Part 1
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COACHING DAYS & WAYS
by
E. D. CUMING
With Illustrations by G. Denholm Armour
The British Sport Series
Hodder and Stoughton
COACHING
The many boons conferred by Mr. John Palmer upon his generation faded before the advance of the railways; but he has deserved well of posterity, if only for that he altered the coach team from three horses to four. Until that enterprising man undertook to demonstrate that the coach could carry letters more rapidly and safely than could the post-boy, our ancestors had been content with the unicorn team; but after Palmer had astonished the world by making the journey from Bath to London, in 1784, at the rate of nearly seven miles an hour, the team of four horses gradually but steadily supplanted that of three in the stages on almost every road in the country.
It is generally assumed that fast coaching only came into existence after the macadamisation of the roads; but this is not quite the case. Under favourable conditions the speed attained in pre-Macadam days was nearly as great as it became later. The _Sporting Magazine_ of June 1807 says: 'Lately one of the stage coaches on the North road ran from London to Stamford, a distance of 90 miles, in 9 hours 4 minutes. The passengers, four in number, breakfasted and dined on the road, so it must have run at the rate of 12 miles an hour all the time it was travelling.'
The 'old heavies' discarded under Palmer's drastic rule worked out their lives as ordinary stage coaches, and some of these remained on the road until well on in the nineteenth century.
Nimrod's description of the old-time coachman is worth giving:--
'The old-fashioned coachman to a heavy coach--and they were all heavy down to very recent times--bore some analogy with the prize-fighter, for he stood highest who could hit hardest. He was generally a man of large frame, made larger by indulgence, and of great bodily power--which was useful to him. To the button-hole of his coat were appended several whipcord points, which he was sure to have occasion for on the road, for his horses were whipped till whipping was as necessary to them as their harness. In fair play to him, however, he was not solely answerable for this; the spirit of his cattle was broken by the task they were called to perform--for in those days twenty-mile stages were in fashion--and what was the consequence? Why, the four-horse whip and the Nottingham whipcord were of no avail over the latter part of the ground, and something like a cat-o'-nine-tails was produced out of the boot, which was jocularly called the "apprentice"; and a shrewd apprentice it was to the art of torturing which was inflicted on the wheelers without stint or measure, but without which the coach might have been often left on the road. One circumstance alone saved these horses from destruction; this was the frequency of ale-houses on the road, not one of which could then be passed without a call.
'Still, our old-fashioned coachman was a scientific man in his calling--more so, perhaps, than by far the greater part of his brethren of the present day, inasmuch as his energies and skill were more frequently put to the test. He had heavy loads, bad roads, and weary horses to deal with, neither was any part of his harness to be depended on, upon a pinch. Then the box he sat upon was worse than Pandora's, with all the evils it contained, for even hope appeared to have deserted it. It rested on the bed of the axletree, and shook the frame to atoms; but when prayers were put up to have it altered, the proprietors said, "No; the rascal will always be asleep if we place his box on the springs." If among all these difficulties, then, he, by degrees, became a drunkard, who can wonder at his becoming so? But he was a _coachman_. He could fetch the last ounce out of a wheel-horse by the use of his double thong or his "apprentice," and the point of his lash told terribly upon his leaders. He likewise applied it scientifically, it was directed under the bar to the flank, and after the third hit he brought it up to his hand by _the draw_, so that it never got entangled in the pole-chains, or in any part of the harness. He could untie a knot with his teeth and tie another with his tongue, as well as he could with his hands; and if his thong broke off in the middle, he could splice it with dexterity and even with neatness as his coach was proceeding on its journey. It short, he could do what coachmen of the present day cannot do, because they have not been called upon to do it; and he likewise could do what they never tried to do--namely, he could drive when he was drunk nearly as well as when he was sober. He was very frequently a faithful servant to his employers; considered trustworthy by bankers and others in the country through which he passed; and as humane to his horses, perhaps, as the adverse circumstances he was placed in by his masters would admit.'
Time has dealt kindly with the reputation of the old stage coachman, and popular tradition holds him, as Nimrod portrayed him, a whip of unrivalled skill. That there were such men is perfectly true;[1] but not every stage coachman was an expert: not all were skilful or even careful, and not all were civil: and if, as Nimrod says, they could drive as well when drunk as when sober, the cold light of contemporary record shows that there was ample room for improvement. Take the following:--On the 18th of May 1808 the coachman of the Portsmouth coach to London was intoxicated, and "when he came to the foot of the hill on Wimbledon Common, instead of keeping straight on turned to the left and found himself in Putney Lane, where turning the corner of Mr. Kensington's wall in order to get again into the road to Wandsworth, the coach was overturned." He appears to have driven on to the bank by the roadside. The ten outside passengers were all more or less hurt, one dying from her injuries, and the coachman himself had both legs broken. Accidents due to reckless driving and racing were very common, despite the law[2] of 1790 which made a coachman who, by furious driving or careless, overturned his coach, liable to a fine not over five pounds. The following is typical:--
'Last night occurred one of those dreadful catastrophes, the result of driving opposition coaches, which has so stunned the country with horror that sober people for a time will not hazard their lives in these vehicles of fury and madness.
'Two coaches that run daily from Hinckley to Leicester had set out together. The first having descended the hill leading to Leicester was obliged to stop to repair the harness. The other coachman saw the accident and seized the moment to give his antagonist the _go by_, flogging the horses into a gallop down the hill. The horses contrived to keep on their legs, but took fright at something on the road, and became so unmanageable in the hands of a drunken coachman, that in their sweep to avoid the object of their alarm, the driver could not recover them so as to clear the post of the turnpike gate at the bottom of the hill. The velocity was so great that the coach was split in two; three persons were dashed to pieces and instantly killed, two others survived but a few hours in the greatest agony; four were conveyed away for surgical aid with fractured limbs, and two in the dickey were thrown with that part of the coach to a considerable distance, and not much hurt as they fell on a hedge. The coachman fell a victim to his fury and madness. It is time the Magistrates put a stop to these outrageous proceedings that have existed too long in this part of the country.' (_St. James's Chronicle_, 15th July 1815).
The frequency of upsets is suggested by a letter which appeared in the papers in 1785. The writer, who signs himself 'A Sufferer,' begs coach proprietors to direct their servants, when the coach has been overturned, 'not to drag the passengers out at the window, but to replace the coach on its wheels first, provided it can be accomplished with the strength they have with them.'
After coaches began to carry the mails, accidents grew more numerous. We can trace many to the greater speed maintained, others to defective workmanship which resulted in broken axles or lost wheels, many to top-heaviness, and not a few to carelessness. The short stage drivers, on the whole, were the worst offenders. For sheer recklessness this would be hard to beat:--
'During the dense fog on Wednesday last, as a Woolwich coach full of inside and outside passengers was driving at a furious rate, just after it had passed the Six Bells on its way to town, the coachman ran against a heavy country cart. The stage was upset, and those on the roof were pitched violently against an empty coal waggon; two of them fell on the shafts, one of whom had a shoulder badly dislocated; the other had his jawbone broken, with the loss of his front teeth. A Greenwich pensioner, with a wooden leg, had an arm broken, and some contusions on the head.' (_Bell's Life_, 15th December 1882).
It would be easy to compile a list of accidents due to causes unforseen, each one, illustrating a different danger of the road. Here are a few:--
'Tuesday afternoon, as one of the Brighton stages was leaving London at a rapid pace, the pole broke in Lambeth, and the coach was upset. Several passengers had limbs broken and others were injured.' (_Bell's Life_, 25th August 1822).
'A fatal accident befel the Woolwich Tally Ho opposition stage on Tuesday. Coming down the hill from the Green Man the horses became restive, the coachman lost his command, and immediately the whole set off at full speed. In turning a corner the coach upset, being heavily laden outside. Out of sixteen persons only one escaped without a leg or arm broken, and four are not expected to survive. The coach was literally dashed to pieces. The inside passengers were more lacerated than those outside, owing to the coach being shattered to pieces and their being dragged along the road for fifty yards. But little hopes are entertained of a Major M'Leod--a very fine young man; not a vestige of his face is left except his eyes.' (_Bell's Life_, 22nd September 1822).
'A fatal accident happened to Gamble, coachman of the Yeovil mail, on Wednesday, caused by the leaders shying at an old oak tree. The coachman was killed on the spot, and the guard escaped with bruises. The horses started off and galloped into Andover at the rate of 20 miles an hour. The single inside passenger was not aware of anything amiss until two gentlemen, who saw the horses going at a furious rate without a driver, succeeded in stopping them just as they were turning into the George gateway.' (_Times_, 21st February 1838).
Coachmen and guards were apt to leave too much to the honour of the horses when stopping, and it was not at all uncommon for the team to start on its journey with nobody on the box. An old coachman told Lord Algernon St. Maur that on one night's drive he met two coaches without any driver! In 1806 (46 Geo. III., c. 36) it was made an offence punishable by fine to leave the team without a proper person in charge while the coach stopped.
Organised races between public coaches were very popular: the coachmen did not spare the horses on these occasions. This race took place in 1808:--
'On Sunday, August 7th, a coach called the "Patriot," belonging to the master of the "Bell," Leicester, drawn by four horses, started against another coach called the "Defiance," from Leicester to Nottingham, a distance of 26 miles, both coaches changing horses at Loughborough. Thousands of people from all parts assembled to witness the event, and bets to a considerable amount were depending. Both coaches started exactly at 8 o'clock, and after the severest contest ever remembered, the "Patriot" arrived at Nottingham first by two minutes only, performing the distance of 26 miles in 2 hrs. 10 mins., carrying twelve passengers.'
Mishaps were so frequent and productive of so many fatalities, to say nothing of broken limbs, that at last general outcry arose for more stringent repressive measures: and in 1820 a law (1 Geo. IV., c. 4) was passed, making coachmen who might be guilty of 'wanton or furious driving or racing' liable to imprisonment as well as to fine, even though their proceedings were not brought to a close by overturning the coach. The new law did not make an end of accidents: on the whole there were fewer as the result of racing, but the records of time bear ample witness to lack of ordinary caution.
For many years Macadam and Telford had been devoting their ingenuity to the task of solving the secret of road-making; it was not until 1818 that the Macadam system was finally approved and adopted. Then the work of remaking the roads of the kingdom was taken in hand, and the new highways, when constructed, ushered in the brief 'golden age' of coaching--say 1825 to 1838, the mails having been transferred to the railways in the latter year.
Nimrod's famous essay, written in 1835, shows in convincing fashion the difference between coaching in the olden days and at its best:--
'May we be permitted, since we have mentioned the _Arabian Nights_, to make a little demand on our readers' fancy, and suppose it possible that a worthy old gentleman of this said year--1742--had fallen comfortably asleep _à la Dodswell_, and never awoke till Monday morning in Piccadilly? "What coach, your honour?" says a ruffianly-looking fellow, much like what he might have been had he lived a hundred years back. "I wish to go home to Exeter," replies the old gentleman, mildly. "Just in time, your honour, here she comes--them there grey horses; where's your luggage?" "Don't be in a hurry," observed the stranger; "that's a gentleman's carriage." "It ain't! I tell you," says the cad; "it's the Comet, and you must be as quick as lightning." _Nolens volens_, the remonstrating old gentleman is shoved into the Comet, by a cad at each elbow, having been three times assured his luggage is in the hind boot, and twice three times denied having ocular demonstration of the fact.
'However, he is now seated; and "What _gentleman_ is going to drive us?" is his first question to his fellow-passengers. "He is no gentleman, sir," says a person who sits opposite to him, and who happens to be a proprietor of the coach. "He has been on the Comet ever since she started, and is a very steady young man." "Pardon my ignorance," replies the regenerated; "from the cleanliness of his person, the neatness of his apparel, and the language he made use of, I mistook him for some enthusiastic bachelor of arts, wishing to become a charioteer after the manner of the illustrious ancients."[3] "You must have been long in foreign parts, sir," observes the proprietor. In five minutes, or less, after the parley commenced, the wheels went round, and in another five the coach arrived at Hyde Park gate; but long before it got there, the worthy gentleman of 1742 (set down by his fellow-travellers for either a little cracked or an emigrant from the backwoods of America) exclaimed, "What! off the stones already?" "You have never been on the stones," observes his neighbour on his right; "no stones in London now, sir."[4]
'In five minutes under the hour the Comet arrives at Hounslow, to the great delight of our friend, who by this time waxed hungry, not having broken his fast before starting. "Just fifty-five minutes and thirty-seven seconds," says he, "from the time we left London!--wonderful travelling, gentlemen, to be sure, but much too fast to be safe. However, thank heaven, we are arrived at a good-looking house; and now, _waiter_, I hope you have got breakf----" Before the last syllable, however, of the word could be pronounced, the worthy old gentleman's head struck the back of the coach by a jerk, which he could not account for (the fact was, three of the four fresh horses were bolters), and the waiter, the inn, and indeed Hounslow itself (_terraeque urbesque recedunt_) disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. Never did such a succession of doors, windows, and window-shutters pass so quickly in his review before--and he hoped they might never do so again. Recovering, however, a little from his surprise--"My dear sir," said he, "you told me we were to change horses at Hounslow? Surely they are not so inhuman as to drive these poor animals another stage at this unmerciful rate!" "Change horses, sir!" says the proprietor; "why, we changed them whilst you were putting on your spectacles, and looking at your watch. Only one minute allowed for it at Hounslow, and it is often done in fifty seconds by those nimble-fingered horse-keepers." "You astonish me--but really I do not like to go so fast." "Oh, sir! we always spring them over these six miles. It is what we call _the hospital ground_." This alarming phrase is presently interpreted: it intimates that horses whose "backs are getting down instead of up in their work"--some "that won't hold an ounce down hill, or draw an ounce up"--others "that kick over the pole one day and over the bars the next"--in short, all the reprobates, styled in the road slang _bo-kickers_, are sent to work these six miles, because _here_ they have nothing to do but gallop--not a pebble as big as a nutmeg on the road; and so even, that it would not disturb the equilibrium of a spirit-level.
'The coach, however, goes faster and faster over the _hospital ground_, as the bo-kickers feel their legs and the collars get warm to their shoulders; and having ten outsides, the luggage of the said ten, and a few extra packages besides on the roof, she rolls rather more than is pleasant, although the centre of gravity is pretty well kept down by four not slender insides, two well-laden boots, and three huge trunks in the slide. The gentleman of the last century, however, becomes alarmed--is sure the horses are running away with the coach--declares he perceives by the shadow that there is nobody on the box, and can see the reins dangling about the horses' heels. He attempts to look out of the window, but his fellow-traveller dissuades him from doing so: "You may get a shot in your eye from the wheel. Keep your head in the coach, it's all right, depend on 't. We always spring 'em over this stage." Persuasion is useless; for the horses increase their speed and the worthy old gentleman looks out. But what does he see? Death and destruction before his eyes? No: to his surprise he finds the coachman firm at his post, and in the act of taking a pinch of snuff from the gentleman who sits beside him on the _bench_, his horses going at the rate of a mile in three minutes at the time. "But suppose anything should break, or a linchpin should give way and let a wheel loose?" is the next appeal to the communicative but not very consoling proprietor. "Nothing _can_ break, sir," is the reply; "all of the very best stuff; axletrees of the best K.Q. iron, faggotted edgeways, well bedded in the timbers; and as for linchpins, we have not one about the coach. We use the best patent boxes that are manufactured. In short, sir, you are as safe in it as if you were in your bed." "Bless me," exclaims the old man, "what improvements! And the roads!!!" "They are at perfection, sir," says the proprietor. "No horse walks a yard in this coach between London and Exeter--all trotting ground now." "A little _galloping_ ground, I fear," whispers the senior to himself! "But who has effected all this improvement in your paving?" "An American of the name of Macadam,"[5] was the reply, "but coachmen call him the Colossus of Roads. Great things have likewise been done in cutting through hills and altering the course of roads: and it is no uncommon thing now-a-days to see four horses trotting away merrily down hill on that very ground where they formerly were seen walking up hill."
'"And pray, my good sir, what sort of horses may you have over the next stage?" "Oh, sir, no more bo-kickers. It is hilly and severe ground, and requires cattle strong and staid. You'll see four as fine horses put to the coach at Staines as you ever saw in a nobleman's carriage in your life." "Then we shall have no more galloping--no more springing them as you term it?" "Not quite so fast over the next ground," replied the proprietor; "but he will make good play over some part of it: for example, when he gets three parts down a hill he lets them loose, and cheats them out of half the one they have to ascend from the bottom of it. In short, they are half-way up it before a horse touches his collar; and we _must_ take every advantage with such a fast coach as this, and one that loads so well, or we should never keep our time. We are now to a minute; in fact the country people no longer look at the _sun_ when they want to set their clocks--they look only to the _Comet_. But, depend upon it, you are quite safe; we have nothing but first-rate artists on this coach." "Artist! artist!" grumbles the old gentleman, "we had no such term as that."
'"I should like to see this _artist_ change horses at the next stage," resumes our ancient; "for at the last it had the appearance of magic--'Presto, Jack, and begone!'" "By all means; you will be much gratified. It is done with a quickness and ease almost incredible to anyone who has only read or heard of it; not a buckle or a rein is touched twice, and still all is made secure; but use becomes second nature with us. Even in _my_ younger days it was always half an hour's work--sometimes more. There was--'Now, ladies and gentlemen, what would you like to take? There's plenty of time, while the horses are changing, for tea, coffee, or supper; and the coachman will wait for you--won't you, Mr. Smith?' Then Mr. Smith himself was in no hurry; he had a lamb about his coach for one butcher in the town, and perhaps half a calf for another, a barrel of oysters for the lawyer, and a basket of game for the parson, _all on his own account_. In short, the best wheel of the coach was his, and he could not be otherwise than accommodating."