The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries Part 21

The Point was in those days simply a collection of taverns giving upon the harbour and the stairs, whence departed a continuous stream of officers and men of the navy. It was a place throbbing with life and excitement--the sailors going out and returning home; the leave-takings, the greetings; the boozing and the fighting, are all shown in Rowlandson's drawing as on a stage, while the tall ships form an appropriate background, like the back-cloth of a theatrical scene. It is a scene full of humour. Sailors are leaning on their arms out of window; a gold-laced officer bids good-bye to his girl while his trunks are being carried down to the stairs; a drunken sailor and his equally drunken woman are belabouring one another with all the good-will in the world, and a wooden-legged sailor-man is sc.r.a.ping away for very life on a fiddle and dancing grotesquely to get a living. He is a funny figure, you say; but, by your leave, it seems to me that he is only a figure of a very great pathos. Belisarius, over whom historians have wept as they recounted his fall and his piteous appeals for the scanty charity of an obolus, was but a rascally Roman general who betrayed his trust and became a peculator of the first magnitude; and he deserved his fate. But here is a poor devil who has been maimed in battle and left to earn his bread by playing the fool before a crowd of careless folk, happy if he can excite their compa.s.sion to the extent of a stray sixpence or an occasional drink. No: his is not a funny figure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANCING SAILOR.]

x.x.xVIII

The old coach offices cl.u.s.tered about this spot. Several stood in Bath Square, and here, among others, was the Old Van Office, kept by Uriah Green. The vans were similar to the stage-coaches, but much larger and clumsier, and jogged along at a very easy pace. They took, in fact, from fifteen to sixteen hours to perform the journey under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, and in bad weather no one ventured to prophesy at what time they _would_ arrive.

The fares were, consequently, very much lower than those of the swifter coaches, which stood at 1 1_s._ 0_d._ inside, and 12_s._ 6_d._ outside.

One might, on the other hand, take a trip from Portsmouth to London on the outside of a van for 6_s._ 6_d._ The cheapness of these conveyances caused them to be largely patronized by blue-jackets. One van left Portsmouth at four p.m. every day for the "Eagle," City Road, London, arriving there at about seven or eight o'clock the next morning, and another left the "Eagle" for Portsmouth at the same time.

[Sidenote: _ROAD TRAVEL_]

This was at the beginning of the present century, and was a vast improvement upon the still older, clumsier, and infinitely slower road-wagons. Thirty-five years earlier (_circa_ 1770), even the quickest stages were no speedier than the vans. For instance, at that time the "Royal Mail" started daily from the "Blue Posts" at two p.m., and only arrived in London at six o'clock the next morning. Then came Clarke's "Flying Machine," which was so little like flying that it did the journey only in a day, leaving the "King's Arms" Inn, Portsmouth, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night at ten o'clock, and returning on alternate nights.

In 1805 the number and the speed of coaches were considerably augmented.

Among them were the "Royal Mail," from the "George"; the "Nelson," from the "Blue Posts"; the "Hero," from the "Fountain"; the "Regulator," from the "George"; and Vicat and Co.'s speedy "Rocket," that started from the "Quebec" Tavern, and did the journey to town in nine hours. It was at this period that a local bard was moved to verse by the astonishing swiftness of the coaches, and this is how he sings their prowess:--

"In olden times, two days were spent 'Twixt Portsmouth and the Monument; When Flying Diligences plied, When men in Roundabouts would ride, And at the surly driver's will, Get out and climb each tedious hill.

But since the rapid Freeling's age, How much improved the _English Stage_!

Now in ten hours the London Post Reaches from Lombard Street our coast."

Prodigious! But when the railway was opened from Portsmouth to Nine Elms in 1840, and did the journey in three hours, there were, alas! no votaries of the Muse to celebrate the event.

That year witnessed the last of the old coaching days upon the Portsmouth Road, so far, at least, as ordinary travellers were concerned. Some few, particularly conservative, still elected to travel by road; and, as may be seen from the appended copy of a Post-office Time-Bill, the Postmaster-General put no trust in new-fangled methods of conveyance:--

GENERAL POST OFFICE.

THE EARL OF LICHFIELD, HER MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

London and Portsmouth Time-Bill.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Contractors' Time Names. Allowed. ------------ -- --- ------- -------- -------------------------------- In Out M.F. H.M. Dispatched from the General Post Office, the of , 184 , at by time-piece, at by clock. Coach No. { With time-piece sent out { safe, { No. to Arrived at the Gloucester Coffee-House at { 13.0 1.35 Arrived at Kingston at { 4.0 } Esher { 3.4 } Cobham Chaplin and { 3.7 } 1.25 Arrived at Ripley at Gray { 6.1 } Guildford { 4.2 } 1.18 Arrived at G.o.dalming at { 2.1 } Mousehill {10.1 } 1.32 Arrived at Liphook at { 8.3 1.3 Arrived at Petersfield at Wise 7.4 57 Arrived at Horndean at 5.6 } Cosham Guy 4.6 } 1.20 Arrived at the Post Office, Portsmouth, the of , 184 , at by time-piece, at by clock. { Delivered time-piece Coach No. { safe, No. arrived { to +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

The time of working each stage, &c. Up-time allowed the same.

By Command of the Postmaster-General.

GEORGE STOW, Surveyor and Superintendent.

[Sidenote: _HER MAJESTY'S MAILS_]

This time-bill, quoted by Mr. Stanley Harris in his "Coaching Age," is dated April 1841, and shows, by a side-light, the innate conservatism of all Government inst.i.tutions. At that time the London and South-Western Railway--then called the London and Southampton--had been opened eleven months, with a station at Portsmouth and a London terminus at Nine Elms, yet her Majesty's mails still went by road, and at a pace scarcely equalled for slowness among all the coaches of England. Nine hours and ten minutes taken, at this late period, in journeying between London and Portsmouth! Why, the Jehus of the Bath and Exeter Roads, the drivers of the "Quicksilver" and the "Regulator," even, would have scorned this jog-trot.

The present generation, which knows less of coaching times than of the Wars of the Roses or any other equally far-removed period, will be puzzled over the references to clocks and time-pieces in the bill printed above.

These time-pieces were served out at the General Post Office to all mail-coaches. They were wound up and set going in correct time, and, enclosed in a securely-fastened box to prevent its being tampered with, one was handed to the guard of each mail leaving London. By means of his time-piece the guard could check the progress of the mail, and could hurry up the driver on an occasion. It was the guard's duty to deliver up his time-piece on arrival at his destination, when the time shown by it was entered by the postmaster, and any late arrivals notified to the Postmaster-General.

[Sidenote: _REVIVALS_]

That august public functionary finally yielded to the pressure of circ.u.mstances, and in 1842 her Majesty's mails went by rail instead of by road. The Queen's highway was then lonely indeed, and it was not until 1875, when the coaching revival was already some twelve or thirteen years old, that the revived "Rocket" coach was put on between London and Portsmouth. It ran from the "White Horse" Cellars every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat.u.r.day during the season, returning from the "George," Portsmouth, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. In the earlier years of its running, the "Rocket" made good time, taking eight and a half hours, up or down; but its quickest time was made on the down journey during the season of 1881, when it left Piccadilly at 11.10 a.m., and reached Portsmouth at seven p.m. == seven hours fifty minutes, inclusive of seven changes, as against six changes in previous seasons. Captain Hargreaves was the bold projector of this long-distance coach, and since his retirement from the road none other has had the enterprise sufficient for so great an undertaking. The Portsmouth Road has known no through coach since his "Rocket" was discontinued. The Postmaster-General of this age of railways is, however, about to try an interesting and important revival of the old-time mail-coach along a portion of this route, as far as Guildford; and it is understood that, should his venture prove successful, this journey will be extended to Portsmouth. Meanwhile, night coaches will run, carrying the Parcel mails, from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Guildford, going by way of Epsom and Leatherhead. The reason for this reversion to old methods is that the railway companies demand rates for the carriage of the Parcel mails which, in the opinion of the Postal Department, are excessive, amounting as they do to about fifty-five per cent. of the gross receipts for the parcels carried. The coaches will leave London at ten p.m., arriving at Guildford at two a.m.; while, from Guildford, branch coaches will probably run, to serve the more remote country towns of Surrey.