Part 15

By 1830 the Hobby Horse had disappeared, and it was not until 1839–40 that the first machine with cranks was invented by a Scots blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who produced a rear-driving dwarf bicycle that foreshadowed the type now popular. Several machines of this kind were made and sold by Macmillan, but they did not attain a lasting vogue; and it was not until a French mechanic—one Pierre Lallemont—in 1865 or 1866 designed the front-driving velocipede in the workshops of Michaux & Cie, of Paris, that the second era of cycling began. It was this machine that Michaux exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. It was seen either then or the following year in Paris by Mr. R. B. Turner, agent in that city for the Coventry Sewing Machine Company. He, together with Charles Spencer and John Mayall, junior, became a pioneer of cycling in this country. In the pages of the BRIGHTON ROAD, details of their first long-distance ride, February 17th, 1869, may be found.

But Turner not only became an enthusiastic cyclist: he drew the attention of his firm to what at once proved „to be a profitable manufacture, supplementing, and eventually taking the place of, the declining sewing-machine business. The style of the firm was altered to the “Coventry Machinists Company,” and “bone-shakers,” as Velocipedes were speedily nicknamed, began to be turned out in considerable numbers. The “boneshaker” was well named. It had a solid iron frame, and wooden wheels with iron tyres, and was only a degree less weighty than the Hobby Horse itself, of ponderous memory. Its front wheel was the larger, and was the driving-wheel, fitted with “treadles,” as pedals were then named. The machine turned the scale at 93 lb.

Thus, in 1869, the pastime of cycling and the industry of cycle manufacture found a beginning on these shores. In that year the actual word “bicycle” was first introduced, to eventually render “Velocipede” obsolete. When the first syllable of “bicycle” and “bicycling” was dropped is a more difficult matter to determine. The present use grew gradually, as one by one the different bicycling and tricycling clubs sloughed off those cumbrous prefatory distinctions, as unnecessary and unwieldy; but certainly the modern use was known by 1879, when the _’Cyclist_ was established, with the half-apologetic ’ that may even yet be seen on its engraved title-page. Two years earlier, when the _Bicycling News_ was founded, the elision of the distinguishing syllable was evidently not foreseen.

In the years following the introduction of the “boneshaker,” this new industry prospered and increased in an eminently solid way. Bone-shaking was not a pastime for the many, and it was not until the old “ordinary,” as it is still called, was introduced that the youth of that period went bicycling in any great numbers. The “ordinary,” or high bicycle, long since become extraordinary by supersession in favour of the dwarf “safety,” was gradually evolved through the middle Seventies to 1880. It was probably an early example of this build that so terribly frightened the rustic in _Punch_, who, going home in the dark, was scared by an “awful summat” he declared to be “a man a-ridin’ on nawthin’.”

It was a graceful, albeit exceedingly dangerous type, and from its height of fifty-eight inches a rider surveyed the world as he went at a lordly altitude. The reverse of that commanding eminence was found when he was thrown: a happening that recurred with remarkable frequency and a nerve-shaking unexpectedness. Little in the shape of ruts or stones was required to upset the “ordinary,” and few long rides were ever made without a “spill.” To be shot off suddenly in mid-air was in fact so to be looked for, that riders studied how to fall, and practised the art so well that, although involuntary flights were many, serious injuries were few. The height of this art or science was to fall clear of the machine—an object attained, down hill, by riding with the legs over the handlebars, when, in the event of an accident, one fell a greater or shorter distance, according to the speed or the force of the shock.

The “ordinary” was at its height, in measurement and popularity, in 1880, a year that also marked the palmiest period of cycling clubs. The cyclist of that era made a brave show. Arrayed in a tight-fitting uniform, that in its frogged patrol-jacket and gauntlet gloves aped military costume, and in its tight breeches made the sudden strain of a fall the utter dissolution of those garments, his was a wonderful figure as he wended his uncertain way, gazing from his point of vantage over the countryside.

But as his first youth waned, and his agility with it, rendering the exercise of vaulting into the saddle increasingly more of an enterprise, the cyclist yearned for a less giddy height than that of the “ordinary,” and his growing infirmities, more than any other consideration, eventually brought about the modern geared-up, rear-driving, dwarf bicycle the “safety”; but Time, the cynic, that has robbed the term “ordinary” of its meaning, has brought about many more fatal cycling accidents in these “safety” days than occurred in the era of the high bicycle.

XLIII

It was the late J. K. Starley’s “Rover” of 1885 that opened the way for cycling’s modern development. It was a design rightly claimed to have “set the fashion to the world,” and the difference between it and patterns of the current season is only in detail. Already, before Starley, attempts had been made to produce a “safety,” as shown by Lawson’s patent of 1876 and his “bicyclette” of 1880, together with the designs by Shergold and Bate in 1876 and later, in which 26- to 30-inch wheels, provided with gear, were to do the work of the 56- and 58-inch ungeared wheel. But none of these designs attained any commercial success.

The “Rover” brought many thousands more into the ranks of cyclists, and gave an added prosperity to Coventry, but what has been called the “great boom” was yet to come. A contributory cause of that event, although antedating it by some six years, was the introduction of the pneumatic tyre. So long ago as 1815 a pneumatic rubber tyre for carriages had been invented by Thompson, and forgotten, and it was not until 1888 that Mr. J. R. Dunlop designed the first pattern of the tyre bearing his name. Like many another epoch-making invention, its importance was originally not so much as guessed at, and it was only as a home-made device for securing the easy running of his children’s cycles that it first came into being. It began to be manufactured in 1889, and certainly since 1891 pneumatic tyres for cycles have been universal. They practically first rendered it possible for ladies to adopt the pastime, and first made cycling luxurious, rather than necessarily an athletic exercise. The result was the “boom” that began in the early summer of 1895.

Suddenly, from being looked down upon by all who pretended to any culture or social consideration, cycling became fashionable. Cyclists, who had cycled ever since the days when Edmund Yates in the _World_, speaking for Society, had bitterly called them “cads on castors,” smiled sardonically when they saw all Mayfair and St. James’s cycling in Hyde or Battersea Parks, and submitted to be knocked down by wobbling novices—Earls and Countesses—upon the road with an ill grace. It is a mad world, and time brings strange revenges in it.

No one, least of all the cycle manufacturers of Coventry, had any prevision of the great “boom.” In former years business had eased off with the coming of summer. “Previously to 1895,” said a representative of the trade, “business was sound, and all the best houses did well, but were more or less subject to a very dull period, lasting from the beginning of August until the end of November. This period began slowly, and, reaching its dullest point about the end of October, caused much distress among the more improvident workers. There was no slack time in 1895, _and you know what ’96 was_.”

Toil how they might through the twenty-four hours, the factories of Coventry could not keep pace with the demand. Orders came in quicker than cycles were despatched, and every little metal-working firm went into cycle-making, while thousands upon thousands of mechanics flocked into the “city of the boom.” Any one could find work and good wages in Coventry, but the rush was so great that many could find no lodgings, and payment was frequently offered for shelter in the local workhouse, offers that, of course, could not be entertained. In some cases cycle manufacturers provided their new hands with temporary accommodation in their works. The population, numbering in 1891 58,503, rose at once by 10,000. To meet this influx, building operations were feverishly begun, and street upon street of entirely new suburbs began to rise.

And for a time the “boom” continued. Newer and immensely large factories were built on the strength of it, and during 1897 the output of cycles rose to an extraordinary height.

It was the Company Promoter who killed all this prosperity. Unscrupulous men, versed in all the dark ways of the financial world, found their opportunity in those palmy days, and, purchasing and amalgamating, converted prosperous private firms into unwieldy and over-capitalised public companies. In the thick of all this juggling with millions, and snatching of commissions and vendors’ profits, the bubble burst, and an honourable and highly prosperous industry was wrecked, and became a bye-word and a reproach all the world over. The events of 1898 make a painful retrospect. Noblemen who bore ancient and honourable titles were publicly accused as common touts and commission agents engaged in hoodwinking the public, and even ready, when opportunity offered, to cheat one another. The scandal struck the heaviest blow to the House of Lords and hereditary legislation that that House and that principle of government have ever suffered.

The professional Company Promoter we have had with us ever since Limited Liability brought him into being, and bitter experience during a generation and a half has enabled the public to at last gain a just view of him and his methods; but the public, at that time, still looked upon a nobleman as, almost of necessity, a man of honour. The revelations that followed this sudden crash dispelled that fond belief, and poisoned confidence at its very spring-head. The Society “boom” had already ended, and the bursting of the financial bubble left the once flourishing industry disorganised. Ever since that unhappy year of 1898 Coventry has witnessed a melancholy succession of failures, and has seen factory after factory closed. Only recently has cycle manufacturing begun to recover from that staggering blow. Yet, apart from such considerations as the waxing and waning fortunes of financiers, or of manufacturers and their hirelings among professional racing cyclists, cycling as a pastime has been steadily progressive. Where one person rode a “boneshaker,” twenty bestrode the high bicycle; and, nowadays, for every twenty who perched on the perilous eminence of the old “ordinary,” two hundred are found upon the modern cycle. The industry is thus endowed with elasticity and strong recuperative powers, so that in this saner period Coventry is doing a great deal more than merely holding its own, even though many other towns have secured a share in the business of cycle production.

Here, then, for the present, ends Coventry’s romance. There be those who look forward to a new and stirring chapter of it, in a wished-for manufacture of motor-cars; but the future lies on the knees of the gods, to order as they will.

XLIV

Coaching history at Coventry begins in 1658, with the establishment of a stage-coach between London, Lichfield, and Chester. This pioneer, starting from the “George” Inn, Holborn Bridge, reached Coventry in three days, or professed to do so. Suspicions that this was only a profession, not often put into practice, are aroused by the title of a new coach, put on the road in 1739. This was the “London, Birmingham, and Lichfield Flying Coach,” that took just the same time to reach Coventry, and yet arrogated the term “flying” to itself, as a superior recommendation above all earlier conveyances. The fare between London and Coventry was 25_s._ In 1773 a wonderful thing happened, for in that year the “Coventry Flying Machine” winged its way in one day. Later coaches belong to the road in general, and Coventry was but an incident on the way; but there were many short distances covered by local coaches, such as the “Peeping Tom” and the “Manchester Hero,” between this and Manchester, and numerous others to Birmingham, Lichfield, Warwick, Leamington, Cheltenham, and Stratford-on-Avon. A “Little Wonder” Coventry and Birmingham stage ran in the last years of coaching. Tom Pinner, its driver, was an expert with the whip, and could snatch the pipe out of a wayfarer’s mouth with it, and not touch him, as he drove along. One quite expects, in reading Tom Pinner’s career, to light upon the record of one of the victims of these little pleasantries waiting for their author and pounding him into a jelly; but no one ever seems to have had sufficient spirit.

Besides the “King’s Arms,” there were the “Queen’s Head,” the “Bull,” and the “White Bear” prominent among Coventry inns. The “Bull” stood where the Barracks are now situated, in Smithford Street. The “White Bear,” in High Street, changed its sign in 1811 to the “Craven Arms”; a name it still retains. The change was made out of compliment to the third Earl of Craven, who had then returned to live at Combe Abbey, a family seat near Coventry that had long been closed. His residence there brought much custom to the city and to the house.

The old inn remains just as it was in coaching days. There are the long yard, with stables of Elizabethan date, and the solid red-brick portions of the house, rebuilt in the time when George III. was King, facing the narrow passage. Fronting on the street, the building is of old white-painted plaster. It was in front of the “Craven Arms” that the fatal accident, already recounted, to Tom Peck, the guard of the “Eclipse” coach, happened. Opposite was one of the many coach offices; the scene, perhaps, of that story of the little girl being booked overnight at half-price, as the custom was. Her elder sister took the seat in the morning, when the book-keeper remarked to her mother, “Your little girl has grown in the night.”

One of the last relics of old times went, unhonoured, in 1872, when the turnpike-gates on either side of Coventry were abolished; and a long-enduring link was broken when Thomas Clarke died, in Coventry Hospital, April, 1899. Clarke was, according to the newspapers chronicling the event, the “oldest postboy in England.” Not a few, also, proclaimed him to be “the last”; but last postboys have been dying in considerable numbers since then, and modest paragraphs in the daily papers still appear, now and again, recording the passing of another. The Last Postboy, indeed, is not yet, and those paragraphs are not uncommonly followed by letters from survivors, who are always found to write and claim the honour for themselves. They are as inexhaustible as the widow’s cruise of oil, pieces of the True Cross, or relics of the saints in Roman Catholic churches. When the traveller of experience has seen the skull of St. Jerome in one place, he is not surprised „to be shown another somewhere else, for he has already seen five thigh bones of some other saint at different shrines, and knows that, if he perseveres, he will probably find some more. Just in the same way, there is always another postboy when the last has died. They were—or are, we must perhaps say—a long-lived race, all bone and gristle; without a spare ounce of flesh for disease to fasten upon, and, inured for long years to hard work in all weathers, little affected in old age by the chills and bitter winds that carry off the less hardy among elderly folks. The coachman was of another kind. He sat on his box all the time, and grew fat in fingering the ribbons; while the postboy bumped his flesh away on horseback. Did any one ever see a fat postboy? And was it not the exception for a coachman to be lean? His fatness long since carried off the last coachman of the old days, but the

Three jolly postboys, drinking at the Dragon,

who, in the words of the old chorus, “determined to finish off the flagon,” are probably still living, in a hale and lean old age, although coaches, and chaises, and all the old life of the road have gone, and the “Dragon” itself no longer looks down the dusty highway.

Sixty years before, Clarke had seen the railway come to Coventry, and bring many changes in its wake, among them the rebuilding of the comfortable old inns. He was old enough to have driven Mr. Pickwick, or Mr. Pickwick’s originator, on that remarkably wet journey from Birmingham to Towcester. It was probably at the old “King’s Head” that the post-chaise team was changed that night. When they stopped, the steam ascended from the horses in such clouds as wholly to obscure the ostler, whose voice was, however, heard to declare from the mist that he expected the first Gold Medal from the Humane Society, on their next distribution of awards, for taking the postboy’s hat off; the water descending from the brim of which, the invisible gentleman declared, must inevitably have drowned him (the postboy) but for his great presence of mind in tearing it promptly from his head, and drying the gasping man’s countenance with a wisp of straw.

Here it was that Sam Weller, “lowering his voice to a mysterious whisper,” asked Bob Sawyer if he had ever “know’d a churchyard where there was a postboy’s tombstone,” or “had ever seen a dead postboy.”

“No!” rejoined Bob, “I never did.”

“No!” rejoined Sam, triumphantly, “nor never will; and there’s another thing that no man never see, and that’s a dead donkey. No man never see a dead donkey”; adding that, “without goin’ so far as to as-sert, as some wery sensible people do, that postboys and donkeys is both immortal, wot I say is this; that wenever they feels theirselves gettin’ stiff and past their work, they just rides off together, wun postboy to a pair in the usual way; wot becomes on ’em nobody knows, but its werry probable as they starts away to take their pleasure in some other vorld, for there ain’t a man alive as ever see either a donkey or a postboy a-taking his pleasure in this!”

The “King’s Head,” as already hinted, has been rebuilt in the stained glass and glitter style, and is quite uninteresting, save for the effigy of “Peeping Tom,” moved from the frontage of a neighbouring old house, peering curiously from an upper storey.

XLV

Crossing the intersection of Hertford Street and Broad Gate at this point, the Holyhead Road leads out of Coventry by way of Smithford Street and Fleet Street. Before the revolutionary time of Telford, it continued through Spon End and Spon Gate and reached Allesley along the winding route now known as the “Old Allesley Road,” passing two toll-gates on the way. The “new” road branches off to the right immediately after passing St. John’s church and, passing a long factory-like row of old weavers’ houses, and climbing uphill at first, goes afterwards flat and straight to Allesley, in two miles. “Windmill Hill,” as it was called, was not a very exalted height, but from it in the old days a quite panoramic view of Coventry was obtainable. It is the view, now blotted out by intervening houses, seen in Turner’s noble picture of the city. In it you see the hollow road, with St. John’s tower at the bottom, and coaches toiling up, on the way to Birmingham; in the distance the neighbouring spires of Trinity and St. Michael’s, with Christ Church aloof, on the right. Turner took his stand on the hill-crest, where Meriden Street branches off to the right; but where the grassy banks then sloped steeply to the road, and the sheep roamed free, suburban villas now cover the hillside, the retaining walls of their gardens masking the rugged old earth-banks.

A red-brick toll-gate marks the junction of old and new roads at the entrance of Allesley, a pretty roadside village on a hillside. There were at one time two very large and busy coaching inns here, the “Windmill” and the “White Lion,” and here they stand even now; not as inns, it is true, but structurally unaltered. Very handsome red-brick buildings they are, belonging to the Georgian and Queen Anne periods: the “White Lion,” once famed for its cheesecakes and home-brewed ale, prominent as the largest building in the village street, and now divided into two houses; the “Windmill” half a mile away, standing back in a meadow and used as a farmhouse.

Meriden, the next item upon the way, is heralded by a steeply descending hill; the village below, the church solitary upon the hill-top. Meriden church is quite a little museum of antiquities, and a well-kept one, with everything carefully labelled for the information of the chance visitor—and the door unlocked. Here one finds the effigies of two worthy Warwickshire knights of the fifteenth century, a chained Prayer Book, and the processional staves of a bygone village club, together with a curious old oak alms-chest, dated 1627 and inscribed:

This chest is God’s exchequer, paye in then Your almes accepted both of God and men.

“Mireden,” as it was invariably called by old-time travellers, is situated on an “uncommonly deep” bed of clay in the hole at the foot of this hill. Pennant, the antiquary, is responsible for the statement that the village was named Alspath until the time of Henry VI., “about which time, becoming a great thoroughfare, it got the name of Myreden—‘den’ signifying a bottom, and ‘myre’ dirt; and I can well vouch for the propriety of the appellation before the institution of turnpikes.”

In his time, between 1739 and 1782, the road at Meriden had been so far improved that travellers no longer stuck in the clay. It had become a turnpike, and, on the testimony of Pennant, “excellent.” But the crest of the hill had still to be climbed, and the depth of the valley to be descended into, before the advent of Telford, some forty years later, when the cutting on the hill-top and the embankment in the hollow were made. The old road—a steep and narrow track—is seen down below, on the right hand, in descending Meriden Hill, and beside it the old “Queen’s Head,” with frontage rebuilt in recent years. Meriden village lies in the succeeding level, with rural cottages on one side of the road, and the ponds and lilied watercourses of Meriden Park on the other; a village green beyond. The houses are still, as in Pennant’s day “pretty”; but in the course of a hundred and twenty years the “magnificent inn, famed from time immemorial for its excellent malt liquor,” has retired into private occupation, and the “various embellishments made by the old innkeeper, Reynolds—little ponds, statues, and other whims,” that used to enliven the spot, have been swept away by Time, like old Reynolds himself.