EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE—COACH ACCIDENTS—DANGER ATTENDING PRINCE GEORGE OF DENMARK'S VISIT TO PETWORTH—THE MAILS STOPPED BY SEVERE SNOWSTORMS—SLEDGES USED FOR THE MAILS—DEATH FROM INCLEMENCY OF WEATHER—DREADFUL STORMS—FLOODS IN SCOTLAND IN 1829—ACCIDENT TO THE BATH AND DEVONPORT MAILS—MAIL ROBBERIES IN 1839—COACHING IN AUSTRALIA.

CHAPTER IX.

One of the most serious accidents was caused by the breaking down of the Hertford coach, by which nearly all the passengers, thirty-four in number, were severely hurt.

An extraordinary occurrence connected with the road occurred in April, 1820, when a gentleman of noble connection, high fashion, and large fortune had his carriage and horses seized on their way from Brighton to London, in consequence of the carriage containing smuggled goods. A replevin was afterwards effected, on the payment of five hundred pounds. The real state of the case was as follows:—

The coachman had the folly to secrete two half-ankers of Hollands gin within the vehicle; and his fellow-servant, the footman, angry at not being let into the secret, laid an information, and the seizure of the carriage and horse was the consequence.

Although, unfortunately, there have been of late years many fatal accidents by rail, caused by carelessness, inattention, and the over-working of pointsmen and others employed on the respective lines, I question much, taking into consideration the thousands on thousands that travel by steam, as compared with those that journeyed by the road, whether the accidents were not as serious and as numerous in the days of coaching as they now are.

I shall confine myself to mail and stage-coaches, albeit private carriages and post-chaises were not exempt from breakings down, upsets, and other casualties, caused by drunken or reckless drivers, runaway horses, or by fragile springs, wheels, axletrees, and poles.

Macaulay, as I have already said, in describing the mishaps that befell Prince George of Denmark and his suite when visiting the stately mansion of Petworth, draws a favourable contrast between the effects of an accident on the road in bygone days and a railway collision in our time; but the great historian would have thought differently had he been aware of the dangers of the road which I am about to record.

Prince George and his courtiers were overturned and stuck fast in the mud upon their journey; but, at the pace they travelled at, no serious consequence was to be apprehended—they were six hours going nine miles.

I will now select out of a number a few cases of accidents caused by the inclemency of the weather, carelessness, and reckless driving.

It often happened that during heavy snowstorms travelling was impracticable. In March, 1827, the storm was so violent in Scotland that the mails, especially those from the South, were stopped for several days, although no snow had fallen further south than Carlisle.

On many parts of the road between Carlisle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow a path had to be cut out by the labour of men the whole way; the snow was so deep as to rise in many places above the heads of the outside passengers of the stage-coaches, while those in the inside saw nothing on their right and on their left but rough walls of snow.

The mails dispatched from Glasgow to the south were twenty-four hours proceeding to Douglas Mill, and the mail from Glasgow to Edinburgh only proceeded three miles, though drawn by six horses. The guard and coachman set forward with the mail-bags on horseback, and with great exertion reached Holytown, seven miles further, in as many hours.

On the following morning another attempt was made, but, after proceeding a mile, both coachman and guard were obliged to return to Holytown. A number of men were then employed to clear the road, and at three o'clock in the afternoon they made a second attempt, but could only reach Shotts, as the men engaged in cutting the road were obliged to desist, in consequence of the wind filling up the path as fast as they cleared it. Next morning they started again at half-past five, and only reached Edinburgh, in a very exhausted state, in about twelve hours.

Again, in 1837 one of the heaviest falls of snow ever remembered in this country took place on the Christmas night. It extended over every part of the kingdom. So deep were the drifts of snow that in some of the lower grounds it was from forty feet to fifty feet deep; thus in many parts of the country all communication by the usual modes of travelling was entirely suspended. The impediments to the mails were of the most serious description. Not a single mail of the 26th of December, which ought to have arrived by six o'clock on Monday morning, reached the Post Office before half-past eight in the evening. Of the mails sent out from London on Christmas night, the Dover went twenty miles and returned, the coachman and guard declaring the roads to be utterly impassable. The letters were conveyed daily from Canterbury to Dover on sledges drawn by three and four horses, tandem. Occasionally they were forwarded by means of pack-horses. The fare for a passenger on a sledge was two pounds.

Occasionally passengers suffered from the inclemency of the weather. On one occasion when the Bath coach arrived at Chippenham, the people of the inn were surprised at seeing three outside passengers lying in a state of insensibility. On a nearer approach they perceived that vitality had been actually extinct in two of them for some time, the bodies being perfectly cold. The third, a soldier, had some faint signs of animation left, but he expired the following morning. On the above fatal night it rained incessantly, and the cold was intense.

In 1838 one of the most terrible storms of thunder and lightning that had been witnessed for many years took place on the 28th of August, during which the Royal Mail, on its way from York to Leeds, was overturned a short distance before its arrival at Tadcaster. The vivid glare of the lightning and the roar of the thunder so affrighted the horses that they started off, ran the coach upon an embankment, and it was instantly overturned. There were three inside and three outside passengers, besides the coachman and guard, all of whom, with the exception of the coachman, escaped unhurt.

A more serious accident occurred in October. Whilst the Coburg coach, on its way from Perth to Edinburgh, was receiving the passengers and luggage from Newhalls Pier, South Queensferry, the leaders suddenly wheeled round, and, notwithstanding that the guard and coachman were almost instantly at their heads, coach and horses were precipitated over the quay. Some of the outside passengers escaped by throwing themselves on the pier, but those in the inside were less fortunate. The inside passengers consisted of three ladies and one gentleman. The coach having fallen into the sea on its side, one lady and gentleman managed to get their heads thrust out of the window above the water till extricated from their perilous situation; the other two were taken out dead. The only outside passenger who kept his place on the coach until it was precipitated into the water was pitched into the sea a considerable distance, but, fortunately, saved himself by swimming ashore. The pole having broken, the leaders were saved, but the two wheel horses were drowned.

Another accident occurred at Galashiels, where there is a bridge uniting two curves of the road; upon reaching it one of the horses commenced kicking, and in a few moments had its hind legs over the bar. The coachman tried to arrest their progress, but his efforts were useless, and the coach was overturned in a few seconds. At that time there were four persons inside; one lady had her arm broken, and a gentleman had his leg broken; the other passengers sustained serious injuries, one dying at Galashiels from the effect of the injuries he sustained.

About nine o'clock the same night the North Briton coach was approaching Chorley, in Lancashire. The coach was meeting some waggons, and was followed by a number of carts. The coachman, to escape the waggons, drew on the opposite side, and, owing to the mist, went too far, and plunged the vehicle down a precipice. One man was killed on the spot.

During the floods in Scotland, in 1829, the coast mail-coach, having left Fochabers at four p.m., got forward, without any interruption, to the Spey, where, in consequence of the boisterous rapidity of the torrent, sweeping along with it corn and wood in great abundance, the boatmen were with difficulty prevailed on to ferry the guard across. They stated their determination not to venture again while the current remained so strong. (Since that period a substantial bridge has been thrown over the Spey.) On his way to the Findhorn the guard of the mail-coach called on Mr. Davidson, who resides about two miles to the eastward of that river. He accompanied the guard, and promptly procured six men to carry the mails across the river, which was done with scarcely any detention, although the ebbing current was fearfully strong. Four of Mr. Davidson's men then volunteered their services and carried the bags on their backs to Earnhill, where the guard procured a horse and cart, in which he proceeded to Dyke. There the Reverend Mr. Anken was waiting in readiness, with his servants and several lights, to assist to forward the mail. One of the servants from the manse waded before the cart for upwards of a mile, the water covering the road, in many places to the depth of three feet. In Auldearn the guard was met by the Reverend Mr. Barclay, who informed him that the bridge of Nairn had been swept away.

After a most boisterous night the cart arrived opposite to Nairn, where, the guard blowing his horn, several persons instantly came forward and advised him not to attempt to cross the bridge, a great part of it having fallen. Finding it, however, impossible to get a boat, he drove the cart back to Auldearn, where he remained till three o'clock in the morning, when he again set out on his way to Inverness; and, there being still from two to three feet in breadth of the bridge standing, he, with great peril, passed it.

Great apprehensions were entertained that the bridge of Daviot would have been swept away, although founded on a rock considerably beyond the usual height of the water. If this bridge had been carried away the communication with the south by this road, at least for carriages and carts, would have been completely cut off, as there is no place within four miles of the Highland road where the river is fordable. After much toil and perseverance the guard reached his destination at Inverness.

In July, 1827, the Bath mail-coach was overturned on its way from London, between Reading and Newbury, in consequence of the horses taking fright and bolting from the road into a gravel-pit. The coachman was thrown from the box among the horses, and received several contusions from being trod upon. The guard and a foreigner, who were on the top, were precipitated by the shock to such a distance, and with such violence, as would probably have proved fatal to them had not the earth and gravel on which they lighted been saturated with the rain that fell in the course of the day; and to the same cause may be ascribed the trifling injury done to the horses and the coach. In a few minutes after the accident took place a Bath coach came up. The passengers rendered every assistance in their power, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in extricating the inside passengers from the mail. Among them was a naval officer who was going to join his ship at Plymouth, but he had suffered so much from the concussion that he was speechless and unable to move. He was conveyed to a small cottage on the roadside, but died the following day.

In December of the same year, as the Salisbury coach was on its journey to London, the fog was so thick that the coachman could not see his way, and on entering Bedfont, near Hounslow, the horses went off the road into the pond called the King's Water, dragging the coach along with them. One of the passengers, Mr. Lockhart Wainwright, a young man of five-and-twenty years of age, belonging to the Light Dragoons, was killed on the spot. The water was about two feet deep, with a soft bottom of mud about two feet more. Whether he was suffocated in the mud or killed by a blow was not ascertained.

In the inside of the coach were four females—the wife of the deceased, her maid, a Swiss governess in the family of the Marquis of Abercorn, and another lady. They all narrowly escaped drowning. Nothing but the speedy assistance from Bedfont could have saved them. Above one hundred persons were assembled in a few moments, most of them soldiers from Bedfont. The soldiers leaped into the water and extricated the ladies from their perilous situation; the body of the coach lying on its side, with one of the horses drowned, and the rest kicking and plunging violently. The inside passengers were bruised, but not dangerously. Mr. Wainwright owed his death to his humanity. The night being very severe he had given his place inside to his wife's maid, and mounted the box beside the coachman, with whom he was conversing at the time of the accident.

In April, 1826, the Dorking coach left the "Elephant and Castle" at nine o'clock, full inside and out, and arrived safe at Ewell, when the driver and proprietor, Joseph Walker, alighted for the purpose of delivering a parcel from the back part of the coach, and gave the reins to a boy who sat on the box.

While he was delivering the parcel to a person who stood near the after wheel of the coach the boy cracked the whip, and the horses set off at full speed. Several attempts were made to stop them, but in vain; they passed Ewell church, and tore away about twelve yards of strong paling, when, the wheels mounting a small eminence, the coach was overturned, and the whole of the passengers were thrown from the roof. Some of them were in a state of insensibility, showing no symptoms of life. One female, who was thrown upon some spikes, which entered her breast and neck, was dreadfully mutilated, none of her features being distinguishable; she lingered until the following day, when she expired in the greatest agony.

While the "True Blue" coach, which ran daily between Leeds and Wakefield, was descending Belle-hill (the precaution of locking the wheel not having been observed) the horses got into a gallop, and at the bottom, the coach being on the wrong side of the road, came in contact with a coal-cart with such violence as to break the shaft of the cart and to tear away the wheel of the coach with a part of the axletree. The coachman was thrown from the box and pitched with his head upon the ground, by which his skull was dreadfully fractured, and he died instantly. The coach went forward on three wheels for ten yards, and then fell over. One of the outside passengers received a severe internal injury, and very faint hopes were entertained of his recovery. Another of the outside passengers was thrown under the coach, and had his thigh broken in two places. He was conveyed to the Leeds General Infirmary, and suffered the amputation of his limb, but died in the course of the night.

In August, 1828, as the Devonport Mail was leaving London, the horses, which were thoroughbred, took fright, and ran off at full speed. The coachman was unable to stop them, and in passing Market Street, the near wheels of the coach coming in contact with the lamp-post at the corner, the pole and splinter-bar were broken, the horses broke loose from the carriage, and galloped off, dragging the pole and broken bar after them, till the near leader rushed against the lamp-post at the corner of Bury Street, the next street to Market Street, with such force that she broke the spine of her back.

Another accident occurred on the 20th. The turnpike gate at Matterby, between Winchester and Alresford, is placed at the foot of a hill. The horses of the London and Poole Mail, having become unmanageable at the top of the hill, descended it at a furious gallop, and came so violently in contact with the gate-post, that the post itself was broken off and carried to a considerable distance. One of the wheel-horses had his brains knocked out by the concussion, and the passengers were thrown nearly twenty yards from the coach. One of them was severely injured, but none were killed. The coachman had three ribs and his right arm broken, his eye knocked out, and his head otherwise so bruised and cut that blood flowed copiously from his mouth, nose, and ears. The guard saved himself by lying down on the footboard. The coach, notwithstanding the shock, was not overturned.

Again, on the 23rd, as the Mail from Barnstaple to Bristol had changed horses at Wivelscombe, and the coachman was about to mount the box, some noise in the street caused the horses to move down the hill. The coachman used every effort to stop them, till he was knocked down. They proceeded to the bottom of the hill, and in turning a corner the coach upset. Of three outside passengers two were thrown with great violence over a wall, one of them receiving a severe contusion in the head, and the latter having an arm broken. The third was killed. An inside passenger had an arm fractured.

In March, 1830, as the Manchester and Huddersfield Mail was returning from the former to the latter place, the horses broke out into a gallop in coming down the hill near Thornton Lodge, and became unmanageable. On arriving at Longroyd Bridge, the mail came violently in contact with the curbstone and the parapet, and the coachman and three outside passengers were precipitated over the parapet on the rocks and gravel below, a fall of eight or nine yards. The horses then broke the pole and proceeded with it at a furious rate to Huddersfield, in the streets of which two of them fell from exhaustion, and, being entangled in the harness, a stop was put to the career of the other two. Of the three passengers, one was found senseless, and died immediately; another had a leg broken; the coachman was much injured; the third passenger, though his fall was four feet lower than that of his companions in misfortune, sustained scarcely any injury. Two other passengers and the guard were providentially thrown upon the road, and were but slightly hurt.

In the month of September, 1836, three fatal coach accidents occurred. On the 10th, as the Peveril, Manchester, and London night coach was on its way to London, and about five miles beyond Bedford, the pole-chain got loose and one of the horses began kicking and plunging, and almost immediately the end of the pole attached to the coach became unfastened. The weight of the coach pressed upon the horses (the coach then being at the brow of a hill), and they had no power of resistance. The coachman kept the horses in the road till they reached the bottom of the hill, when the near wheels ran upon the grass, which was not more than four or five inches higher than the road, and caused the coach to overturn on the off side into the road. One gentleman attempted to jump off; he fell upon his face, and the coach fell upon him, and on the coachman. They remained nearly a quarter of an hour in that position, and when extricated the passenger was quite dead, and the coachman severely injured, one shoulder being dislocated, and his head and body much cut and injured. Of the male passengers four had their shoulders dislocated.

In the month of February, 1807, as the Liverpool mail coach was changing horses at the inn at Monk's Heath, between Congleton and Newcastle-under-Lyme, the horses which had performed the stage from Congleton having just been taken off, and separated, hearing Sir Peter Warberton's foxhounds in full cry, immediately started after them with their harness on, and kept up the chase to the last. One of them, a blood mare, kept the track with the whipper-in, and gallantly followed him for about two hours, over every leap he took, until the fox, who was a cowardly rogue, had led them round in a ring fence, and ran to ground. The sportsmen who witnessed the feats of this gallant animal were Sir Harry Mainwaring, Messrs. Cholmondeley, Layford Brooke, Edwin Corbett, Davenport, Townshend, Pickford, &c. These spirited horses were led back to the inn at Monk's Heath, and performed their stage back to Congleton the same evening, apparently in higher spirits for having had a gallop with the hounds.

Mail robberies, though not so prevalent as in former years, existed as late as the year 1839; for in the month of June, at the Worship Street office, information was given of a daring attempt to rob the mail between Enfield and Edmonton. In October of the same year a box containing five thousand pounds in notes and gold was stolen from the Manchester and Staffordshire coach.

An extraordinary accident occurred in the same month, when a coach was burnt on the railway. As the "Regulator" coach, from Bristol to London, was proceeding on one of the uptrains to London, having a quantity of luggage on the top, owing to the large quantity of sparks which issued from the chimney, the luggage took fire, a fact which was only discovered by the coachman (who happened, fortunately, to have remained inside) seeing sparks of fire falling from the top of the coach by the window. The coachman, at the hazard of his life (the train going at the rate of forty miles an hour at the time), got out and clambered on the roof, and by great exertions removed the luggage from the roof, and thereby saved the greater part; but the brisk current of air created by the rapid speed at which the coach was progressing rendered all attempts to extinguish the flame unavailable until the roof was destroyed, when, the embers falling inside, the guard, who had come to the coachman's assistance, succeeded in putting out the fire.

In 1832 Mr. Babbage, in his work on the "Economy of Manufactures," suggested a new plan of conveying the mail. The immense revenue of the Post Office would afford means of speedier conveyance. The letter-bags do not ordinarily weigh a hundred pounds, and were then conveyed in bulky machines of many thousand times the weight, drawn by four horses, and delayed by passengers. Mr. Babbage proposed the erection of pillars along each line of road, these pillars to be connected by inclined wires or iron rods, along which the letters inclosed in cylinders attached to the rods by rings are to slide; persons stationed on these columns were to forward the cylinders from each point, after having extracted the contents belonging to their own station. In this manner it was calculated that a letter might be sent (from pillar to post) to the furthest limits of the land in the course of a very small portion of time; from London to York, probably, in an hour or two. In the absence of pillars, and in the interior districts, it was suggested that church-steeples, properly selected, might answer the purpose, and in London the churches might be used for the circulation of the twopenny post. The introduction of the rail and the telegraph has completely remedied the evil Mr. Babbage complained of.

In May, 1830, much attention was excited in the neighbourhood of Portland Place by the appearance of a steam-carriage, which made its way through a crowded passage, without any perceptible impulse. There was neither smoke nor noise; there was no external force nor apparent directing agent; the carriage seemed to move by its own volition, passing by horses without giving them the least alarm. Five gentlemen and a lady formed the passengers. One gentleman directed the moving principle, and another appeared to sit unconcerned behind, but his object was ascertained to be the care of the fuel and water. The carriage was lightly and conveniently built, not larger nor heavier than a phaeton. It went without the least vibration, and preserved a balance in the most complicated movements. The pace was varied from five to twelve miles an hour, according to pleasure.

Coaching is still the only means of conveyance in many parts of the Australian colonies, and in certain districts where the roads are bad, or owing to the nature of the country, it is often attended with considerable danger. The following account of an accident which lately occurred in Tasmania, taken from the "Hobart Town Mercury," will probably be interesting to many who have travelled by coach in days gone by.

"An extraordinary accident happened to the Falmouth mail-coach on the 10th instant, and the passengers experienced an escape from an awful death, which seems little short of miraculous. After leaving the little township of Cullenswood, the coach enters St. Mary's Pass, noted both for its extreme beauty and for the danger with which the journey through it is sometimes attended. About four hundred yards from the mouth of the pass on entering, the road is not more than twelve feet wide. A lofty wall of rock bounds the road on one side, and on the other is a precipice plunging almost sheer down to a depth of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred feet.

"When Page's coach arrived at this dangerous spot, on the day in question, a lad with two horses happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Instead of retreating into one of the recesses made for the purpose, while the coach passed, the lad persisted in going on, and drove his horses between the vehicle and the cliff, one of the horses backing across the road in front of the coach, the horses in which took fright and fell, hanging over the precipice. With great presence of mind, the coachman cut the harness, and the horses, thus freed, fell through the brushwood down to the bottom of the precipice of which we have spoken.

"Fortunately for the occupants of the coach—Messrs. Wikborg and Rattray, who were on their way to George's Bay—the wheels caught in a log laid on the outside edge of the road, otherwise nothing could have prevented the coach and passengers from following the horses in their headlong fall, with what would almost certainly have been a fatal result. The horses, strange to say, were found almost uninjured, and an attempt was made to get them up the cliff again, but when one of the animals had succeeded in climbing about fifty feet from the valley, he slipped and fell to the bottom. Subsequently a track was cut by some of the natives of the district, and both horses were got out safe and sound."