Fragments of Two Centuries Part 19

By these rival coaches men swore, pledged themselves, and regulated their watches--those who had any. But the "Tally-ho" and "Safety"

party-cries came out more especially amongst the boys, for when "Tally-ho" and "Safety" boys met, it was a case of "when Greek meets Greek," with frequent fights! The two rival coaches thus became the means of sharply dividing popular sentiment, with many who had never enjoyed a seat on either of the champion coaches!

About 1825 the rivalry between "Tally-ho" and "Safety" was at its merriest, and ten years later other coaches had appeared upon the scene. Thus in 1839 the following were the coaches, and their places of call, pa.s.sing through Royston:--The "Star," from Cambridge, daily, calling at the Red Lion, Royston, and destined for Belle Sauvage, London; the Cambridge "Beehive," up and down alternate days, the Bull, Royston, and the Catherine Wheel, Bishopsgate Street, and White Bear, Piccadilly; the Cambridge "Telegraph," daily, the Red Lion, Royston, and the White Horse, Fetter Lane; the "Rocket," daily, the Bull, Royston, and White Horse, Fetter Lane; the "Wisbeach," daily, the Bull Hotel, Royston, and Belle Sauvage and Golden Cross, London; the "Stamford," up and down alternate days, the Crown, Royston, and the Bell and Crown, Holborn; the "Wellington," from York, the Queen Victoria, Royston (now the Coffee Tavern), and the Bull and Mouth, London; the "Rapid," daily (including Sunday), the Red Lion, Royston; Edinburgh and York mail and the Cambridge mail, daily, the Red Lion, Royston, for the General Post Office, London.

The times at which these coaches arrived at Royston followed in fairly consecutive order like a railway time table--thus of the up coaches the "Star," 8.20 a.m., "Beehive," 11.30, and so on up to the "Rocket," at 4.30, while the Edinburgh and Cambridge Mails pa.s.sed through at 1 and 2 in the morning; the return journeys were of course chiefly towards the evening. The usual time from Royston to London was 44 hours, excepting the York mail, in the night time, which reached the General Post Office within four hours after leaving the Red Lion, at Royston.

One of the coaches in the above list, the "Star," naturally leads one from coaches to coachmen. I am not aware who was the driver of the "Tally-ho," but of the rival coach, the "Safety," the driver was Joe Walton, the driver of the "Star" at the later date mentioned above, a famous coachman in his day who lived to see, and curse from {149} his box that "iron horse," which was destined to break up the traditions of the road.

It was the general testimony of those who had ridden behind him, or beside him on the box, that Joe Walton had few superiors on the road as a driver of a stage coach, especially for the manner in which he would handle his "cattle," and pull his coach through the streets of the Metropolis. He was, however, daring to a fault, but a strong will and an iron nerve could only have enabled him to carry that heavy handful of reins for ten hours at a stretch--fifty miles up and fifty miles back on the same day, all through the season. This was no child's play!

He was a driver who was not easily turned aside by difficulties or obstacles in the way, and has been known to conduct his coach across "hedges and ditches" when snow blocked up the highways. The firm grip of his position was sometimes apparent to those who encountered him on the road. Woe-betide any inefficient or sleepy driver whom Joe had to pa.s.s on the road, for a heavy smack from his whip was often as effectual a cure as the modern roundabout process of dragging the sleepy teamster before the magistrates and extracting a few shillings from his earnings!

At a recent dinner at Cambridge, Professor Humphry, who came to Cambridge to commence what has been a brilliant career by a journey on the "Star" coach, lightly hit off Joe Walton, the driver of the "Star,"

as a man who "used to swear like a trooper and go regularly to Church."

Joe Walton was also a man who could show off his powers on the box, and did not like to be beaten. In 1827, finding, just as he was leaving Buntingford with the "Star" coach, that the "Defiance" was cutting out the pace in front of him, he put his "cattle" to it with a view to pa.s.s the "Defiance;" but by one of the horses shying at the lamp of the coach in front, Walton's coach was overturned and he and a pa.s.senger were injured. Again in 1834, Joe overthrew the "Star" coach not far from Royston, on the 2nd September, but it would almost seem that the fault was as much in the "Star" as in Joe's daring style of driving, for again on the 30th September it was overthrown on the Buntingford and Royston road, when it was being driven by Sir Vincent Cotton.

Every inch a coachman, Joe Walton felt the bitter slight upon his high calling, when at last, with the introduction of the railway, his journeys were curtailed to the miserable make-shift of driving only as far as Broxbourne to meet the iron horse, whose approach Walton would hail with a memorable emphasis, and a more forcible than polite "Here comes old h.e.l.l-in-harness!"

Other men on the North Road, though having less of Walton's rough grip of their calling, were noted for their urbanity and general {150} intelligence. A place of honour among these was well deserved by Valentine Carter, the son of a Hertford coach-proprietor, the driver of the "Rocket," already referred to, and of the "Royston Coach" from Cambridge to Ware, as a connection with the Great Eastern Railway (1845-50), and in after life known as the genial landlord of the George Hotel, Buntingford. At the time of his death he had reached his 85th year, and when his remains were interred in the Layston Churchyard only a few years ago it was well said of him that "a more upright, truthful, and honourable man never lived."

Another man of some note on the London and Barkway road was Thomas Cross, the driver of the Lynn coach, to whose interesting volumes, "The Autobiography of a Stage Coachman," I have previously referred. The Cambridge "Telegraph" was, at one time, driven by a type of man whose character found expression in the soubriquet of "Quaker Will."

The difference between the risk of accidents on a coach and in a railway train has been well put by the old stager who asked the question--"If you meet with an accident by a coach and get thrown into a ditch, why there you are! but if you meet with an accident when riding by train--where are you?"

A few coaching adventures may be worth mentioning. Thus in 1803 it is recorded that--

On Sat.u.r.day morning, early, the Wisbeach Mail from London coming down Reed Hill, between Buckland and Royston, was overthrown by the horses taking fright, by which accident one woman was killed on the spot and some other pa.s.sengers slightly hurt.

On one occasion the Hertford coach met with a very alarming accident when overloaded with 34 pa.s.sengers, nearly all of whom were severely hurt. A shocking accident, from top-loading, occurred in 1814 to the Ipswich coach, on the top of which the Rev. Gaven Braithwaite, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, was crushed to death as the coach entered the gateway of the Blue Boar Inn, in that town.

Sometimes a coach was overturned with ludicrous results. Thus the Lynn coach, when being driven through Trumpington, on one occasion was overturned against the wall of a cottage. It so happened that the good house-wife was washing at the time; it further happened that her door was standing wide open, and it also happened that the ladies on the coach were pitched into the open doorway of the cottage, and one of them was pitched into the tub of soapsuds! In 1834, as soon as the day coach from Wisbeach to London, through Cambridge, arrived at the White Hart Inn, Cambridge, it was seized by the Excise officers and taken to the Rose and Crown, where it remained some days "in confinement," owing to the interesting circ.u.mstance that smuggled brandy was "on board."

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Of the personal adventures of those in charge of the coaches and their hardships, the late Mr. James Richardson used to tell a graphic story to the effect that one winter's day he was waiting at the Cross, Royston, till the coach came in from the North. The townspeople were more than usually interested owing to the severity of the weather.

This particular coach changed horses at the Old Crown, and when the vehicle rattled up the street it was noticed that the horn did not sound, and, on pulling up, the driver went sharply round to scold the guard. Poor fellow! He was found frozen to death, fast on his perch!

Sometimes the pa.s.sengers by coach found themselves in contact with rough characters. In 1825, for instance, the Lynn coach contained three men being taken up to London for trial on a charge of burglary.

When ascending Barkway hill the three men took advantage of the slower pace of the coach and began to descend with a view to escape, but the attendant immediately brought a pistol to their faces and one who had actually got off the coach was "persuaded" to get up again by the determination of their attendants to "have them in Newgate this night either dead or alive." They got them there alive and they were transported.

In the coaching days of this century the old highwaymen had for the most part disappeared, but a notable instance was afforded in this district in which the Mellishs, then residing at Hamels Park, were concerned. There were really two incidents, one in which Colonel Mellish fired at a highwayman and killed him, and in the other Captain Mellish was robbed, and as the highwayman rode away, not satisfied with his triumph, he turned and fire at the carriage, and the ball pa.s.sed through the window and killed Captain Mellish!

Mr. Cross, the driver of the Lynn coach, gives an instance of three rival coaches on the road, of which he was driving one, and that a race for the lead resulted in accomplishing one stage at the extraordinary pace of 20 minutes and a few seconds for an _eight miles course_, which, if timed correctly, was at the rate of _24 miles an hour_! But three of his opponents' horses never came out of the stable again!

One of the most alarming stage coach accidents in England was that between the Holyhead mail and the Chester mail near St. Albans in 1820.

There had been a race between the two coaches from just this side Highgate, to near St. Albans. When going down a hill both drivers--Perdy, of the Holyhead, and Butler, of the Chester coach--put their horses into a furious galop, the velocity of the coaches increasing at every step. There was plenty of room, but as Butler found the Holyhead gaining a little upon him, it is said he wildly threw his leaders in front of his rival's and the coaches were immediately upset with a terrible collision. A man named William {152} Hart was killed and others had their limbs shattered. The drivers were put upon their trial at the Hertford a.s.sizes before Baron Gurney, and were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced each to one year's imprisonment.

Railway pa.s.sengers are at least tolerably free from the "begging nuisance," but not so the pa.s.sengers by stage coaches when the coach pulled up for the change of horses, as the following entry in the Royston committee book for 1815 will show:--

"Ordered that Notice be given to John T---- and J. B---- if they are found begging in the street from the Coaches that their pay is to be taken off."

One curious indication that the end of the coaching era was approaching was afforded by the invention of steam coaches. Thus we find in 1839 that "Hanc.o.c.k's steam coach" came through Royston for the first time, being seven hours coming from London, including stoppages. Rather a slow rate from the agency which was to annihilate horse coaches!

One of the arguments against railways was that there would no longer be employment for horses, and yet just before railways were heard of one man stood at the Old Tyburn Turnpike and received the toll and issued tickets for the whole of the Oxford Street traffic! What a picture that old Tyburn turnpike man would form now, standing there in his white ap.r.o.n with its two pockets, "one for half-pence and one for tickets," and a.s.sessing the great volume of Oxford Street traffic of to-day! Yet the disappearance of coaches from our highways did make a very considerable difference to old towns like Royston, where, next to malting, the posting business was the most important in the town. As to the effect of the decay of coaching upon towns on the great coach roads, it is said that the town of Barnet had been accustomed to keep upwards of 1,000 horses in its stables, and Hounslow, on the Great Western Road, 2,500 horses!

Coaches and coach horses are not the only things which have disappeared from our high roads. One of the things to be met with on the roads in 1800-20 was the velocipede. It was not unlike in form the "Safety"

bicycle which is so universally met with on our roads to-day, with a trifling difference which made long and rapid journeys out of the question. The fact is the mechanical genius of Englishmen, which has made such enormous strides during the century, had not then found out that it was possible to use the solid earth as a fulcrum and at the same time to leave the feet and legs free. A horse used its feet to draw a coach and why not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified att.i.tude, to propel the thing along!

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Another characteristic thing about the old locomotion was the dog cart--small carts used by pedlars and others drawn along the high roads by a dog or dogs. Sometimes these old pedlars would drive to Royston market with their "carriage and pair" of dogs in rattling style! This sight was very common during the last century and lingered to about the end of the coaching days. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_, for 1795, a writer says: "I have sometimes seen two dogs yoked one on each side of a barrow drawing regularly and well, similar to ploughing. Their feet being tender, to prevent their being foot-sore, they should have some sort of shoeing; perhaps leather would be properest."

So well established had the use of dogs for drawing carts become that the subject came before Parliament about fifty years ago. An old magazine of this date gives a kind of pet.i.tion to Parliament, drawn up by a village schoolmaster and signed by three small hucksters, setting forth, like the three historic tailors of Tooley Street, the injured sense of the "people of England" at the prospect of an interference with the use of dogs, and praying for the suppression of horses and the protection of the small trader's dog, "because the dog carts of poor people were continually, almost, and sometimes quite, run over by these rough beasts [horses], and that this tyranny and wilfulness is very difficult for the poor man to bear, who may have as good a spirit as any coachman, although he is not so high up"!

From as late as about 1855 there comes to the writer a vision of a pedlar, muddled with drink, riding home in his little square box cart and the faithful dog drawing the cart and the man as well, and also a faint echo of "shame" from some bystanders. Verily the fable must in those days have been true, that when the G.o.ddess Fidelity was lost among men, after long searching, she was found in a dog-kennel!

A picturesque part of the old system of locomotion was, of course, the turnpike. The keepers of toll-gates found their princ.i.p.al customers in the numerous coaches and the wagons which travelled up and down the main roads, for the farmers could, and frequently did, by a little mutual contriving, manage a cross-cut by their field-ways on to the main road on the town side of a toll-gate, as in the case of Ba.s.singbourn and the Baldock Road into Royston. For the wagon traffic, which conveyed much heavy merchandise, the older toll-gates had a weigh-bridge attached to them so that the weight might be ascertained and charged according to their scale. In later times the regular coaches generally ran through without being stopped, and paid the toll periodically.

The turnpike-road to Caxton--or rather from Royston Cross to Wandesford Bridge in the county of Huntingdon, of which the southern part from Royston to Kisby's Hut formed one Trust, is said to have been the first turnpike-road in England.

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Certainly the various Acts of Parliament for its repair and maintenance date back to the time of Queen Anne, if not earlier, and, after turning up in Acts all through the reigns of the Georges, ended with the Act of 1822 under which the old Trust was managed in the times of the modern coaching days. The traffic never was sufficient to maintain the road without resorting to a rate upon the neighbouring lands, owing to the diversion of a good deal of the coaching and wagon traffic at Royston for Cambridge, and the Trustees were often in great straits, and on the horns of a dilemma--if they charged enough toll to pay their way, the traffic was driven off the roads; if they modulated their charges the roads went to the bad.

Money was advanced by private individuals upon the security of the tolls, and the road between Royston and Arrington was always in debt and dirty. So bad was it that the mail coaches were delayed, the Postmaster-General came down upon the trustees, and Mr. McAdam, the surveyor to the trustees (at a salary of L50 per annum), whose hands were full of surveying at that time in various parts of England, reported that though the road was "not indictable at common law, it certainly was not in a fit condition to travel upon, at the speed which the excellent regulations of the Post Office require." "It required fourteen hundred tons of material and one thousand pounds value in labour to put it into a proper condition, at a cost of L7,500, or about L500 a mile"!

That this state of insolvency was not due to tolls being too low is evident from the fact that a pet.i.tion was presented to the trustees, setting forth that the tolls were so high as to drive the traffic off the road. Eightpence per horse at both gates was a considerable sum between Royston and Kisby's Hut. Again and again the bankrupt condition of the road, both in solidity and finance, was submitted to the Postmaster-General and the Treasury Authorities in the hope of getting some relief from that quarter, and in 1833 the Trustees, despairingly, stated that upon the success of their application for a subsidy (including L1,500 to cut through Arrington Hill), depended the question of keeping open "this most important line of general communication."

Between 1790, when the Kneesworth toll bar produced about L5 a week, and 1820, there was a considerable increase in the traffic on the roads, and the highest figure reached was in 1828, when the amount realized from the Kneesworth and Caxton toll gates was L1,367 for the year. As coaching declined, the turnpike receipts fell off so much that by 1847 the Kneesworth and Caxton toll-gate receipts had dwindled down, in twenty years, from L1,367 to L282 a year! That the railway did not knock all the horses off the road, but on the contrary brought them on for other purposes, is evident from the fact that after the establishment of a railway station at Royston the above toll-gate receipts went up again in the next twenty years to L600 a year!

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The Wadesmill Turnpike Trust (from Royston to Wadesmill) was a much more profitable road, as it included some of the Cambridge as well as the North Road traffic. Indeed, for three years before the London Road hill was cut through, the tolls from Royston to Wadesmill were let to Mr. Flay for L4,090 per annum, and in 1839 after the cutting was finished, they were let for L4,350, the highest sum ever made under this Trust.

With the disappearance of the last of the toll-gates the last relics of the old coaching days vanish. Antiquated such an expedient may seem--placing bars across the road--yet the system did enable some very notable improvements to be carried out in cutting through high hills at an expense which modern highway authorities would never dream of.

Then, they not only secured the desirable result that all who used the roads should pay for them, but helped to preserve the balance of trade between towns and villages, for, no sooner were gates abolished than many heavy users of the roads got off almost scot free of contributing to their maintenance, and the town tradesman could afford to send his carts round and compete with, and, as a natural consequence, to annihilate many small village shop-keepers who had flourished under the old _regime_.

CHAPTER XV.

NEW WINE AND OLD BOTTLES.--A PAROCHIAL REVOLUTION.--THE OLD POOR-HOUSE AND THE NEW "BASTILLE."

Over the dark night of the 18th and the dull grey morning of the 19th century there was this remarkable feature, that while the local records show how deplorable was the condition of the people, there was at the head of the affairs of the nation a perfect galaxy of great men, such as the public life of this nation had perhaps never known. There were Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Burke, Wellington, Wilberforce, Nelson, Canning, Brougham, Lord Chancellor Eldon--whose greatness was only tempered by the fear that the sun of Great Britain would set if a Catholic was allowed to sit in the House of Peers,--the Duke of York--whose speech against Catholic emanc.i.p.ation was printed in letters of gold and sold by our local stationers,--the great Lyndhurst (four times Lord Chancellor) Palmerston, Lord Derby, who, from a maiden speech about lighting Manchester with gas, rose to be "the Rupert of Debate,"

Macaulay--the brilliant Buntingford school boy who went stamping through the fields of literature with an _eclat_ which made him one of the giants of the coming century,--O'Connell, the Liberator; and Grattan, of Irish {156} Parliament fame. All these great names made up a reflection of the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome in the arena of debate. They shone like stars in the firmament, helping to make the common people content to dwell in the night by the glittering panoply they threw over the public life of the nation. Men and women forgot their grievances in the contemplation of great names whose owners did not then, like the statesmen of to-day, come down to the level of the common life to be jostled on railway platforms.

It is only when one looks into the details of local life that it is possible to realize the sharp contrast of great men and little happiness for the people, or how terrible must have been the strain for the whole nation to have existed under such conditions without a revolution.