COACHING AND COACHING CLUBS.

STATE-COACH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.COACHING AND COACHING CLUBS.

STATE-COACH OF QUEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND.

BY CHARLES S. PELHAM-CLINTON.

Coachman

IN“Tom Brown’s Schooldays,” that ever-popular book, there is a sketch of coaching which stands unequaled for concise and graphic description, and which will bear repetition. Tom was starting for Rugby by the coach, and his father is seeing him off. They hear the ring and rattle of the four fast trotters and the town-made drag, as it dashes up to the “Peacock.”

“‘Anything for us, Bob?’ says the burly guard, dropping down from behind and slapping himself across the chest.

“‘Young gen’l’m’n, Rugby; three parcels, Leicester; hamper o’ game, Rugby,’ answers the hostler.

“‘Tell young gent to look alive,’ says the guard, opening the hind-boot and shooting in the parcels, after examining them by the lamps. ‘Here, shove the portmanteau up atop—I’ll fasten him presently. Now then, sir, jump up behind.’

“‘Good-bye, father—my love at home.’ A last shake of the hand. Up goes Tom, the guard catching his hat-box and holding on with one hand, while with the other he claps the horn to his mouth. Toot, toot, toot! The hostlers let go their heads, the four bays plunge at the collar, and away goes the ‘Tally-ho’ into the darkness, forty-five seconds from the time they pulled up.”

Considerable more romance about this than a departure from the Grand Central or Jersey City depots. There was much fun on the road in those days, and the jehu generally had a stock of old jokes that he let off at the box-seat passenger day after day. For instance, a crusty and stingy old curmudgeon who had neglected to “dampen the whistle” of the driver in the proper fashion, and who grumbled at the wet weather, would be greeted with, “Why don’t you invest a penny in a Yarmouth bloater? and you’ll be dry all day, I’ll warrant.” Things are more staid now, and the Irish coachman who demanded “Shall I pay the ‘pike’ or drive at it?” is happily gathered to his fathers, and life and limb are in the hands of a less humorous but more sober set of drivers.

From one source I learn coaches were first introduced into England in 1580 by Fitzallan, Earl of Arundel, before which time the customary mode of travel was on horseback. The Queen used to ride on a pillion behind her chamberlain. Another history says that in 1564, Booner, a Dutchman, became Queen Elizabeth’s coachman, proving that she must have had a coach. In 1619, however, things had so improved that Buckingham drove a coach and six.

A very authentic history says that the first coach in England was built in 1555, for the Earl of Rutland, by Walter Rippon. This maker must have been the Brewster of his day, as he made a coach for Queen Mary, and in 1564 built a state-coach for Queen Elizabeth, presumably the one that the above Booner drove. Hackney-coaches came into vogue in 1605, and in 1640 the stage-coach was first adopted. It was built to carry six or eight persons, and was hung upon leather straps.

In 1662 six stage-coaches were running, and in 1673 stage communication was started between Exeter and Chester and London. No less an authority than Sir Walter Scott says that in 1755 the speed of a stage was frequently but four miles an hour. A year previous to this, however, steel springs had been invented, and in1784 it is authentically stated that the average speed was eight miles an hour. Prior to this rapid increase of speed, the Lord Mayor of London’s state-coach was built in 1757, and weighed the trifle of three tons, sixteen hundred-weight. In 1762 a royal state-coach was built for George III. which weighed four tons, and which is still used on full state occasions, being drawn by eight cream-colored horses.

Through the efforts of Mr. John Palmer, M.P. for Bath, in 1784 the mails were entrusted to the care of the coaches, the first mail-coach leaving London on the 8th of August of that year. Until 1834 the mail-coaches were not allowed to carry more than three outside passengers, while the ordinary stages carried four inside and fourteen outside.

STATE-COACH OF KING CHARLES II. OF ENGLAND.

It was at this period that gentlemen began to “tool” not only their own but public coaches, and the amusement, which in many cases combines business with pleasure, has been continued ever since. Smedley, the novelist, creates a character in “Frank Fairleigh,” under the name of the Hon. George Lawless, who shows how thirty to fifty years ago this fashion had come into vogue.

The spirit of the times was such that in 1807 the first club was established, under the name of the Bensington (OxonicéBenson) Driving Club, the number of members being limited to twenty-five. There were four meets in a year—two at the White Hart, Bensington, near Oxford, and two at the Black Dog, Bedfont, near Hounslow. There was no annual subscription; but each member paid £10 on his election. After the first sixteen years of the club’s life, the meetings were entirely confined to Bedfont, as being more easy of access. Here it was that the wine of the club was kept, and hence it was that, after dining, the members “dashed home in a style of speed and splendor equal to the spirit and judgment displayed by the noble, honorable, and respective drivers.” Among these were the “Squire of Squerries,” the father of fox-hunting; Sir Henry Peyton, who, like his descendant Sir Thomas, drove grays, and introduced the second ferrule on the whip; the Marquis of Worcester, Sir Bellingham Graham, Mr. Charles Jones, and Mr. John Walker, who drove the Bognor coach.

COLONEL DELANCY KANE’S FOUR-IN-HAND.⇒LARGER IMAGE

COLONEL DELANCY KANE’S FOUR-IN-HAND.

⇒LARGER IMAGE

This was very quickly followed by the Four-Horse Club, founded in 1808 by Mr. Charles Buxton, which existed only about twenty years. The members included Mr. Warde, Sir John Peyton, Lord Anson, the Marquis of Worcester, Sir Bellingham Graham, Lord Sefton, and a host of others. This body used to meet twice a month in Cavendish Square, and its meetings, wrote “Nimrod,” were “perhaps objectionable as making unnecessary parade.” What would he have said of the Magazine meets? The Four-Horse Club was also known as the Barouche Club, and, according to“Nimrod,” as the Whip Club; but Lord William Lennox would seem to imply that the Whip Club was a distinct society, inasmuch as it used to meet in Park Lane and drive to Harrow-on-the-Hill, instead of meeting in Cavendish Square and driving to Salt Hill, as was the custom of the Four-Horse members. In “Hit and Miss” Charles Mathews caricatured the many-pocketed drab coat, with its buttons the size of a crown piece; the blue waistcoat, with its inch-wide yellow stripes; the plush breeches, and the three-and-a-half-inch hat, that formed the club uniform; and the celebrated comedian offended many of the foremost coaching men by the travesty. Joey Grimaldi also made capital out of this somewhat startling dress. A drab coat was formed out of a blanket, a purloined cabbage was used as a bouquet, plates formed the buttons of the coat; the opportune appearance of a cradle and four cheeses enabled a coach to be built, while a toy-shop furnished four blotting-paper horses.

THE FOUR-IN-HANDS IN CENTRAL PARK.⇒LARGER IMAGE

THE FOUR-IN-HANDS IN CENTRAL PARK.

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FAMILY TRAVELING COACH, 17TH CENTURY.

About 1820 the Four-Horse Club came to an end, but was resuscitated about two years later, only to be dissolved again.

The Bensington Driving Club kept on, and was joined, in 1838, by the Richmond Driving Club, under the presidency of Lord Chesterfield. The meets of this club took place at Chesterfield House, and the destination of the club was Richmond. The R. D. C., however, only had a short life, and the parent society, the B. D. C., was alone in its glory till 1852, when it came to an end.

Then came an interregnum of about four years, until it occurred to the late Mr. William Morritt, of roans and yellow coach celebrity, to establish the Four-in-Hand Driving Club—this is its real name—of which the Duke of Beaufort and the late Sir Watkin Wynn were original members. In 1870 the Coaching Club was started, and this completes the list of clubs—past and present—formed in England for the encouragement of the difficult art of driving four-in-hand. On the books of these societies are to be found the names of all the best coachmen of the time; and it may be doubted whether the institutions of the present day may not fairly anticipate a longer life than was vouchsafed to their predecessors.

For some time it was a legitimate boast that no other country could show a sight equal to the English coaching meets; but the monopoly in that, as in other lines connected with sport and pastime, is at an end.

Sundry attempts, but wholly unsuccessful ones, have been made to organize meets of other vehicles than coaches. Once there was a meet of tandems in Hyde Park, but it was a sorry exhibition. Then a sleighing meet was tried; but the only result of the venture was to show that England is not quite the place for an experiment of that kind. Later came the meet of trotters, a yet more ludicrous affair, so it is only necessary for some one to organize a meet of “pickaxe” teams, to have introduced to the British public every variety of driving not in common use.

So much for coaching in England. In America its history does not run back quite so far; but, in 1697, John Clapp, a New York Bowery innkeeper, is recorded as having a hackney-coach built for him, and must be booked as the first of the “cabbies” whose extortion give New York such a name among travelers.

We hear of the first private carriage in 1745. In 1750, the Rev. Mr. Burnaby, writing of New York, mentions Italian chaises as the proper means of conveyance in his time, excepting in Virginia, where coaches were used and required six horses to drag them. They require that number now in most parts of that State, particularly in the winter and spring.

Boston is said to have had a stage in 1661, and in the middle of the eighteenth century a stage-line was established between that city and New York. Stages were, however, very little in use until 1786, at which time there were only three carriage builders in New York. The “boom” must have commenced about then, as I learn from an article on coaching, written by Miss Jennie J. Young some fifteen years ago, that during the next three years the number had trebled, and that there were five livery yards as well.

TRAVELING COACH, 18TH CENTURY.

During the next two decades the number had grown to twenty-nine, which would have been further increased had it not been for the enormous cost of production, a complaint that prevails a hundred years later. Most people, therefore, imported their coaches. Among these was Washington. Mr. J. T. Watson describes his coach as follows: “It was cream-colored, globular in its shape and capacious within, ornamented in the French style with cupids supporting festoons and wreaths of flowers emblematically arranged along the panel-work, the figures and flowers beautifully covered with fine glass, very white and dazzling to the eye of youth and simplicity in such matters. It was drawn sometimes by four, but in common by two, very elegant Virginia bays, with long switch tails and splendid harness, and driven by a German, tall and muscular, possessing an aquiline nose.” A handsome vehicle in its time, no doubt, but one that would appear as an advance guard of Barnum’s in these days of workmanlike simplicity.

A less gorgeous vehicle, but equally curious, was lately, Miss Young says, in the possession of Brewster, of Broome Street. “It was built in 1801 by Leslie, of London, and was brought to this country on the occasion of a matrimonial alliance between the families of Van Rensselaer and of Vischer. The body is painted yellow, and on the panels are the arms of both families. The lining is green. The wheels are high, and the body, instead of being let down between them, is kept as far from the ground as possible. The driver’s seat is also pushed up to the highest possible altitude.”

At the commencement of this century three stages were enough for the requirements of the travelers from and to this city. One of these ran from the corner of Wall and New streets to Greenwich, and the other ran from the Bull’s Head to Harlem and Manhattanville respectively. Twenty-five years made a vast difference in the travel by road, and the country roads being improved a large number of coaches left this city daily, among them being daily mails to Albany, Philadelphia, Westchester and Danbury; and there was a day mail between this city and Boston. This did not last long, as the advent of steam-cars sent the coaches to the rightabout, or relegated them to the interior where steam had not penetrated.

Then came a long period before the time-honored sport was renewed.

It is said that in 1860 there was only one private four-in-hand in the Union, which was of English build, and belonged to Mr. T. Bigelow Lawrence, of Boston. It eventually passed, on his death, into the hands of Brewster & Co. While in their hands it attracted the attention of Col. William Jay and Mr. Thomas Newbold, and was purchased by them, the copartnership being increased by Mr. Frederick Bronson and Mr. Kane. Three years later, in 1863, Wood Brothers built a coach for Mr. Leonard Jerome; Mr. August Belmont imported one from England, and during the next decade coaches were imported by Mr. Bronson, Col. Delancy Kane, and Mr. James Gordon Bennett, whose importation was afterward purchased by Mr. William P. Douglas.

Curiously enough, the organization of the Coaching Club was started abroad, several gentlemen, among whom were Col. Delancy Kane and Col. W. Jay, being the prime movers in this idea. In 1875 the organization was effected. The first parade was held in 1876, and six coaches made their appearance. Many of the names that were included on the roll in the first year are still represented on the box-seat; Mr. Frederick Bronson and Col. William Jay were, however, the only two who put in an appearance at the meet last May. The others are James Gordon Bennett, William P. Douglas, Leonard Jerome, Delancy Kane, Nicholson Kane, Thomas Newbold, and Mr. Thorndike Rice. This list was speedily augmented, and included August Belmont, senior and junior, Hugo S. Fritsch, George R. Fearing, Theodore A. Havemeyer, G. G. Haven, Frederick Neilson, Fairman Rogers, Francis R. Rives, G. P. Wetmore, Pierre Lorillard, Augustine Whiting, and Augustus Schermerhorn—all names that are interesting to students of the history of the sports of the past twenty-five years.

The membership was originally twenty-five, but so popular has the club become that it has been deemed advisable to increase the number, and the limit now stands at forty-five, with only one vacancy, and plenty of applicants. The uniform consists of a dark green cut-away coat with brass buttons, and a yellow striped waistcoat, the buttons bearing the initials C. C., and having the bars as a design. The club only comes before the public twice a year, one of these occasions being the annual meet in the Park, and another being the annual drive to some spot within aboutfifty miles of New York. At these times the club is greeted by a large portion of the New York public, and when the weather favors the annual meet it takes all the energies of the “sparrow police” to keep the road clear for the coaches.

Very few of the members have ever driven public coaches, so the rule that obliges members of the English coaching clubs to have previously driven a public coach, would be prohibitory here. Col. Delancy Kane is about the only member that has done so in England, and he was, with Colonel Jay, Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Bronson, the prime mover in the “Tantivy” which ran for several seasons from the Hotel Brunswick to the Country Club at Pelham. Last year Mr. Hugo Fritsch and Mr. Frederick Bronson ran this venture, but I fancy that the returns were by no means commensurate with the expenses, and that they lost money. It seems a pity that no one is public-spirited enough to follow in their footsteps, as after all the expense is not so very vast, and it would give the prestige that many strive for in other ways. Colonel William Jay was the first president of the club, and he still retains that position, leading the van in the parades, and sits at the head of the table at the dinner which follows.

The parades have been attended with very few accidents, and indeed the whole history of amateur coaching in America is singularly devoid of exciting incidents. The Central Park gates are wider than those of Hyde Park, and the example of a noble lord who not very long since took a wheel off and quietly “dumped” his load on the sidewalk, has not as yet been emulated. I have heard of a case in which a four-in-hand and a street-car tried conclusions to the detriment of the former, and one or two of the starts at Jerome have been fraught with considerable peril to those who were on the coach. Fortune favors the brave, however, and Jerome luckily has not such a tremendous hill on the way home as has Goodwood, the historic racecourse situated above the beautiful park of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. To this course some thirty private four-in-hands make the trip from the different country houses and towns in the neighborhood.

“THE CAMBRIDGE TELEGRAPH,” WHITE HORSE TAVERN, FETTER LANE, LONDON.

About ten years back, Lord Charles Beresford, of “Condor” fame, was driving his coach home from these races; on the seat beside him was Lady Folkestone, and another lady was among those behind. When a couple of hundred yards through the park had been compassed, a sudden block occurred on the road, and Lord Charles, to save running into some of the carriages in front, swung off the road onto the grass. The jerk broke the chain ofthe “skid,” and the coach ran away with the horses. The hill at this point is very steep, and the pace was simply terrific. The coach swayed from side to side, but did not turn over; the horses were going at a mad gallop, and a stumble meant instant death to all. Down the hill they plunged, Lady Folkestone never moving or saying a word, and the rest of the party, with teeth set, grimly facing the end that seemed inevitable. The bottom of the hill came at last, and over the rolling sward tore the horses. Finally, about a mile and a half from the bottom, they came to a stand, not a strap broken, and no damage of any kind done. Lord Charles could not release his hands from the reins, and they had to be forced from him. Since then he can never depend on them, as any strain seems to paralyze him, and at one or two meets of the Coaching Club he has been obliged to relinquish the “ribbons” in consequence of the horses’ pulling. This all reads like a traveler’s yarn to those who do not know the steepness of the hill; but Lord Charles told it to me himself, and added that the only thing lost was the whip. This could hardly occur at Jerome, as there are no precipices to encounter.

The annual drive of the Coaching Club is quite a feature, and some very charming trips have been made. Last year the chosen spot was “Idle Hour,” the beautiful country seat of Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, at Oakdale, L. I. The start was made on June 2, at 9.30A. M., from the Brunswick Hotel, Col. Jay “handling the ribbons.” Idle Hour was reached by sixP. M.Changes were made at Flushing, Lakeville, Garden City, Belmore, Amityville, Bayshore, and Islip; the different gentlemen horsing the coach and driving the several stages being Messrs. F. A. Havemeyer, F. Bronson, A. Belmont, Jr., Delancy Kane, and Prescott Lawrence. The return journey was made on Monday, the changes being made at the same places, and at six o’clock, dusty and thirsty, the members of the C. C. drew up at the door of the Brunswick. It was the eleventh annual drive of the club, the other places visited having been the country seats of A. J. Cassatt and of Fairman Rogers, at Philadelphia; Mr. Frederick Bronson, at Greenwich Hill, Conn.; Mr. Francis Rives, at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson; Col. William Jay, at Bedford, N. J.; Theodore Havemeyer, at Mawah, N. J.; Pierre Lorillard, at Rancocas, N. J.; Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, at Hyde Park, and Mr. Schermerhorn, at Lenox, Mass. The trip made in 1878 to Philadelphia was a long one, the entire ninety miles being accomplished in about seven hours and a half. The route was divided into nine stopping-places, these being Newark, Rahway, Signboard, Six Mile Run, Princeton, Trenton, Hulmeville and Holmesburg—the drivers being Col. Delancy Kane, F. R. Rives, P. Belmont, Jr., T. A. Havemeyer, G. P. Wetmore, Hugo O. Fritsch, F. Bronson, G. R. Fearing, and Fairman Rogers.

The meets which take place on the last Saturday in May have for the two past years been subject to atmospheric depression, which has had a deteriorating effect on the attendance and on the spirits of those present; but, rain or no rain, the meet takes place. Only seven coaches were in line last year, which shows that, however much the “art” may be appreciated in New York, the increase in the number of coaches during the past decade has hardly kept up with the corresponding increase in the membership of the club.

Colonel Jay drove a pair of useful golden chestnut wheelers and gray and roan leaders to his red and yellow coach. His leaders were not quite as showy as the gray and chestnut leaders that he had last year. Dr. Seward Webb’s coach was black and yellow, his horses being four well-matched chestnuts. Mr. Prescott Lawrence’s coach has a primrose body with yellow carriage, and his cross-team of chestnut and brown wheelers, with roan and gray leaders, were as good as any on the ground. Mr. Fairman Rogers drove bays and grays, and Mr. Hugo Fritsch’s coach was drawn by brown and bay wheelers and bay and roan leaders. Mr. E. N. Padelford deserted the traditions of the club and brought a “stag party” in his white and blue coach horsed by four bays. Mr. Frederick Bronson had a useful pair of brown wheelers with chestnut and brown leaders. Weather has a great deal to do with these parades, and there seemed a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the spectators, and a lack of the pleasurable animation on the part of those on the coaches, which is necessary to make a meet of the Coaching Club a perfect success.

Let us hope, in the interest of this grand sport, that the sun may shine very brightly on the last Saturday of next May, that the number of coaches be quadrupled, and that all the beauty of New York occupy the seats on the tops of the different drags.

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