STAGE WAGGON, 1808.From a contemporary drawing.
That is the only glimpse we get of the widow Smith and her waggon; but the “George Inn, in theBorough,” that she “got into,” is still in the Borough High Street. It is a fine and flourishing remnant of an ancient galleried hostelry of the time of Chaucer, and it is characteristic of the continuity of English social, as well as political history that, although waggons and coaches no longer come to or set out from the “George,” its spacious yard is now a railway receiving-office for goods, where the railway vans, those descendants of the stage-waggon, thunderously come and go all day.
It will be observed that the traffic in those days went to and from Southwark, which was then the great business centre for the carriers. Not yet was the Brighton road measured from Westminster Bridge, for the adequate reason that there was no bridge at Westminster until 1749: only the ferry from the Horseferry Road to Lambeth.
Widow Smith’s waggon halted at Lewes, and it is not until ten years later than the date of her advertisement that we hear of the Brighthelmstone conveyance. The first was that announced by the pioneer, James Batchelor, inThe Sussex Weekly Advertiser, May 12th, 1756:
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the LEWES ONE DAY STAGE COACH or CHAISE sets out from the Talbot Inn, in the Borough, on Saturday next, the 19th instant.When likewise the Brighthelmstone Stage begins.Performed (if God permit) byJAMES BATCHELOR.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the LEWES ONE DAY STAGE COACH or CHAISE sets out from the Talbot Inn, in the Borough, on Saturday next, the 19th instant.
When likewise the Brighthelmstone Stage begins.
Performed (if God permit) byJAMES BATCHELOR.
The “Talbot” inn, which stood on the site of the ancient “Tabard,” of Chaucerian renown, disappeared from the Borough High Street in 1870. What its picturesque yard was like in 1815, with the waggons of the Sussex carriers, let the illustration tell.
Let us halt awhile, to admire the courage of those coaching and waggoning pioneers who, in the days before “the sea-side” had been invented, and few people travelled, dared the awful roads for what mustthen have been a precarious business. Sussex roads in especial had a most unenviable name for miriness, and wheeled traffic was so difficult that for many years after this period the farmers and others continued to take their womenkind about in the pillion fashion here caricatured by Henry Bunbury.
SUSSEX ROADS
Horace Walpole, indeed, travelling in Sussex in 1749, visiting Arundel and Cowdray, acquired a too intimate acquaintance with their phenomenal depth of mud and ruts, inasmuch as he—finicking little gentleman—was compelled to alight precipitately from his overturned chaise, and to foot it like any common fellow. One quite pities his daintiness in the narration of his sorrows, picturesquely set forth by that accomplished letter-writer arrived home to the safe seclusion of Strawberry Hill. He writes to George Montagu, and dates August 26th, 1749:
“Mr. Chute and I returned from our expedition miraculously well, considering all our distresses. If you love good roads, conveniences, good inns, plenty of postilions and horses, be so kind as never to go into Sussex. We thought ourselves in the northest part of England; the whole county has a Saxon air, and the inhabitants are savage, as if King George the Second was the first monarch of the East Angles. Coaches grow there no more than balm and spices: we were forced to drop our post-chaise, that resembled nothing so much as harlequin’s calash, which was occasionally a chaise or a baker’s cart. We journeyed over alpine mountains” (Walpole, you will observe, was, equally with the evening journalist of these happy times, not unaccustomed to exaggerate) “drenched in clouds, and thought of harlequin again, when he was driving the chariot of the sun through the morning clouds, and was so glad to hear theaqua vitæman crying a dram.... I have set up my staff, and finished my pilgrimages for this year. Sussex is a great damper of curiosity.”
Thus he prattles on, delightfully describing the peculiarities of the several places he visited with thisMr. Chute, “whom,” says he, “I have createdStrawberry King-at-Arms.” One wonders what that mute, inglorious Chute thought of it all; if he was as disgusted with Sussex sloughs and moist unpleasant “mountains” as his garrulous companion. Chute suffered in silence, for the sight of pen, ink, and paper did not induce inhima fury of composition; and so we shall never know what he endured.
Then the pedantic Doctor John Burton, who journeyed into Sussex in 1751, had no less unfortunate acquaintance with these miry ways than ourdilettanteof Strawberry Hill. To those who have small Latin and less Greek, this traveller’s tale must ever remain a sealed book; for it is in those languages that he records his views upon ways and means, and men and manners, in Sussex. As thus, for example:
“I fell immediately upon all that was most bad, upon a land desolate and muddy, whether inhabited by men or beasts a stranger could not easily distinguish, and upon roads which were, to explain concisely what is most abominable, Sussexian. No one would imagine them to be intended for the people and the public, but rather the byways of individuals, or, more truly, the tracks of cattle-drivers; for everywhere the usual footmarks of oxen appeared, and we too, who were on horseback, going along zigzag, almost like oxen at plough, advanced as if we were turning back, while we followed out all the twists of the roads.... My friend, I will set before you a kind of problem in the manner of Aristotle:—Why comes it that the oxen, the swine, the women, and all other animals(!) are so long-legged in Sussex? Can it be from the difficulty of pulling the feet out of so much mud by the strength of the ankle, so that the muscles become stretched, as it were, and the bones lengthened?”
A doleful tale. Presently he arrives at the conclusion that the peasantry “do not concern themselves with literature or philosophy, for they consider the pursuit of such things to be only idling,” which is not so veryremarkable a trait, after all, in the character of an agricultural people.
THE “TALBOT” INN YARD. BOROUGH, ABOUT 1815.From an old drawing.
Our author eventually, notwithstanding the terrible roads, arrived at Brighthelmstone, by way of Lewes, “just as day was fading.” It was, so he says, “a village on the sea-coast; lying in a valley gradually sloping, and yet deep. It is not, indeed, contemptible as to size, for it is thronged with people, though the inhabitants are mostly very needy and wretched in their mode of living, occupied in the employment of fishing, robust in their bodies, laborious, and skilled in all nautical crafts, and, as it is said, terrible cheats of the custom-house officers.” As who, indeed, is not, allowing the opportunity?
Batchelor, the pioneer of Brighton coaching, continued his enterprise in 1757, and with the coming of spring, and the drying of the roads, his coaches, which had been laid up in the winter, after the usual custom of those times, were plying again. In May he advertised, “for the convenience of country gentlemen, etc.,” his London, Lewes, and Brighthelmstone stage-coach, which performed the journey of fifty-eight miles in two days; and exclusive persons, who preferred to travel alone, might have post-chaises of him.
EARLY COACHING
Brighthelmstone had in the meanwhile sprung into notice. The health-giving qualities of its sea air, and the then “strange new eccentricity” of sea-bathing, advocated from 1750 by Dr. Richard Russell, had already given it something of a vogue among wealthy invalids, and the growing traffic was worth competing for. Competitors therefore sprang up to share Batchelor’s business. Most of them merely added stage-coaches like his, but in May, 1762, a certain “J. Tubb,” in partnership with “S. Brawne,” started a very superior conveyance, going from London one day and returning from Brighthelmstone the next. This was the:
LEWES and BRIGHTELMSTONE new FLYING MACHINE (by Uckfield), hung on steel springs, very neat and commodious, to carryFour Passengers, sets out from the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross, on Monday, the 7th of June, at six o’clock in the morning, and will continueMonday’s,Wednesday’s, andFriday’sto the White Hart, at Lewes, and the Castle, at Brightelmstone, where regular Books are kept for entering passenger’s and parcels; will return to LondonTuesday’s,Thursday’s, andSaturday’sEach Inside Passenger to Lewes, Thirteen Shillings; to Brighthelmstone, Sixteen; to be allowed Fourteen Pound Weight for Luggage, all above to pay One Penny per Pound; half the fare to be paid at Booking, the other at entering the machine. Children in Lap and Outside Passengers to pay half-price.Performed by J. TUBB.S. BRAWNE.
LEWES and BRIGHTELMSTONE new FLYING MACHINE (by Uckfield), hung on steel springs, very neat and commodious, to carryFour Passengers, sets out from the Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross, on Monday, the 7th of June, at six o’clock in the morning, and will continueMonday’s,Wednesday’s, andFriday’sto the White Hart, at Lewes, and the Castle, at Brightelmstone, where regular Books are kept for entering passenger’s and parcels; will return to LondonTuesday’s,Thursday’s, andSaturday’sEach Inside Passenger to Lewes, Thirteen Shillings; to Brighthelmstone, Sixteen; to be allowed Fourteen Pound Weight for Luggage, all above to pay One Penny per Pound; half the fare to be paid at Booking, the other at entering the machine. Children in Lap and Outside Passengers to pay half-price.
Performed by J. TUBB.S. BRAWNE.
ME AND MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER.From a caricature by Henry Bunbury.
Batchelor saw with dismay this coach performing the whole journey in one day, while his took two. But he determined to be as good a man as his opponent, if not even a better, and started the next week, at identical fares, “a new largeFlying Chariot, with a Box and four horses (by Chailey) to carry two Passengers only, except three should desire to go together.” The better to crush the presumptuous Tubb, he later on reduced his fares. Then ensued a diverting, if by no means edifying, war of advertisements; for Tubb, unwilling to be outdone, inserted the following inThe Lewes Journal, November, 1762:
THIS IS TO INFORM THE PUBLIC that, on Monday, the 1st of November instant, the LEWES and BRIGHTHELMSTON FLYING MACHINE began going inone day, and continues twice a week during the Winter Season to Lewes only; sets out from the White Hart, at Lewes,MondaysandThursdaysat Six o’clock in the Morning, and returns from the Golden Cross, at Charing Cross,TuesdaysandSaturdays, at the same hour.Performed by J. TUBB.N.B.—Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, are desired to look narrowly into the Meanness and Design of the other Flying Machine to Lewes and Brighthelmston, in lowering hisprices, whether ’tis thro’ conscience or an endeavour to suppress me. If the former is the case, think how you have been used for a great number of years, when he engrossed the whole to himself, and kept you two days upon the road, going fifty miles. If the latter, and he should be lucky enough to succeed in it, judge whether he wont return to his old prices, when you cannot help yourselves, and use you as formerly. As I have, then, been the remover of this obstacle, which you have all granted by your great encouragement to me hitherto, I, therefore, hope for the continuance of your favours, which will entirely frustrate the deep-laid schemes of my great opponent, and lay a lasting obligation on,—Your very humble Servant,J. TUBB.
THIS IS TO INFORM THE PUBLIC that, on Monday, the 1st of November instant, the LEWES and BRIGHTHELMSTON FLYING MACHINE began going inone day, and continues twice a week during the Winter Season to Lewes only; sets out from the White Hart, at Lewes,MondaysandThursdaysat Six o’clock in the Morning, and returns from the Golden Cross, at Charing Cross,TuesdaysandSaturdays, at the same hour.
Performed by J. TUBB.
N.B.—Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, are desired to look narrowly into the Meanness and Design of the other Flying Machine to Lewes and Brighthelmston, in lowering hisprices, whether ’tis thro’ conscience or an endeavour to suppress me. If the former is the case, think how you have been used for a great number of years, when he engrossed the whole to himself, and kept you two days upon the road, going fifty miles. If the latter, and he should be lucky enough to succeed in it, judge whether he wont return to his old prices, when you cannot help yourselves, and use you as formerly. As I have, then, been the remover of this obstacle, which you have all granted by your great encouragement to me hitherto, I, therefore, hope for the continuance of your favours, which will entirely frustrate the deep-laid schemes of my great opponent, and lay a lasting obligation on,—Your very humble Servant,
J. TUBB.
To this replies Batchelor, possessed with an idea of vested interests pertaining to himself:
WHEREAS, Mr.Tubb, by an Advertisement in this paper of Monday last, has thought fit to cast some invidious Reflections upon me, in respect of the lowering my Prices and being two days upon the Road, with other low insinuations, I beg leave to submit the following matters to the calm Consideration of the Gentlemen, Ladies, and other Passengers, of what Degree soever, who have been pleased to favour me, viz.:That our Family first set up the Stage Coach from London to Lewes, and have continued it for a long Series of Years, from Father to Son and other Branches of the same Race, and that even before the Turnpikes on the Lewes Road were erected they drove their Stage, in the Summer Season, in one day, and have continued to do ever since, and now in the Winter Season twice in the week. And it is likewise to be considered that many aged and infirm Persons, who did not chuse to rise early in the Morning, were very desirous to be two Days on the Road for their own Ease and Conveniency, therefore there was no obstacle to be removed. And as to lowering my prices, let every one judge whether, when an old Servant of the Country perceives an Endeavour to suppress and supplant him in his Business, he is not well justified in taking all measures in his Power for his own Security, and even to oppose an unfair Adversary as far as he can. ’Tis, therefore,hoped that the descendants of your very ancient Servants will still meet with your farther Encouragement, and leave the Schemes of our little Opponent to their proper Deserts.—I am, Your old and present most obedient Servant,J. BATCHELOR.December 13, 1762.
WHEREAS, Mr.Tubb, by an Advertisement in this paper of Monday last, has thought fit to cast some invidious Reflections upon me, in respect of the lowering my Prices and being two days upon the Road, with other low insinuations, I beg leave to submit the following matters to the calm Consideration of the Gentlemen, Ladies, and other Passengers, of what Degree soever, who have been pleased to favour me, viz.:
That our Family first set up the Stage Coach from London to Lewes, and have continued it for a long Series of Years, from Father to Son and other Branches of the same Race, and that even before the Turnpikes on the Lewes Road were erected they drove their Stage, in the Summer Season, in one day, and have continued to do ever since, and now in the Winter Season twice in the week. And it is likewise to be considered that many aged and infirm Persons, who did not chuse to rise early in the Morning, were very desirous to be two Days on the Road for their own Ease and Conveniency, therefore there was no obstacle to be removed. And as to lowering my prices, let every one judge whether, when an old Servant of the Country perceives an Endeavour to suppress and supplant him in his Business, he is not well justified in taking all measures in his Power for his own Security, and even to oppose an unfair Adversary as far as he can. ’Tis, therefore,hoped that the descendants of your very ancient Servants will still meet with your farther Encouragement, and leave the Schemes of our little Opponent to their proper Deserts.—I am, Your old and present most obedient Servant,
J. BATCHELOR.
December 13, 1762.
The rivals both kept to the road until the death of Batchelor, in 1766, when his business was sold to Tubb, who took into partnership a Mr. Davis. Together they started, in 1767, the first service of a daily coach in the “Lewes and Brighthelmstone Flys,” each carrying four passengers, one to London and one to Brighton every day.
Tubb and Davis had in 1770 one “machine” and one waggon on this road, fare by “machine” 14s.The machine ran daily to and from London, starting at five o’clock in the morning. The waggon was three days on the road. Another machine was also running, but with the coming of winter these machines performed only three double journeys each a week.
In 1777 another stage-waggon was started by “Lashmar & Co.” It loitered between the “King’s Head,” Southwark, and the “King’s Head,” Brighton, starting from London every Tuesday at the unearthly hour of 3 a.m., and reaching its destination on Thursday afternoons.
On May 31st, 1784, Tubb and Davis put a “light post-coach” on the road, running to Brighton one day returning to London the next, in addition to their already running “machine” and “post-coach.” This new conveyance presumably made good time, four “insides” only being carried.
GROWTH OF COACHING
Four years later, when Brighton’s sun of splendour was rising, there were on the road between London and the sea three “machines,” three light post-coaches, two coaches, and two stage-waggons. Tubb now disappears, and his firm becomes Davis & Co. Other proprietors were Ibberson & Co., Bradford & Co., and Mr. Wesson.
On May 1st, 1791, the first Brighton Mail coach was established. It was a two-horse affair, running by Lewes and East Grinstead, and taking twelve hours to perform the journey. It was not well supported by the public, and as the Post Office would not pay the contractors a higher mileage, it was at some uncertain period withdrawn.
About 1796 coach offices were opened in Brighton for the sole despatch of coaching business, the time having passed away for the old custom of starting from inns. Now, too, were different tales to tell of these roads, after the Pavilion had been set in course of building. Royalty and the Court could not endure to travel upon such evil tracks as had hitherto been the lot of travellers to Brighthelmstone. Presently, instead of a dearth of roads and a plethora of ruts, there became a choice of good highways and a plenty of travellers upon them.
Numerous coaches ran to meet the demands of the travelling public, and these continually increased in number and improved in speed. About this time first appear the firms of Henwood, Crossweller, Cuddington, Pockney & Harding, whose office was at No. 44, East Street: and Boulton, Tilt, Hicks, Baulcomb & Co., at No. 1, North Street. The most remarkable thing, to my mind, about those companies is their long-winded names. In addition to the old service, there ran a “night post-coach” on alternate nights, starting at 10 p.m. in the season. One then went to or from London generally in “about” eleven hours, if all went well. If you could afford only a ride in the stage-waggon, why then you were carried the distance by the accelerated (!) waggons of this line in two days and one night.
Erredge, the historian of Brighton, tells something of the social side of Brighton Road coaching at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Social indeed, as you shall see:
“In 1801 two pair-horse coaches ran between London and Brighton on alternate days, one up, the other down, driven by Messrs. Crossweller and Hine. The progress of these coaches was amusing. The one from London left the Blossoms Inn, Lawrence Lane, at 7 a.m., the passengers breaking their fast at the Cock, Sutton, at 9. The next stoppage for the purpose of refreshment was at the Tangier, Banstead Downs—a rural little spot, famous for its elderberry wine, which used to be brought from the cottage ‘roking hot,’ and on a cold wintry morning few refused to partake of it. George IV. invariably stopped here and took a glass from the hand of Miss Jeal as he sat in his carriage. The important business of luncheon took place at Reigate, where sufficient time was allowed the passengers to view the Baron’s Cave, where, it is said, the barons assembled the night previous to their meeting King John at Runymeade. The grand halt for dinner was made at Staplefield Common, celebrated for its famous black cherry-trees, under the branches of which, when the fruit was ripe, the coaches were allowed to draw up and the passengers to partake of its tempting produce. The hostess of the hostelry here was famed for her rabbit-puddings, which, hot, were always waiting the arrival of the coach, and to which the travellers never failed to do such ample justice, that ordinarily they found it quite impossible to leave at the hour appointed; so grogs, pipes, and ale were ordered in, and, to use the language of the fraternity, ‘not a wheel wagged’ for two hours. Handcross was a little resting-place, celebrated for its ‘neat’ liquors, the landlord of the inn standing, bottle in hand, at the door. He and several other bonifaces at Friars’ Oak, etc., had the reputation ofbeing on pretty good terms with the smugglers who carried on their operations with such audacity along the Sussex coast.
“After walking up Clayton Hill, a cup of tea was sometimes found to be necessary at Patcham, after which Brighton was safely reached at 7 p.m. It must be understood that it was the custom for the passengers to walk up all the hills, and even sometimes in heavy weather to give a push behind to assist the jaded horses.”
COMPETITION
But it was not always so ideal or so idyllic. That there were discomforts and accidents is evident from the wordy warfare of advertisements that followed upon the starting of the Royal Brighton Four Horse Company in 1802. As a competitor with older firms, it seems to have aroused much jealousy and slander, if we may believe the following contemporary advertisement:
THE ROYAL BRIGHTON Four Horse Coach Company beg leave to return their sincere thanks to their Friends and the Public in general for the very liberal support they have experienced since the starting of their Coaches, and assure them it will always be their greatest study to have their Coaches safe, with good Horses and sober careful Coachmen.They likewise wish to rectify a report in circulation of their Coach having been overturned on Monday last, by which a gentleman’s leg was broken, &c., no such thing having ever happened to either of their Coaches. The Fact is it was one of theBlue Coachesinstead of the Royal New Coach.⁂ As several mistakes have happened, of their friends beingBOOKEDat other Coach offices, they are requested to book themselves at the ROYAL NEW COACH OFFICE, CATHERINE’S HEAD, 47, East Street.
THE ROYAL BRIGHTON Four Horse Coach Company beg leave to return their sincere thanks to their Friends and the Public in general for the very liberal support they have experienced since the starting of their Coaches, and assure them it will always be their greatest study to have their Coaches safe, with good Horses and sober careful Coachmen.
They likewise wish to rectify a report in circulation of their Coach having been overturned on Monday last, by which a gentleman’s leg was broken, &c., no such thing having ever happened to either of their Coaches. The Fact is it was one of theBlue Coachesinstead of the Royal New Coach.
⁂ As several mistakes have happened, of their friends beingBOOKEDat other Coach offices, they are requested to book themselves at the ROYAL NEW COACH OFFICE, CATHERINE’S HEAD, 47, East Street.
The coaching business grew rapidly, and in an advertisement offering for sale a portion of the coaching business at No. 1, North Street, it was stated that the annual returns of this firm were more than £12,000 per annum, yielding from Christmas, 1794, toChristmas, 1808, seven and a half per cent. on the capital invested, besides purchasing the interest of four of the partners in the concern. In this last year two new businesses were started, those of Waldegrave & Co., and Pattenden & Co. Fares now ruled high—23s.inside; 13s.outside.
The year 1809 marked the beginning of a new and strenuous coaching era on this road. Then Crossweller & Co. commenced to run their “morning and night” coaches, and William “Miller” Bradford formed his company. This was an association of twelve members, contributing £100 each, for the purpose of establishing a “double” coach—that is to say, one up and one down, each day. The idea was to “lick creation” on the Brighton Road by accelerating the speed, and to this end they acquired some forty-five horses then sold out of the Inniskilling Dragoons, at that time stationed at Brighton. On May Day, 1810, the Brighton Mail was re-established. These “Royal Night Mail Coaches” as they were grandiloquently announced, were started by arrangement with the Postmaster-General. The speed, although much improved, was not yet so very great, eight hours being occupied on the way, although these coaches went by what was then the new cutviaCroydon. Like the Dover. Hastings, and Portsmouth mails, the Brighton Mail was two-horsed. It ran to and from the “Blossoms” Inn, Lawrence Lane, Cheapside, and never attained a better performance than 7 hours 20 minutes, a speed of 7½ miles an hour. It had, however,thisdistinction, if it may so be called: it was the slowest mail in the kingdom.
It was on June 25th, 1810, that an accident befell Waldegrave’s “Accommodation” coach on its up journey. Near Brixton Causeway its hind wheels collapsed, owing to the heavy weight of the loaded vehicle. By one of those strange chances when truth appears stranger than fiction, there chanced to be a farmer’s waggon passing the coach at the instant of its overturning. Into it were shot the “outsiders,”fortunate in this comparatively easy fall. Still, shocks and bruises were not few, and one gentleman had his thigh broken.
A COACH ROBBERY
By June, 1811, traffic had so increased that there were then no fewer than twenty-eight coaches running between Brighton and London. On February 5th in the following year occurred the only great road robbery known on this road. This was the theft from the “Blue” coach of a package of bank-notes representing a sum of between three and four thousand pounds sterling. Crosswellers were proprietors of the coach, and from them Messrs. Brown, Lashmar & West, of the Brighton Union Bank, had hired a box beneath the seat for the conveyance of remittances to and from London. On this day the Bank’s London correspondents placed these notes in the box for transmission to London, but on arrival the box was found to have been broken open and the notes all stolen. It would seem that a carefully planned conspiracy had been entered into by several persons, who must have had a thorough knowledge of the means by which the Union Bank sent and received money to and from the metropolis. On this morning six persons were booked for inside places. Of this number two only made an appearance—a gentleman and a lady. Two gentlemen were picked up as the coach proceeded. The lady was taken suddenly ill when Sutton was reached, and she and her husband were left at the inn there. When the coach arrived at Reigate the two remaining passengers went to inquire for a friend. Returning shortly, they told the coachman that the friend whom they had supposed to be at Brighton had returned to town, therefore it was of no use proceeding further.
Thus the coachman and guard had the remainder of the journey to themselves, while the cash-box, as was discovered at the journey’s end, was minus its cash. A reward of £300 was immediately offered for information that would lead to recovery of the notes. This was subsequently altered to an offer of 100 guineasfor information of the offender, in addition to £300 upon recovery of the total amount, or “ten per cent. upon the amount of so much thereof as shall be recovered.” No reward money was ever paid, for the notes were never recovered, and the thieves escaped with their booty.
In 1813 the “Defiance” was started, to run to and from Brighton and London in the daytime, each way six hours. This produced the rival “Eclipse,” which belied the suggestion of its name and did not eclipse, but only equalled, the performance of its model. But competition had now grown very severe, and fares in consequence were reduced to—inside, ten shillings; outside, five shillings. Indeed, in 1816, a number of Jews started a coach to run from London to Brighton in six hours: or, failing to keep time, to forfeit all fares. Needless to say, under such Hebrew management, and with that liability, it was punctuality itself; but Nemesis awaited it, in the shape of an information laid for furious driving.
The Mail, meanwhile, maintained its ancient pace of a little over six miles an hour—a dignified, no-hurry, governmental rate of progression. There was, in fact, no need for the Brighton Mail to make speed, for the road from the General Post Office is only fifty-three miles in length, and all the night and the early morning, from eight o’clock until five or six o’clock a.m., lay before it.
We come now to the “Era of the Amateur,” who not only flourished pre-eminently on the Brighton Road, but may be said to have originated on it. The coaching amateur and the nineteenth century came into existence almost contemporaneously. Very soon after 1800 it became “the thing” to drive a coach, and shortly after this became such a definite ambition, there arosethat contradiction in terms, that horsey paradox, the Amateur Professional, generally a sporting gentleman brought to utter ruin by Corinthian gambols, and taking to the one trade on earth at which he could earn a wage. That is why the Golden Age of coaching won on the Brighton Road a refinement it only aped elsewhere.
ARISTOCRATIC COACHMEN
It is curious to see how coaching has always been, even in its serious days, before steam was thought of, the chosen amusement of wealthy and aristocratic whips. Of those who affected the Brighton Road may be mentioned the Marquis of Worcester, who drove the “Duke of Beaufort,” Sir St. Vincent Cotton of the “Age,” and the Hon. Fred Jerningham, who drove the Day Mail. The “Age,” too, had been driven by Mr. Stevenson, a gentleman and a graduate of Cambridge, whose “passion for thebench,” as “Nimrod” says, superseded all other worldly ambitions. He became a coachman by profession, and a good professional he made; but he had not forgotten his education and early training, and he was, as a whip, singularly refined and courteous. He caused, at a certain change of horses on the road, a silver sandwich-box to be handed round to the passengers by his servant, with an offer of a glass of sherry, should any desire one. Another gentleman, “connected with the first families in Wales,” whose father long represented his native county in Parliament, horsed and drove one side of this ground with Mr. Stevenson.
This was “Sackie,” Sackville Frederick Gwynne, of Carmarthenshire, who quarrelled with his relatives and took to the road; became part proprietor of the “Age,” broke off from Stevenson, and eventually lived and died at Liverpool as a cabdriver. He drove a cab till 1874, when he died, aged seventy-three.
Harry Stevenson’s connection with the Brighton Road began in 1827, when, as a young man fresh from Cambridge, he brought with him such a social atmosphere and such full-fledged expertness in drivinga coach that Cripps, a coachmaster of Brighton and proprietor of the “Coronet,” not only was overjoyed to have him on the box, but went so far as to paint his name on the coach as one of the licensees, for which false declaration Cripps was fined in November, 1827.
The parentage and circumstances of Harry Stevenson are alike mysterious. We are told that he “went the pace,” and was already penniless at twenty-two years of age, about the time of his advent upon the Brighton Road. In 1828 his famous “Age” was put on the road, built for him by Aldebert, the foremost coach-builder of the period, and appointed in every way with unexampled luxury. The gold- and silver-embroidered horse-cloths of the “Age” are very properly preserved in the Brighton Museum. Stevenson’s career was short, for he died in February, 1830.
Coaching authorities give the palm for artistry to whips of other roads: they considered the excellence of this as fatal to the production of those qualities that went to make an historic name. This road had become “perhaps the most nearly perfect, and certainly the most fashionable, of all.”
With the introduction of this sporting and irresponsible element, racing between rival coaches—and not the mere conveying of passengers—became the real interest of the coachmen, and proprietors were obliged to issue notices to assure the timid that this form of rivalry would be discouraged. A slow coach, the “Life Preserver,” was even put on the road to win the support of old ladies and the timid, who, as the record of accidents tells us, did well to be timorous. But accidentswouldhappen to fast and slow alike. The “Coburg” was upset at Cuckfield in August, 1819. Six of the passengers were so much injured that they could not proceed, and one died the following day at the “King’s Head.” The “Coburg” was an old-fashioned coach, heavy, clumsy, and slow, carrying six passengers inside and twelve outside. This type gave place to coaches of lighter build about 1823.
THE “DUKE OF BEAUFORT” COACH STARTING FROM THE“BULL AND MOUTH” OFFICE, PICCADILLY CIRCUS, 1826.From an aquatint after W. J. Shayer.
In 1826 seventeen coaches ran to Brighton from London every morning, afternoon, or evening. They had all of them the most high-sounding of names, calculated to impress the mind either with a sense of swiftness, or to awe the understanding with visions of aristocratic and court-like grandeur. As for the times they individually made, and for the inns from which they started, you who are insatiable of dry bones of fact may go to the Library of the British Museum and find your Cary (without an “e”) and do your gnawing of them. That they started at all manner of hours, even the most uncanny, you must rest assured; and that they took off from the (to ourselves) most impossible and romantic-sounding of inns, may be granted, when such examples as the strangely incongruous “George and Blue Boar,” the Herrick-like “Blossoms” Inn, and the idyllic-seeming “Flower-pot” are mentioned.
NAMES OF THE COACHES
They were, those seventeen coaches, the “Royal Mail,” the “Coronet,” “Magnet,” “Comet,” “Royal Sussex,” “Sovereign,” “Alert,” “Dart,” “Union,” “Regent,” “Times,” “Duke of York,” “Royal George,” “True Blue,” “Patriot,” “Post,” and the “Summer Coach,” so called, and they nearly all started from the City and Holborn, calling at West End booking-offices on their several ways. Most of the old inns from which they set out are pulled down, and the memory of them has faded.
The “Golden Cross” at Charing Cross, from whose doors started the “Comet” and the “Regent” in this year of grace 1826, and at which the “Times” called on its way from Holborn, has been wholly remodelled; the “White Horse,” Fetter Lane, whence the “Duke of York” bowled away, has been demolished; the “Old Bell and Crown” Inn, Holborn, where the “Alert,” the “Union,” and the “Times” drew up daily in the old-fashioned galleried courtyard, is swept away. Were Viator to return to-morrow, hewould surely want to return to Hades, or Paradise, wherever he may be, at once. Around him would be, to his senses, an astonishing whirl and noise of traffic, despite the wood-paving that has superseded macadam, which itself displaced the granite setts he knew. Many strange and horrid portents he would note, and Holborn would be to him as an unknown street in a strange town.
Than 1826 the informative Cary goes no further, and his “Itinerary,” excellent though it be, and invaluable to those who would know aught of the coaches that plied in the years when it was published, gives no particulars of the many “butterfly” coaches and amateur drags that cut in upon the regular coaches during the rush and scour of the season.
In 1821 it was computed that over forty coaches ran to and from London and Brighton daily; in September, 1822, there were thirty-nine. In 1828 it was calculated that the sixteen permanent coaches then running, summer and winter, received between them a sum of £60,000 per annum, and the total sum expended in fares upon coaching on this road was taken as amounting to £100,000 per annum. That leaves the very respectable amount of £40,000 for the season’s takings of the “butterflies.”
An accident happened to the “Alert” on October 9th, 1829, when the coach was taking up passengers at Brighton. The horses ran away, and dashed the coach and themselves into an area sixteen feet deep. The coach was battered almost to pieces, and one lady was seriously injured. The horses escaped unhurt. In 1832, August 25th, the Brighton Mail was upset near Reigate, the coachman being killed.
THE “AGE,” 1829, STARTING FROM CASTLE SQUARE, BRIGHTON.From an engraving after C. Cooper Henderson.
STEAM CARRIAGES
This was the era of those early motor-cars, the steam-carriages, which, in spite of their clumsy construction and appalling ugliness, arrived very nearly to a commercial success. Many inventors were engaged from 1823 to 1838 upon this subject. Walter Hancock, in particular, began in 1824, and in 1828 proposed a service of his “land-steamers” between London and Brighton, but did not actually appear upon this road with his “Infant” until November, 1832. The contrivance performed the double journey with some difficulty and in slower time than the coaches: but Hancock on that eventful day confidently declared that he was perfecting a newer machine by which he expected to run down in three and a half hours. He never achieved so much, but in October, 1833, his “Autopsy,” which had been successfully running as an omnibus between Paddington and Stratford, went from the works at Stratford to Brighton in eight and a half hours, of which three hours were taken up by a halt on the road.
No artist has preserved a view of this event for us, but a print may still be met with depicting the start of Sir Charles Dance’s steam-carriage from Wellington Street, Strand, for Brighton on some eventful morning of that same year. A prison-van is, by comparison with this fearsome object, a thing of beauty; but in the picture you will observe enthusiasm on foot and on horseback, and even four-legged, in the person of the inevitable dog. In the distance the discerning may observe the old toll-house on Waterloo Bridge, and the gaunt shape of the Shot Tower.
By 1839 the coaching business had in Brighton become concentrated in Castle Square, six of the seven principal offices being situated there. Five London coaches ran from the Blue Office (Strevens & Co.), five from the Red Office (Mr. Goodman’s), four from the “Spread Eagle” (Chaplin & Crunden’s), three from the Age (T. W. Capps & Co.), two from Hine’s, East Street; two from Snow’s (Capps & Chaplin), and two from the “Globe” (Mr. Vaughan’s).
To state the number of visitors to Brighton on a certain day will give an idea of how well this road was used during the decade that preceded the coming of steam. On Friday, October 25th, 1833, upwards of 480 persons travelled to Brighton by stage-coach. A comparison of this number with the hordes of visitors cast forth from the Brighton Railway Stationto-day would render insignificant indeed that little crowd of 1833; but in those times, when the itch of excursionising was not so acute as now, that day’s return was remarkable; it was a day that fully justified the note made of it. Then, too, those few hundreds benefited the town more certainly than perhaps their number multiplied by ten does now. For the Brighton visitor of a hundred years ago, once set down in Castle Square, had to remain the night at least in Brighton; for him there was no returning to London the same day. And so the Brighton folks had their wicked will of him for a while, and made something out of him; while in these times the greater proportion of a day’s excursionists find themselves either at home in London already, when evening hours are striking from Westminster Ben, or else waiting with what patience they may the collecting of tickets at the bleak and dismal penitentiary platforms of Grosvenor Road Station; and, after all, Brighton is little or nothing advantaged by their visit.
But though the tripper of the coaching era found it impracticable to have his morning in London, his day upon the King’s Road, and his evening in town again, yet the pace at which the coaches went in the ’30’s was by no means despicable. Ten miles an hour now became slow and altogether behind the age.
In 1833 the Marquis of Worcester, together with a Mr. Alexander, put three coaches on the road: an up and down “Quicksilver” and a single coach, the “Wonder.” The “Quicksilver,” named probably in allusion to its swiftness (it was timed for four hours and three-quarters), ran to and from what was then a favourite stopping-place, the “Elephant and Castle.” But on July 15th of the same year an accident, by which several persons were very seriously injured, happened to the up “Quicksilver” when starting from Brighton. Snow, who was driving, could not hold the team in, and they bolted away, and brought up violently against the railings by the New Steyne. Broken arms, fractured arms and ribs, and contusions were plenty. The “Quicksilver,” chameleon-like, changed colour after this mishap, was repainted and renamed, and reappeared as the “Criterion”; for the old name carried with it too great a spice of danger for the timorous.
SIR CHARLES DANCE’S STEAM-CARRIAGE LEAVING LONDON FOR BRIGHTON, 1833.From a print after G. E. Madeley.
COACHING RECORDS
On February 4th, 1834, the “Criterion,” driven by Charles Harbour, outstripping the old performances of the “Vivid,” and beating the previous wonderfully quick journey of the “Red Rover,” carried down King William’s Speech on the opening of Parliament in 3 hours and 40 minutes, a coach record that has not been surpassed, nor quite equalled, on this road, not even by Selby on his great drive of July 13th, 1888, his times being out and in respectively, 3 hours 56 minutes, and 3 hours 54 minutes. Then again, on another road, on May Day, 1830, the “Independent Tally-ho,” running from London to Birmingham, covered those 109 miles in 7 hours 39 minutes, a better record than Selby’s London to Brighton and back drive by eleven minutes, with an additional mile to the course. Another coach, the “Original Tally-ho,” did the same distance in 7 hours 50 minutes. The “Criterion” fared ill under its new name, and gained an unenviable notoriety on June 7th, 1834, being overturned in a collision with a dray in the Borough. Many of the passengers were injured; Sir William Cosway, who was climbing over the roof when the collision occurred, was killed.
In 1839, the coaching era, full-blown even to decay, began to pewk and wither before the coming of steam, long heralded and now but too sure. The tale of coaches now decreased to twenty-three; fares, which had fallen in the cut-throat competition of coach proprietors with their fellows in previous years to 10s.inside, 5s.outside for the single journey, now rose to 21s.and 12s.Every man that horsed a coach, seeing now was the shearing time for the public, ere the now building railway was opened, strove to make as much as possible ere he closed his yards, sold his stock, broke his coach up for firewood, and took himself off the road.
Sentiment hung round the expiring age of coaching, and has cast a halo on old-time ways of travelling, so that we often fail to note the disadvantages and discomforts endured in those days; but, amid regrets which were often simply maudlin, occur now and again witticisms true and tersely epigrammatic, as thus:
For the neat wayside inn and a dish of cold meatYou’ve a gorgeous saloon, but there’s nothing to eat;
and a contributor to theSporting Magazineobserves, very happily, that “even in a ‘case’ in a coach, it’s ‘there you are’; whereas in a railway carriage it’s ‘where are you?’” in case of an accident.
On September 21st, 1841, the Brighton Railway was opened throughout, from London to Brighton, and with that event the coaching era for this road virtually died. Professional coach proprietors who wished to retain the competencies they had accumulated were well advised to shun all competition with steam, and others had been wise enough to cut their losses; for the Road for the next sixty years was to become a discarded institution and the Rail was entering into a long and undisputed possession of the carrying trade.
The Brighton Mail, however—or mails, for Chaplin had started a Day Mail in 1838—continued a few months longer. The Day Mail ceased in October, 1841, but the Night Mail held the road until March, 1842.
Between 1841, when the railway was opened all the way from London, and 1866, during a period of twenty-five years, coaching, if not dead, at least showed but few and intermittent signs of life. The “Age,” which then was owned by Mr. F. W. Capps, was the last coach to run regularly on the direct road to and from London. The “Victoria,” however, was on the road,viaDorking and Horsham, until November 8th, 1845.