Through communication between London and Glasgow was undreamed of in the earliest days of coaching; and never, in the very nature of things, was the journey often made without a break, until railway travelling came to entirely alter the complexion of affairs. But Glasgow was early convinced of the necessity for public conveyances between itself and other parts; and at so remote a date as 1678 had succeeded in establishing what would appear to have been a municipally supported coach service between Glasgow and Edinburgh. This coach was maintained by William Hoorn, Hoon, or Hume, “marchand in Edinburge,” who received a grant of £22 4s. 5d., and an annual subsidy of £11 2s. 3d., paid two years in advance, and for a term of five-and-a-half years, from the magistrates. The fare was 8s. in summer, and 9s. in winter; the burgesses of Glasgow to have the preference.

It set forth once a week, and by dint of much labour its six horses dragged it the 44 miles in three days.

How long a time this daring service lasted is not known, but probably not for any extended period. Again, in 1743, the Town Council of Glasgow is found attempting to set up a stage-coach or “lando,” to go once a week in winter and twice in summer. Negotiations were opened with one John Walker, and the fare proposed was 10s.; but it was not until 1749 that regular communication between Glasgow and Edinburgh was established.

Meanwhile there was nothing in the nature of a coach service between Glasgow and London. To reach the metropolis by public conveyance, you were obliged to go first by this rate-aided conveyance of Mr. William Hume, and then, arrived at Edinburgh, to secure a seat for the tremendous journey southward. It is no mere figure of speech to name that early coach-journey to London “tremendous”; for it took, according to circumstances and the season of the year, from nine to twelve days. The enterprise of Glasgow, it will thus be perceived, was not equal to so great an undertaking.

At a time when the able-bodied—who, after all, were the only people who could endure this kind of thing—were the only people who travelled, except under the extremest pressure of necessity, a horseman would ride the distance in six or seven days, and the postboys who carried the mails before the establishment of mail-coaches commonly did it in five; and so, possibly, those enterprising Glasgow town-councilmen considered there was no necessity at that period to support a coach to London.

It was thus comparatively late in the history of coaching that Glasgow and London were connected by a direct coach service, but London and Carlisle Post Coaches were announced, going by Boroughbridge, and starting from December 26th, 1773. They travelled between the “George and Blue Boar,” Holborn, and the “Bush,” Carlisle; setting out from London on Wednesday evenings, and from Carlisle on Sunday evenings, and performing the journey in three days. They held six inside passengers, and two outsides; and the fares were, inside, £3 16s., and out, £2 6s. Passengers taken up on the road paid from twopence to threepence per mile. Dogs were strictly forbidden, under a penalty of £5.

It is not until 1788 that we learn of “Plummer’s Glasgow and London Coach,” which travelled the distance in sixty-five hours. In the same year, on July 7th, the first mail-coach arrived at Glasgow from London, after a journey of sixty-six hours; at a speed averaging about 6 miles an hour. Its route was along the Great North Road, so far as Boroughbridge, whence it continued by Leeming Lane, Catterick, Greta Bridge, and Brough, on to the Manchester and Glasgow Road at Penrith. Arrived at Carlisle, it halted, and a second coach took up the running to Glasgow.

In the era of mails carried on horseback, thus brought to an end, Glasgow had received and despatched its London post through Edinburgh, at second-hand, as it were, and this newly won independence wrested from the rival city was greeted with becoming enthusiasm, crowds of rejoicing citizens riding out to view the coming of the mail, and to escort it to its destination.

What the mail looked like in the first twelve years or so of its existence we perceive in the illustration after James Pollard, on the opposite page; although we may be quite sure that the coach never in its slowest time progressed in the slow and stately fashion—resembling the mournful deliberation of a funeral—pictured here. This is merely the early Pollard convention, seen in many of his productions.

The first Glasgow mail was by no means direct, and between Boroughbridge and Penrith it passed over wild and difficult country, so that it often did not succeed in keeping time. But, in spite of these difficulties, this route was kept—varied only by occasional divagations taking in Leeds and Ripon—until 1835, and, owing to road improvements between London and Doncaster, a number of accelerations were even possible.

It must have been at an early period of these revisions of the time-table that Professor John Wilson, the athletic “Christopher North,” accomplished the walking exploit credited to him. Disappointed at not securing a place on the up mail from Penrith to Kendal, he gave his coat to the coachman and set off to walk the 26 miles, arriving at Kendal some time before the coach. He then walked on to his home at Elleray.

When that fine old sportsman, Colonel Hawker, travelled from London to Glasgow in 1812, the journey occupied close upon fifty-seven hours of continuous unrelaxing effort on the part of the many relays of coachmen, guards, and horses, and of passive fortitude on that of the travellers, who, after all, had the worst of it; for while horses, guards, and coachmen were changed frequently on the way, and passed like fleeting ghosts before their wearied vision, they endured to the bitter end. Well for those who were obliged to go through at one sitting, if it were summer when these three nights and two days of discomfort were being endured; but the stoutest might have quailed before the prospect of such a journey in winter.

In 1821 the coach arrived at Carlisle in what was considered the excellent time of 41 hours 40 minutes from London, a speed, for the 311 miles, of something under 7¾ miles an hour. But still it was only at 1.40 on the afternoon of the third day that the mail entered Carlisle; reaching Glasgow at 4.50 the next morning. Time, from London to Glasgow, 56 hours 50 minutes.

By 1825, however, a further acceleration was made. The mail came dashing into Carlisle at 6.7 a.m.; so much as 7 hours 33 minutes earlier. People held up their hands in astonishment, and were of opinion that wonders would never cease: a frame of mind fully shared by the Glasgow folk, who with satisfaction ill-concealed by natural Scottish calm, saw the mail draw up at the Post Office proportionately early.

They were absolutely correct: wonders did not cease; for in 1837 a further saving of 1 hour 50 minutes was effected to Carlisle, the mail-coach arriving at 4.17 a.m. on the second morning from London, time, 32 hours 17 minutes; and drawing up at Glasgow at two o’clock that same afternoon: forty-two hours for the entire journey. This truly astonishing advance upon early performances was only made possible by the long series of improvements effected on the road between Carlisle and Glasgow from 1798 to 1834, by which not only had the gradients and the surface been improved, but newer and shorter stretches of road had been struck out, reducing the actual mileage from 405 miles to 397 miles 6 furlongs.1

The mail at this final period was not, throughout, one of the crack coaches run under the direction of the Post Office; coming only thirteenth in the list for speed, and showing a performance of an average 9·34 miles per hour as compared with that of the swift Bristol mail, speeding along the road at 10·3, almost a mile an hour quicker. Analysed, however, it discloses for the 95 miles along Telford’s splendid Carlisle and Glasgow Road an even slightly higher speed than that of the Bristol mail itself; and there were for many years after the disappearance of the coaches admiring oldsters who recollected with an admiration not unmixed with terror the terrific speed of the up Glasgow mail as it tore down the side of Stanwix Brow, outside Carlisle.

The accompanying official time-bills of the London and Carlisle and the Carlisle and Glasgow mails, as run in 1837, will prove interesting:

GENERAL POST OFFICE-THE EARL OF LICHFIELD. HER MAJESTY’S POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

In their last years, however, the Carlisle and Glasgow and the Carlisle and Edinburgh mails were run to clear 11 miles an hour: the time between Carlisle and Glasgow being cut down to 8 hours 32 minutes. Cautious folk steered clear of such performances, for accidents were frequent. But it was not speed that caused the dreadful accident to the up Manchester mail from Carlisle, overturned at Penrith on September 25th, 1835. The coach was passing the “Greyhound” inn when the horses, startled by a sudden thunderstorm, upset the coach. A gentleman on the roof was killed, and three other outsiders and the coachman were stunned.

But this was not the full measure of the Glasgow mails. The London and Manchester mail, once proceeding no further than Manchester, was extended by a second coach to Carlisle. This and the regular old Glasgow mail were in later years timed to meet at Penrith at four o’clock in the morning, and went on together to Carlisle. Carlisle was thus a busy centre for the mails, and in addition sent out, besides its local coaches and a mail for Edinburgh, a four-horse mail-coach for Portpatrick, carrying the mails for the north of Ireland. This also went along the main road so far as Gretna, whence it branched for Dumfries; continuing from that town to Portpatrick as a two-horse affair.

The cost of being conveyed by mail-coach from London to Glasgow was enormous. It is possible to voyage in these days to America, a distance of 3,000 miles, for less. In 1812 it cost an inside passenger, all the way to Glasgow, for fare alone, apart from the necessary tips to coachmen and guards, and exclusive of expenditure for food and drink all those weary hours, no less than £10 8s.: at the rate of about 6¹/₈d. a mile. To-day, the fastest train takes exactly eight hours, and the first-class fare, answering to the mail-coach fare, is £2 18s.; while one may travel, third class, in greater luxury than the old passengers by mail, for 33s.