Part 19 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+llings 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-s.h.i.+ft 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 hards.h.i.+ps, 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 Mellis.h.!.+
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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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.