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Section 2:
The Age of Coaching
The world of long-distance coach travel
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
The list of places you could go to is remarkably familiar to the modern traveller
We’re familiar with railway termini but what were the departure points like in the Age of Coaching?
Here are most of the coaching departure points in London, together withe here you could travel to from each one
An example of how politics influenced attitudes in some inns along the road
Not a war, just passengers trying to grab a bite to eat on the road
Coach drivers were an elite group, but as the coaching age declined, they lost their importance
The first half of the 19th century saw coaching at its peak
Who were the travellers and who owned the horses and coaches? Find out here
William Chaplin was one of the most successful coach proprietors - and he survived the move to railways
One of Chaplin’s Inn has an unusual name which comes from history
We complain about rail fares but coach fares were far higher
What did it cost to run a coaching business?
To understand coaching prices you must compare them with present day values
Coach travel was not without risk. Here are some reported coach accidents
This is the story of the Mail Coaches, how the mail evolved and what mailcoaches were like
A set of possible journeys that you might wish to make
The railways effectively killed the coaching industry very quickly. Here’s what happened
City inns had to change when the coaching trade dried up. Here’s how they coped
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Anecdotes written by people who actually travelled on the coaches
The coachmen, the inns, the coach proprietors - they’re all here. Come in and meet them
Britain’s roads were pretty impassable for most of our history. Coach travel was very difficult until they improved
Wheeled transport evolved over many years. Find out how coaches developed
Sources and information about how I came to create this website
Home Page of the Coaching Website
In the early coaching period, stagecoaches were often targeted by highwaymen such as Claude Duval (1643-70) and Dick Turpin (1705-39). We tend to have a rather romantic idea about highwaymen with their cries of ‘Stand and Deliver!’ In reality these masked men terrorised the roads of England. The punishment for highway robbery was hanging and many of them ended their days on the gallows at Tyburn.
A series of wars had led to high taxes and these in turn had caused hardship which led to conditions in which highwaymen and smugglers flourished. Highwaymen travelled and robbed by horse as opposed to footpads who travelled and robbed on foot.
The great age of highwaymen was the period from the Restoration in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Some of them were disbanded soldiers and even officers of the English Civil War and French wars. It was a time when governance was very poor and there was no police force. Law and order was very sparse and was maintained by ineffective parish constables. Detection and arrest were very difficult.
Most highwaymen held up travellers and took their money. They attacked coaches and also the postboys who carried mail. Some of them even had channels by which they could dispose of bills of exchange. Others had a ‘protection racket’ and carriers regularly paid a ransom to go unmolested.
The famous demand to “Stand and deliver!” was in use from the 17th century to the 19th century and is mentioned in trial proceedings:
Old Bailey, 25 April 1677:
Evidence of John Mawson: “We were met by two men; they attacked us both. One clapped a bayonet to my breast, and said, with an oath, “Your money, or your life! “He had on a soldier’s waistcoat and breeches. I put the bayonet aside, and gave him my silver, about three or four shillings” (£40 in 2019).
Many victims of highwaymen were famous:
The Prime Minister, Lord North, in 1774:
Horace Walpole, who was shot at in Hyde Park:
During this period, crime was rife and encounters with highwaymen could be bloody if you attempted to resist. The historian Roy Porter wrote, “violence was as English as plum pudding.”
During the late 1600s and early 1700s, highwaymen in Hyde Park were so common that King William III had the route between St. James’s Palace and Kensington Palace (Rotten Row) lit at night with oil lamps as a precaution against them. This made it the first artificially lit highway in Britain.
There’s a long history of treating highway robbers as heroes. The most famous robber hero Robin Hood but he was fighting for the poor (and also a legend). Highwaymen were just thieves. They would lie in wait on the main roads radiating from London, usually choosing lonely areas of heathland or woodland.
Dangerous places included Hounslow Heath which was crossed by the roads to Bath and Exeter and Bagshot Heath on the road to Exeter. Shooter's Hill on the Great Dover Road and Finchley Common on the Great North Road were particularly bad.
The penalty for robbery with violence was hanging, and most highwaymen did end on the gallows. The chief place of execution for London and Middlesex was Tyburn Tree. Many highwaymen went to the gallows laughing and joking – or at least showing no fear – and are said to have been admired by many in the crowds who came to watch.
It’s not certain why highway robbery declined, but it did. After about 1815, there are only rare occurrences and the very last recorded case was in 1831. Causes of the decline probably include:
• the invention of repeating handguns, such as the pepperbox and the percussion revolver, which became increasingly available and affordable for the average citizen.
• The arrival of the turnpike roads which were manned gated toll-roads. They made it difficult for a highwayman to escape notice while making his getaway – although he could still escape across open country.
• Cities such as London were growing and becoming better policed. In 1805 a body of mounted police began to patrol the districts around the city at night.
• Some of the most dangerous open spaces, such as Finchley Common, were being built over.
• The use of banknotes, more traceable than gold coins, also made life more difficult for robbers.
• The Enclosure Acts across the country confined travellers to roads, because the new enclosed fields were walled or hedged.
• And finally, the great increase in population during the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions meant, quite simply, that there were more eyes around, and the concept of remote place became a thing of the past in England.