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The Cost to Proprietors

Section 2:

The Age of Coaching

Introduction


The world of long-distance coach travel

An Early Advertisement

A coach advertisement from 1706

Beginning to End
How long did the Great Age of Coaching Last?

Two Coaching Periods
The age of coach travel falls into two distinct phases

The First Coaching Period
Coaches in the early period were uncomfortable, slow and dangerous

Highwaymen
The scourge of the early coaching industry, these robbers eventually disappeared

Transition
The change from the early period to the late happened because life in Britain was altering

The Second Coaching Period
This is the Great Age of Coach Travel - surprisingly familiar; just slower and wetter

Facts and Figures
A look at prices, costs and numbers involved in coaching

Different Ways to Travel
There were stagecoaches and mail coaches, and more besides

Destinations

The list of places you could go to is remarkably familiar to the modern traveller

London Coaching Inns

We’re familiar with railway termini but what were the departure points like in the Age of Coaching?

Famous London Coaching Inns


Here are most of the coaching departure points in London, together withe here you could travel to from each one

Inns and Politics

An example of how politics influenced attitudes in some inns along the road

The Battle of Barnet

Not a war, just passengers trying to grab a bite to eat on the road

The Coachmen


Coach drivers were an elite group, but as the coaching age declined, they lost their importance

An Industry at Full Gallop


The first half of the 19th century saw coaching at its peak

Inns, Drivers & Passengers


Who were the travellers and who owned the horses and coaches? Find out here

One Coach Proprietor

William Chaplin was one of the most successful coach proprietors - and he survived the move to railways

Swan With Two Necks

One of Chaplin’s Inn has an unusual name which comes from history

The Cost of Coach Travel

We complain about rail fares but coach fares were far higher

Cost to Proprietors

What did it cost to run a coaching business?

The Value of Money

To understand coaching prices you must compare them with present day values

Accidents

Coach travel was not without risk. Here are some reported  coach accidents

The Post Office

This is the story of the Mail Coaches, how the mail evolved and what mailcoaches were like

Itineraries

A set of possible journeys that you might wish to make

Death by Steam

The railways effectively killed the coaching industry very quickly. Here’s what happened 

Inns Become Booking Offices

City inns had to change when the coaching trade dried up. Here’s how they coped


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Part 1: Living Memories

Anecdotes written by people who actually travelled on the coaches

Part 2: The Age of Coaching

The coachmen, the inns, the coach proprietors - they’re all here. Come in and meet them

Part 3: The Roads

Britain’s roads were pretty impassable for most of our history.  Coach travel was very difficult until they improved

Part 4: The Coaches

Wheeled transport evolved over many years. Find out how coaches developed

Background

Sources and information about how I came to create this website

Home Page

Home Page of the Coaching Website

Coach travel was expensive but it was not caused by profiteering. Coach proprietors’ lives were characterised by hard work and a lot of anxiety. Coaching was particularly dependent on the owner’s personal oversight and he was said to “earn his living by the sweat of his brow.”

Let’s look in more detail at the costs of running a coach service:-

First, there was the cost of the coaches themselves. Most proprietors rented them, at least in their early years. Some, like William Chaplin, owned their own coaches. You needed at least four to service one route.

Next came the cost haulage by horses, which was not cheap and relied on contracts with innkeepers every eight or ten miles along the entire route – and you were very dependent on their quality and efficiency.

You also needed to “crew” your coach – six, or perhaps seven, drivers depending on the distance and four guards. One coachman would drive about sixty miles before being relieved by another. Guards, not having the physical exertion of driving, could go longer distances.

Turnpike roads also added a substantial overhead. They may have improved the roads and made coach travel fast and efficient but they were a heavy cost burden on coach businesses. 

And then, on top of all this, coach proprietors had to pay heavy duties and taxes. The coaching industry was the regular prey of Chancellors of the Exchequer and it yielded huge returns.

Let’s look in detail at a journey on an ordinary stagecoach between London and Edinburgh in 1830:-

Expenditure:-

1. Operational costs:

    Coach Hire: £4 

        This is calculated at the rate of 2½d. a mile.

    Horsing:  £4 19s. 3d.

        Calculated at 3d. a mile.

    Turnpike tolls: £6 12s.

        Calculated at 4d. at each gate.

    Wages:

        These include coachmen, guards, ostlers and helpers.

    Overheads:

        These incude advertising, rent, oil for lamps, greasing, washing, etc.

2. Taxes and Duties:

    Coach crew tax: £5

        This was a yearly tax payable for every coachman and guard employed.

    Coach tax: £5

        A yearly tax for permission to run a coach service, payable for every coach.

    Passenger Duty: £4 19s. 3d. charged at threepence a mile.

        This was based on the number of people the coach was licensed to carry, not the number actually on board. So a stagecoach licensed to carry fifteen paid this sum whether it carried a full load or not

Total expenditure: £32.

Income:

    Fares: £65 10s. 

        This is the total income from fares, based on:

        £3 10s. to travel outside (about 2d per mile), and

        £6 15s. to travel inside (about 4d per mile).

        It is be for a coach licensed to carry fifteen – but would only be achieved if the coach were full with four insides and eleven outsides for the entire distance from London to Edinburgh.

Total Potential Profit: £33.10s.

This appears to be a healthy sum but in reality, few people were ‘through’ passengers. Generally, not more than half of those who boarded in London would be bound for Edinburgh. Others would leave the coach at Stamford, Grantham, York or Newcastle so their fares were proportionately less.

To make up for this reduced revenue, proprietors looked to chance passengers. However, the odd one-shilling or two-shilling fare taken on the road for short distances went by common consent into the coachmen’s and guards’ pockets and were never entered onto the waybill. This off-the-record income supplemented the somewhat meagre wages which drivers received, and which they saw as more of  a retaining fee. The practice was generally known as “shouldering” and was widespread.

So the average takings of the coach never came to more than £50 for each journey, which leaves a balance of £15 10s. profit.

If you take a working year as three hundred and thirteen days and allow for coaches travelling “up” (to London) and “down (away from London)” this gives an annual profit of £9,702.

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Notes:-

Licences:

Coaches could be licensed to carry fewer passengers in which case the duty paid would be proportionately less. So coaches licensed for fifteen during the summer would take out a licence for perhaps six or eight in winter, when travellers were few and far between.

Taxes:

The coach tax started in 1776 as a £5 (£575) Stamp Duty on every coach plus, from 1783, a halfpenny (25p) levy per mile travelled – and this applied whether the coach was fully loaded or not. As a result proprietors tended to load up coaches as much as possible to spread the cost, but they also ran fewer services winter services due to reduced passenger numbers.

Over time these taxes increased, reaching 2½d (£1.20) per mile by 1838. That added an additional £2-10s-0d (£120) to a 100 mile journey such as London to Stamford – on top of everything else. 

The Government perhaps inadvertently hastened the decline of stagecoach travel by being very slow to release stagecoach operators from the burden of excise duty at a time when railways were taking away much of their trade.

Shouldering and Swallowing:

Some proprietors were stricter than others and did not allow shouldering – but it went on all the same, and the standing toast which all proprietors found themselves compelled to give at annual coaching dinners was, “Success to shouldering,” with the proviso, “but don’t let me find you at it.” It was a tacit acknowledgment of the custom.

In later days, proprietors tried to forbid shouldering by paying slightly higher wages and, but the coachmen were loath to give it up because the increased pay was less than the loss of ‘shouldered’ fares and tips.  So they began to charge casual travellers a higher fare and pocket it, calling the practice “swallowing.”

Apparently, a tale used to be told of a coach approaching town and the coachman asking his box-seat passenger if he had any luggage.  “’No,’ said the passenger.  ‘Then,’ said the coachman, ‘do you mind getting down here, sir, because I mean to swallow you.’  The passenger got down and was “swallowed” accordingly.”


Next: The Value of Money