, they got on so slowly that we reached London only at eight in the morning. Here was no peace for the wicked. The ‘Bull and Mouth,’ which is the filthiest place you ever saw, gave me such an aversion to remaining where I was, that I took a place in the heavy coach which went on at one that day, and lay down on a bed till the time for departure. Here my head grew very bad indeed, so that I slept not a wink.”

[Sidenote: _AN AFFECTED TRAVELLER_]

“Stinking, noisy stye,” he elsewhere calls the “Bull and Mouth,” but we must recollect that Sharpe was very affected, a bundle of fine feelings, and a _poseur_: one, in short, born a hundred years before his time, and by no means one of those robust Englishmen to whom noise and stable-smells were but the ordinary and commonplace incidents of coach-journeys and coaching hostelries.

Nothing, you clearly perceive, could have roused Sharpe to enthusiasm. But there were some wildly enthusiastic people on the road then, and they had often cause, in the stirring news they brought with them, to feel exultation of spirits. For with the mail came news of the Battles of the Nile, of Trafalgar, of Waterloo; and many a wayside park was despoiled of laurel branches to deck out the coach in the emblems of victory. Many a time did the mail enter Glasgow in that fashion: decorated with the bays, a red flag flying from the roof, the guard in his best scarlet coat and gold-laced hat, sounding his bugle as the horses galloped at a thundering pace along the Gallowgate. Arrived at the foot of Nelson Street, at about seven o’clock in the morning, his duty was, on these historic occasions, to thrice discharge his blunderbuss in the air. Every one then rushed to the “Tontine” coffee-room to learn the news and get the papers: some one with a stentorian voice being generally elected to read the despatches aloud, for the common benefit.

A thrilling story of those old days, when we were generally at war with France, is that of one Archibald Campbell, a Glasgow merchant who had omitted to insure one of his ships, and, in the last few weeks before she fell due, repented of his omission. Alarmed, he sought to effect insurance with a Glasgow office, but found the premium so high that he resolved to insure ship and cargo in London. Accordingly, he wrote to his London broker, instructing him to insure on the best terms possible. The letter was posted and left by the up mail-coach at 2 p.m. At seven o’clock that night he received an express from Greenock, announcing the safe arrival of his ship, and instantly despatched his head clerk in pursuit of the coach, with instructions to overtake it if possible, or, if he could not do so, to proceed to London and deliver a note to the broker, countermanding the insurance.

But, in spite of making every effort to urge on the postillions, the clerk was unable to overtake the mail, with its five hours’ start. He arrived in London shortly after, and proceeded, early in the morning, to the residence of the broker, before the morning delivery, and thus countermanded the order; with the result that an insurance which would have cost £1,500 was saved at the expense of £100.

[Sidenote: _FASTER THAN THE MAIL_]

Such were the incidents that accompanied the mail on its long journey; but they had already faded from general knowledge, and were treasured chiefly in the memories of a few oldsters, when its last days were come, in February 1848. They had been “piping times of peace” ever since the echoes of Waterloo had died away, in 1815; and for two reasons the news of great issues was no longer brought by the mail. Firstly, because great national events had become more rare; and secondly, because when there was especially momentous intelligence, enterprising folks, travelling even faster than the mail-coach, and setting out at any hour they chose, had stolen away the prime position of that old-time national intelligencer. For example, when at length the great Reform Bill passed the House of Lords, after a long period of hazardous political agitation, at 6.35 in the morning of Saturday, April 14th, 1832, a Mr. Young, of _The Sun_ newspaper, left the Strand sixty-five minutes later in a post-chaise and four, with copies of _The Sun_ he had caused to be printed between 6.30 and 7.30, containing a report of the debate and division, and travelled literally “post-haste” to Glasgow. At 7.30 p.m. on the next day, Sunday, he alighted at the house of his agent, Thomas Atkinson, Miller Street, Glasgow, having performed the journey in 35 hours 50 minutes: a speed, including stoppages for changing horses, of 11-1/4 miles an hour throughout.

There were, it would appear, others on the road on this occasion, similarly engaged, for John Bright spoke in after years of having travelled up from Manchester to London at the time, by the “Peveril of the Peak,” and of having, in common with the other passengers, “observed something coming towards us. We saw horses galloping, and carriages coming at great speed. By-and-by we saw two chaises with four horses, each chaise with two or three men inside. They were throwing out parcels from each window as they went past, galloping as fast as it was possible for horses to travel. These were express chaises, coming from London, bringing the news to all the people of the country—for there were then no telegraphs and no railways—of the glorious triumph of popular principles, even in the House of Lords, for that House had sat all night, and it was not until the morning that the House divided and the second reading of that great measure was carried by a majority of nine votes.” Men thought the millennium was come, but events have proved that it had not; and, according to latest advices, it has not been signalled, even yet.

[Sidenote: _THE “FLYING COACH”_]

Manchester, less than half the way to Glasgow, was in later years very abundantly supplied with coaches from London; but London and Manchester were not in direct communication by coach until 1754; and had London been left to establish a line of coaches to Manchester, the date would no doubt have been much later. Indeed, it is to be noted that, almost without exception, the earlier coaches between London and the provinces were established by provincials seeking to reach London. The metropolis was always magnificently indifferent; but when the provincial manufacturing towns began to arise, the manufacturers, seeking business with that greatest of markets, and finding nothing for it but to ride horseback to and from London, speedily set up coach services. Thus it was that the first coach ever to run between Manchester and London was established by an association of Manchester men. This was the “Flying Coach” of 1754, which was announced with the statement that “However incredible it may appear, this coach will actually (barring accidents) arrive in London in four days and a half after leaving Manchester.”

Really and truly! as the children say. Here we smile; but those eighteenth-century projectors manifestly took things very seriously, as they had every reason to do; and doubtless considered the establishment of this flier a wonderful achievement.

Six years later, in 1760, Messrs. Handforth, Howe, Glanville & Richardson’s coach is found performing the journey in three days “or thereabouts”; and in 1770 the “London Flying Machine,” by Samuel Tennant, began to wing its way every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in summer, in two days, from the “Royal Oak,” Market Street. It set out in summer at the shocking hour of one o’clock in the morning, but conceded 4 a.m. in the winter months; when, however, it required another whole day for the journey.

The earlier coaches seem to have been discontinued, for Tennant’s “Flying Machine” was in 1770 the only one between London and Manchester; but for the less moneyed and more leisured classes whose time was of small value, and expedition was therefore of little moment, there were Matthew Pickford’s stage-waggons (“Flying Waggons” he called them), which, generally at a penny a mile, conveyed passengers and goods between London and Manchester in four and a half days. They went from the “Swan,” Market Street Lane, on Wednesdays and Saturdays; but had several rivals: notably Bass’s waggons, on Fridays, from the “Fountain”; Cooper’s, from the “Star,” Deansgate, on Wednesdays and Saturdays; Hulse’s, from the “Windmill,” on the same days; Washington’s, from the “Pack Horse,” Mill Street Lane, Tuesdays; and Wood’s, from the “Coach and Horses,” Deansgate, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

[Sidenote: _THE MANCHESTER MAIL_]

In 1776-7, serious competition began for the coaching traffic between London and Manchester, two rival concerns—the “London New and Elegant Diligence” and the “New Diligence”—each setting out from Manchester three times a week and taking only two days to perform the journey. The “New and Elegant” competitor set out from the “Upper Royal Oak” inn, Market Street Lane, and went by Macclesfield and Derby. Its complement was thirteen passengers, who were allowed 14 lb of luggage each, free; and the fare was £2 6_s._ or 3_d._ a mile. Among the proprietors of this coach occurs the name of Pickford.

The “New Diligence” (which appears to have been established before its “New and Elegant” fellow) went by way of Matlock and Derby.

The next great event was the establishment of the Manchester mail, in 1785. It left the yard of the “Swan with Two Necks,” in Lad Lane, every weekday evening at 7.30 p.m., and the General Post Office half an hour later, and came to H. C. Lacy’s “Bridgewater Arms,” Manchester, at 6 p.m. the next day. Time, 22 hours; a speed of close upon 8-1/2 miles an hour. At its best period, from 1825 to the end, in 1837, it accomplished the journey in exactly 19 hours, at the average speed of 9·66 miles per hour.

Meanwhile, during the fifty-two years that witnessed the whole career of the mail-coach, down to its final run, stage-coaching along the road to Manchester was utterly revolutionised. Rivalry and competition, as fierce as that on any road, brought the coaches to such a degree of perfection that for comfortable travel, as then understood, it was ahead of all other routes; and to such a turn of speed that it was equal to the best for rapid transit.

During all this period, the districts north of Manchester were more or less beyond the ken of the London stage-coach proprietors, to whom the comparatively lean traffic of the road on to Lancaster, Carlisle, and Glasgow offered no great inducements for through bookings. Moreover, Manchester and Carlisle were themselves great coaching centres, whose coach proprietors were very well able to work by themselves and take such long-distance competition at a disadvantage. From the “Bridgewater Arms,” High Street, Manchester, went numbers of branch mails; from the “Star” inn, Deansgate, and the “Mosley Arms,” Market Place, went a long list of stage-coaches to Lancaster, Kendal, Carlisle, and Glasgow, as well as others along the important cross-roads; while from the “Swan” inn, the “Flying Horse,” the “Palace” inn, and the “Talbot,” Market Street; the “Golden Lion” and “Bush,” Deansgate; “Lower Turk’s Head,” Shude Hill; “Buck,” Hanging Ditch; “Boar’s Head,” Hyde’s Cross, and others a swarm of short-distance coaches set out.