Fragments of Two Centuries Part 18

The frequency of these pugilistic encounters naturally had some effect upon, and was reflected in the local life of the period, and the amount of fighting at fairs and village feasts was in striking contrast with the rarity of such exhibitions now-a-days. The undergraduates from Cambridge gloried in being mixed up with, and promoting such scenes of disorder, and it is well-known that in the "Town and Gown rows" at Cambridge, they sometimes engaged some well-known champion--such as Peter Crawley, who defeated Jem Ward, on Royston Heath--to do the "slogging." They would attend village feasts in such company, and when their riotous conduct had provoked the young men of the village to a general row, these professionals set-to and often made short work of the fray. It was in one such exhibition at the Melbourn feast in the early years of the century that J. King earned the t.i.tle of the Royston champion, and, for a time, gained more than a local repute.

The undergraduates were bent upon their old game, led by the Hon.

George Fitzwilliam, then of Trinity College, and accompanied by two noted pugilists, "Soapy Dan" and a big black man named Mahone. After the men of light and leading from the University had {139} run a course of outrageous conduct towards all and sundry that came in their way, there was the customary general fight, and the two pugilists played terrible havoc among the Melbourn young fellows, till, to the surprise of the visitors, one of the Melbourn party, J. King, came forward, floored "Soapy Dan," and next had a regular set-to with the great black man, whom, after a sharp fight, he vanquished also, to the amazement of the Honorable George. The latter had staked ten guineas on the issue, which he handed over to the Royston champion, took a mighty fancy to him, and "took him in hand." He brought him to London, where, after a short training, he met Jack Power at the noted fighting rendezvous of Mousley Hurst, on an issue of L50 a side. The battle was a terrible one, and though the Royston, or rather Melbourn, champion, was the least skilful of the two, he fought for 47 rounds before giving in to his better-trained antagonist, and practically closed a fighting career which was as surprising as it was brief.

Better remembered perhaps by some who are still living, was a notable prize-fight which, though it carries us a little beyond the era of the Georges, cannot be pa.s.sed by in these Glimpses of the past, as it affords a striking instance of the fascination which the prize-fighting ring had over many young men of good birth and education, and marks what was practically the disappearance of these exhibitions from this locality. This was the fight between "Owen Swift," a practised hand, and "Brighton Bill," otherwise William Phelps, a young man of only twenty years of age, who had seen little of such encounters and was believed to have been deserving of a more useful career than that which was so suddenly cut off by the fatal fight which, in the year 1838, caused many persons in this neighbourhood to look with shame upon, and to turn with disgust from such exhibitions. The combat took place near Noon's Folly, on the Newmarket Road; Barkway, on the Cambridge coach road, being the head-quarters of the pugilists. It created an immense amount of interest, and, after a brutal exhibition, the unfortunate young man from Brighton simply allowed himself to be pummelled to death, the outcome being an inquest and a trial for manslaughter at the Herts. a.s.sizes.

The evidence given at the inquest, held at the Wheatsheaf, Barkway, throws a very interesting light upon the spirit in which such exhibitions were regarded by the public, and also upon the att.i.tude of the supposed representatives of law and order, who in those days seemed to go with the majority and throw aside the official mantle whenever it was inconvenient.

Upon this point, the evidence given by Mr. John Parr, the high constable for the parish of Barkway, is especially interesting. This official candidly admits in his evidence that he saw the deceased on the {140} Sat.u.r.day before the fight, believed he was there for the purpose of fighting, that it was generally reported the fight was to take place on Melbourn Heath, and that Owen Swift was to be deceased's antagonist. On the Tuesday, witness went to see the fight, and admits the soft impeachment that he was not there for the purpose of preserving the peace, but went as a spectator! Did not see any magistrates or constables present. There were at least three thousand persons present. Saw deceased and Swift enter the ring and saw them fight for an hour-and-a-half. Saw nothing like foul play, and did not hear anyone call out "shame" when deceased was carried from the ring and put into a carriage. Saw deceased at the Wheatsheaf, Barkway, next day, when he could not speak, and appeared insensible. Saw him again on Thursday and Friday, on which latter day he found him dying, and he expired ten minutes after witness entered the room.

The evidence of Lee, the post-boy, who rode one of the "wheelers" to the fight, showed that the Marquis of Waterford's carriage was there, but he did not see the Marquis.

The jury, after hearing the evidence of Mr. James Balding, surgeon, of Barkway, who attended Brighton Bill--and made a post mortem, with the a.s.sistance of Dr. Hooper, of Buntingford--returned a verdict of manslaughter against Owen Swift and against the seconds, "Dutch Sam,"

otherwise Samuel Evans, Francis Redmond, Richard Curtis, and "Brown, the go-cart-man," for aiding and abetting the said Owen Swift. The jury had the courage to add this significant rider:--"The jury feel themselves called upon to express their deep regret and concern that the magistrates of the adjoining counties of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and Ess.e.x, did not interfere to prevent the breach of the peace, so notoriously expected to take place for some days previously, and also for the fact that a prize-fight having taken place at the same spot about twelve months since without their interference."

This pointed reference to a former supineness of the representatives of the law was not altogether undeserved, for, on that occasion, the same Owen Swift had fought near the same spot against Lazarus (on June 1st in the previous year) for two hours, and extending over 105 rounds--evidence of itself that the "fancy" men had it all their own way in this happy corner of no-man's-land.

That there was no attempt to disguise the object of the gathering is shown by the fact that the fight took place so near the turnpike road that "the stage coaches drew up as they pa.s.sed, for some time, to allow the drivers [and the pa.s.sengers!] to indulge in witnessing the spectacle." Indeed, it is recorded that the spot and time of the encounter were publicly announced two days beforehand.

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It was said to be the third fatal fight in which Owen Swift had engaged, while Phelps had only fought once before, and so brutal was the onslaught, that it is said bets were offered and taken on the ground, that both men would die in consequence of the injuries received! Swift was hastily got out of the way, and it was a.s.serted that as soon as his friends in London knew of the fatal result, four expert fellows were sent off with a view to recover the body to defeat the ends of justice by preventing an inquest, a reward of L500 being offered had they succeeded!

The seconds were arrested, but Swift got away to France. When one of the seconds, indicted as Redmond, was placed at the bar, n.o.body could identify him--and it is said that this was believed to be due to his manipulation of beard, &c.--but the other seconds were identified.

The case came on for trial at the Hertfordshire a.s.sizes in the same year, before Mr. Sergeant D'Oyley.

John Parr, the constable, (and a saddler) said that he saw 60 or 70 rounds fought, and that ten or twelve were fought that he did not see.

There were "persons of high consideration" there, and many gentlemen's carriages.

One of the defendants' counsel, in the face of the awful experience of the misled and gentlemanly young Phelps, had the hardihood to "energetically contend for prize-fighting, which, in the opinion of many, formed that national character of courageous fairplay which was the pride of the nation."

The jury found the prisoners guilty, but "recommended them to mercy."

Evidence of character was given, but it amounted to this, that the defendants "were quiet, good humoured people, who never took advantage of anyone."

They were sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour, and "seemed overjoyed with the leniency of the Court."

In his interesting _Autobiography of a Stage Coachman_, Mr. Cross, who for many years drove the Lynn coach, says he saw the young man Phelps both before and after the fight, and gives the following graphic and pathetic incident. The Lynn coach, on leaving Kingsland Road, picked up three pa.s.sengers, and upon its being mentioned that the coach had some fighting men inside, a clergyman, who was riding on the box, and whose wife, a young and beautiful lady, was inside, protested against allowing such company to sit in the coach with his wife; and, says Mr.

Cross, his mind was set at rest by two coa.r.s.e-looking fellows in rough great coats getting on the outside, and a well-dressed gentlemanly young man getting in. Upon the husband a.s.sisting his lady out, she asked him who was the gentleman who got in last; for {142} his conversation had been extremely interesting, and she was sure by his general information he must be a gentleman of distinction at the University. Dressed in an elegant suit of black, and displaying on a delicate white hand a diamond ring, he took his place at the table at the inn for refreshments on the road, and, his manners corresponding with his appearance, no one could suspect him of being a fighting man.

"Reader, this was the man known as 'Brighton Bill'--his real name I never knew, but that he was of respectable parents, and intended by them for a better calling I was convinced. When two days afterwards I saw his contused and distorted countenance, the only part visible from under the bedclothes, at the 'Wheatsheaf,' at Barkway, when he was deserted by all, and had no friend or relative near to watch over his fast-departing spirit, I could not restrain a tear. I silently, as I descended the stairs, invoked a curse on such barbarous practices, as well as on the authors of his death!"

If the writer of the above was correct in the ident.i.ty of the dying pugilist with his cultured pa.s.senger, his parents or friends never came forward to recognise him. He was buried in a corner, the lower corner, of the Barkway Churchyard, and the only trace of him is in the Parish Register, which tells the simple fact of the death of William Phelps, of Brighton, Suss.e.x, aged twenty years.

CHAPTER XIV.

OLD COACHING DAYS--STAGE WAGONS AND STAGE COACHES.

Many readers, whose lives carry them back before the "forties," taking their stand beneath the broad gateway or pebbled court-yard of our old inns--the Red Lion, the Bull, or the Crown--would require a very slight effort of memory to recall the exhilarating spectacle of the arrival and departure of the stage coach of fifty or sixty years ago. Such a person will once more hear in imagination the cheery coach horn at the town's end; and, watching for only a minute, he knows what to expect--yes, there around that critical corner at the Cross, come the steaming leaders, then a handful of reins, the portly form of the coachman, and then the huge embodiment of civilization itself comes {143} swinging round the corner like a thing of life! Clattering up the High Street! the driver pulls them up promptly at the Lion, or the Bull, and performs that cla.s.sic feat of swinging his l.u.s.ty eighteen stone from the box seat with an easy grace which is the envy of every stable boy in the town! He sees once more the busy scene of bustle and animation as the steaming horses are replaced by other sleek animals fresh from the stables, and the old coach rolls on for another stage of the journey.

This, the ideal view of locomotion in the palmy days of stage-coaching, was really an evolution from something much less smart and efficient.

Of that interesting evolution of the older locomotion, our old town, by the necessity of the route, saw most of the varied phases, for during many years of the century coaches rattled through our streets with kings, queens and princes, duellists and prize-fighters, daring highwaymen and Bow Street runners, romantic lovers off to Gretna Green, and School boys--poor little Nicklebies off to a Squeers'

Academy--jostling inside the body of the lumbering coach, or dangling their legs from the roof as outsiders!

In glancing at the salient points of this evolution as it pa.s.sed before the eyes of our grandfathers, it may be necessary to go back to the "composite" order of locomotion with the mixture of goods and pa.s.senger traffic.

A journey to London, or a distant town, for the purpose of trade or a visit, was a tedious experience full of discomfort. Following the st.u.r.dy caravan of pack-horses, the lumbering coaches, and broad-wheeled wagons of last century came the "fly wagons" in the early years of this century, and with them the possibility of poor people once in a life time getting a few miles from home, in case of absolute necessity. The old tilted fly-wagon was used not only for taking up and delivering goods too heavy to go by coach, but persons who could not afford the coach fare of 3d. a mile or thereabouts, would find a place wedged in among the goods at the back of the tilted wagon, sometimes packed away in straw to keep warm. In this way, a whole family, placed under the necessity of moving to a distant part, a comparatively rare occurrence though, have had to remain doubled up in a cramped position day and night, while the slow-going wagon creaked along its ponderous way, till the younger members of the family party peeped out of their hole and caught sight of the splendours of "the lights of London," in the long rows of oil lamps which then illuminated Kingsland Road, by which London from the north was entered, and anon the rendezvous at the "Vine," or "Four Swans," in Bishopsgate, was reached, to the intense relief of all!

In this primitive style, many a small tradesman has journeyed up to London, and, having transacted his business, has returned in the same manner two or three days afterwards.

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Fly-wagons and vans travelled from London daily for Buntingford, Royston, Cambridge, Fakenham, Boston, Stamford, York and Edinburgh.

Nearly all wagons on this road made their point of arrival and departure in London at Bishopsgate Street--the Four Swans, the Vine, and the Catherine Wheel being the usual inns.

The amount of goods traffic from Royston by these wagons was very considerable, especially by the Wakefield wagons which conveyed the wool from the combers in Royston to the Yorkshire Mills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIRD-CLa.s.s TO LONDON.]

The coaching traffic at the beginning of the present century, corresponded pretty much with express and stopping trains of the present day. There were what may be called "main line" coaches from London, through Royston to Edinburgh by the North Road (as well as by other great roads through the Kingdom), and the "branch line" coaches, such as those from London to Cambridge, Norwich, Fakenham, &c., and from London to Ipswich, a route that figured so prominently in the memorable adventures of Mr. Pickwick. The North Road through-coaches did not change horses at Royston, but at Arlington, at the Hardwicke Arms, and again at Buckland at the first farm house (now Mr.

Kestell's). The coaches were horsed at Arrington by Mr. Meyer, then the landlord of the Hardwicke Arms, who also supplied horses for the stage from Arrington to Caxton.

As to the time occupied on the road, every age has its own standard of enterprise and progress. Thus in 1806 a writer in an old {145} magazine breaks out into the following eloquent strain over the smartness of those times:--"Who would have conceived it possible fifty years ago that a coach would regularly travel betwixt London and Edinburgh, near 400 miles, in less than three days!" From our standpoint one is tempted to rejoin "who would have conceived it possible 80 years ago that an express train would travel regularly between London and Edinburgh in 8 1/2 hours!" but perhaps the future may laugh at such a boast! Still, that three days' journey by the old coaches was in reality a great thing, and one to be proud of, and as these "main line" coaches rattled through the pebbled streets of our old town they were looked upon with pride as a part of our national inst.i.tutions.

With regard to what may be called the branch line system of the coaching traffic, we are too apt to think of coaching as a means of through communication by the great routes mentioned to appreciate, at this distance of time, the vast amount of enterprise, and of horse flesh and vehicles brought into the coaching and posting service, to connect places lying off the main routes--places which were served, down to very many of the villages, either by a coach under the management of local persons, or by the system of fly-wagons and van traffic, which brought goods and pa.s.sengers from distant places at such intervals as could be arranged and worked at a profit.

At the end of the reign of George III. the coaches pa.s.sing through or near Royston were:--"The Royston Mail," "The Cambridge Auxiliary Mail,"

"The Cambridge New Royal and Patent Mail," "Cambridge Union Coach,"

"Safety," "Tally-ho"; "Telegraph" and "Lynn Union" (both through Barkway); "Lord Nelson" (Lynn), "Edinburgh and Newcastle Mail," "York and Edinburgh Mail," "The Lord Wellington," "The High Flyer," "The Fakenham Mail," "The Fakenham Patriot," and the "Stamford Coach." The Cambridge coaches changed horses at Royston (or Barkway, according to the route taken) and Buntingford. Mr. Ekin, of Cambridge, horsed the coaches from Cambridge to Royston, and the other distance from Royston to London was horsed by London men.

From the foregoing list the reader will see that the old coaching days meant no small amount of life and animation, and, for certain trades, money and business, to towns situated as Royston was.

For the palmy days of stage-coaching we must travel a little beyond the era of the Georges, even of the last of them; for at the time when the railway came the coaching traffic of this country had reached a pitch of perfection which was unknown at any previous period in its history, and for smartness and efficiency and for the vast extent of its operations it was an inst.i.tution of which the English people had every reason to be proud.

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A parliamentary return for 1836 shows the highest speed attained by mail coaches in England to have been 10 5/8 miles per hour, in Scotland 10 1/2, and in Ireland 9 1/8. That there were still some terribly bad roads for some of the cross-country mail coaches is shown by the fact that the slowest speed was 6 miles in England, 7 in Scotland, and 6 7/8 in Ireland.

Royston saw some of the smartest coach-driving on the road. Six or seven coaches and three mails pa.s.sed through the town up and down every day. Posting business was conducted with great spirit by the two rival inns--the young Bull and the older Red Lion, each having half a score of post horses in their stables, and one pair always standing harnessed ready to take "first turn out." These demands upon the princ.i.p.al inns made it impossible for the coach-horses to be stabled there and they occupied stables at various places in the town, but were brought up generally at the Red Lion or the Bull for the changes.

One of the chief characteristics of the old coaching days was the close a.s.sociation of coaches and coachmen with, and keen interest taken in them by, the inhabitants of the towns through which the princ.i.p.al coach routes pa.s.sed. Royston had its full share of such a.s.sociations, the inst.i.tution coloured all our local life, from the pauper or cripple who begged of the coach pa.s.sengers, to the local gentry who were expecting their newspaper. There was thus always something exhilarating and stirring about the arrival of the stage coach. It had within it so many possibilities. It might contain some great "Parliament man,"

runaway lovers, or stealers of bank notes, and it always brought some news. Intimately a.s.sociated with the life and habits of the townspeople were the coaches travelling between London, Royston and Cambridge, the persons in charge of which, and many of the pa.s.sengers using them, being known to the townspeople, whilst the names and merits of the rival coaches were known to the smallest boy in the parish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CAMBRIDGE ELECTION PARTY.]

It seems strange in these days that there should have been so much interest centred in these flying channels of civilization. I have mentioned the "Safety" and "Tally-ho," two coaches driven through Royston from Cambridge to London and back. These were well-known as rival coaches--rivals in time, for each went up in the morning and back in the evening, and, what is more interesting, they were also rivals in, and between them there was a keen compet.i.tion for, popular favour; so much so that one might almost describe them as the aristocratic and democratic coaches. There is sufficient reason for making this distinction between them in the fact that the Royston people of those days (1820-25) did, in the absence of anything more exciting to divide their thoughts and preferences in the quiet daily round of their lives, manage to set up a sort of party-distinction, not {148} exactly on the lines of Whig and Tory, but, strange as it may seem, by the names of "Tally-ho," and "Safety." From the smallest boy to the oldest man in Royston and the district, the inhabitants showed sufficient leanings one way or the other to be cla.s.sed as "Tally-ho" men or "Safety" men.