City Toll Gates.—How Toll was Levied.—The Infirmary.—Old City Breweries.—The Calculating Boy.—Starting the Railways.—Frisby’s Feat.—Tales of the Coaching Days.—Tally-Ho Coach.—A Contrast.—A Story of Lord Fitzwilliam.—Smothering the Cathedral.—The Old Mill.—Simpson’s Packet.—Mr. Whalley’s Joke.—Postal Charges.—Franking Letters.—The City Beadle.—Parish Constables and Gaol.—A Notorious Family.—Fairs.—City Bells.—Sedan Chairs.—Whittlesey Mere.

When I came to Peterboro’ in Oct., 1833, I think our population was five or six thousand. In the month of August I came down to make arrangements for my being articled to the late Mr. Gates. I was taken charge of by my father, and protected by my sister, and we drove from Northampton, where my father was a medical man having an extensive practice, and could only spare one day. During the night a most extraordinary storm sprang up. We had to go back during that storm. There was an enormous destruction of timber on the road between here and Northampton, and in many other parts of the country. It was a storm such as very seldom rages in these latitudes in the summer months. In one part of the journey was a great avenue of trees, a considerable portion of which was destroyed. It was the property of a worthy squire, and I remember hearing it remarked, “How much Mr. So-and-So will feel the destruction of his avenue.” “Oh dear no,” said the person spoken to, “don’t you know that that property is settled property, and he has no power of cutting timber, and he will be highly delighted. He thinks the avenue is much improved, as it puts a very good sum of money into his pocket, which is very welcome to him.” You see it is an ill wind that blows nobody good.

Peterborough Market Place in the Coaching Days. (From a Print, 1836). “Peterborough has much altered since those days.”—Andrew Percival

When I got here, the first thing I saw when I looked round the town was that it was confined by toll bars. There was a toll bar just over the bridge, where the little house since converted into shops then was. At the other end of the town, on the Lincoln Road, was another toll bar; on the Thorney Road was another, and at the back of Westgate another. Our town had four gates drawn across the four entrances; on the road now known as Lincoln Road East, then Crawthorne Lane, there was a side bar to prevent anyone getting out of the town without paying contributions. One enquired what these meant, because within a mile or two on each of the main roads you would find another toll bar, at which they duly took toll, and the only villages that could get into Peterborough without paying toll were Yaxley, Farcet, and Stanground, as the turnpike road toll on that road, the old London Road, was near Norman Cross. Otherwise, our system was so ingeniously contrived that you could not get into or out of Peterborough without paying town toll at the end of the street, which were tolls for the pavement. This was rather a peculiar system. I do not wish to quote Scripture, but you will recollect the enquiry, “Of whom do the Kings of the earth take tribute? Of their own children or of strangers, and they said ‘of strangers.’ Then the comment was ‘Then are the children free!’”

The system that our forefathers adopted for encouraging communication and traffic was this: They put a toll on for their pavements, from the payment of which they exempted themselves, and took it from the strangers that came into the place. The only exceptions were when the inhabitants of the place travelled on Sundays. Toll collectors were then authorised to take toll from them, and also from those who hired vehicles in the place, the result being if you were an inhabitant of the place, and had the luck to keep your carriage or gig or wagon, or whatever it was, you might use the pavement as much as you pleased, and pay nothing. But if you were a poor person, or could only treat yourself occasionally with the luxury of a gig, or were obliged to hire a trap for business, yon were immediately taken toll of.

The present Hospital or Infirmary was then a private dwelling-house. The Dispensary which existed then was a small house opposite the Old Burial Ground, the one now occupied by Mr. Payling, the dentist. After some years, it was removed from this place to what is now the Police Station in Newtown. Soon after this, the Earl Fitzwilliam purchased the present building and presented it to the City, a monument of his appreciation of the good that had been done in a small way by the existing buildings, and which, I think, in the present arrangements, fully carried out his Lordship’s benevolent wishes.

There were two considerable features of Peterborough which have entirely disappeared. Where Queen Street and North Street now stand were two large breweries, known as Buckle’s Brewery and Squires’s Brewery. They were quite institutions of the place, and it always strikes me as a very strange thing that they should have entirely disappeared, as one of them would have been larger than all the breweries now in Peterborough. Buckles’ Brewery was certainly a very remarkable one, and carried on with great energy and spirit. There was one peculiarity they had—that some friends of the partners could assemble on Easter Monday and spend the afternoon in playing at marbles. I have spent pleasant afternoons there on Easter Mondays. There were two large tuns or barrels in which the beer was kept, one of which was called Mrs. Clarke, and the other the Duke of York, to perpetuate a scandal at the time when they were constructed. A very hospitable time always followed the game at marbles.

Buckles’ Brewery was the cause of another peculiar circumstance. On one occasion there visited the town for the amusement of the people, a calculating boy. He went through, his entertainment with great success, and at last one of our worthy inhabitants got up and asked the question “How many gallons does Mr. Buckles’ great copper hold?” The boy said he could not tell. “No; I thought you could not,” was the reply. Our worthy citizen had forgotten to give the dimensions of the copper, and went away rejoicing over the fact that he had puzzled the calculating boy!

He reminds me very much of a story one has heard in connection with our own professional experience. A witness was called to prove an assault, which consisted in a man having been knocked down by a stone thrown at him. The counsel was anxious to ascertain the size of the stone. The witness said “do you want to know how big it was?” “Yes,” said the counsel. “The size do you mean?” “Yes.” “Well, it was biggish.” “Well, I want you to tell me how big it was”! “Well, sir, if you want me to tell you how big it was, I should think it was as big as a lump o’ chalk.” Now, I think the gentleman who put the question about the copper, and the witness, must have been very nearly related.

When I arrived in the City, it became very important to me to know how I could get away from it. I lived at Northampton. Between Peterborough and Northampton there are now eleven trains a day. When I came to Peterborough in 1833, and for some years afterwards, the only communication between the town of Northampton and the City of Peterborough was a one-horse carrier’s cart, which came twice a week, and I think the large proportion of its business consisted in carrying parcels from the Probate Office at Northampton to the Probate Office at Peterborough. For coaches we were pretty well off. Two mails ran through Peterborough, the Boston Coach, and the Coach to Hull. We used to go shares with the town of Stamford with a London Coach. One of our townsmen ran a coach to Stilton daily, where it joined the coach from Stamford. At one time that coach carried the letter bag, and on one occasion it started without the bag.There was a man known as “Old John Frisby,” who was not quite “all there,” and this man went after the coach with the letter bag, and overtook it at Stilton. The poor man was under the impression that he had done the State a great service and thought he ought to receive a pension, and he daily expected it until his death.

The Mail Coaches were very comfortable for travelling in fine weather, and an eight or ten hours’ journey was very pleasant, providing you did not ride inside. A journey to London and Edinburgh occupied two whole days and nights. The expense of such a mode of travelling was very great, being five or six times as much as the ordinary first class railway fare. Every fifty or sixty miles the Coachman would touch his hat and say, “I leave you here, sir,” which meant that you were to give him a fee. The guard would do the same, and when your luggage was put up, the ostler came to you. If you travelled post or in “a yellow and two,” as it was called, you had to pay 1s. 6d. a mile, beside the toll bars, and 3d. a mile for the post boy, as well as something more that he always expected. The 3d. a mile for the post boy, as his regular fee, is about equal to the highest first class railway fare that is paid on any railway in the country.

Just conceive what a change there is in the communication and you do not wonder that the introduction of the railway system has made a stationary nation into a nation of travellers. After a time things did improve a little. The Birmingham Railway was made at considerable cost. When I wanted to go to Northampton, for many years I had to get up at six o’clock in the morning, hire a gig to go to Thrapston, where I caught the Cambridge coach, which ran in connection with the coach at Oxford. It cost about £4 to go home and come back again. When the Blisworth railway was opened, a coach was set up from Lynn to Blisworth six days in the week. This was a great convenience, and was very well supported. There were two coachmen. One was very grave and serious and the other light and frivolous. Everybody knew them very well indeed. It was very amusing to travel with them.

At last, the Northampton Railway was projected, and it was plain to those men that their reign was coming to an end; but they used to endeavour to convert you to the belief that it was far better for things to remain as they were. The light and frivolous one used to sing a song in praise of the “Tally Ho” Coach. I remember the chorus was:

Let the steam pot hiss
Until it is hot.
Give me the speed of
The Tally-ho trot!

The other coachman used to appeal to your fears, and say how dreadful it was when a railway accident occurred—“when an accident occurred to the coach—there you are! Just fancy an accident at 20 or 30 miles an hour; when that happens, where are you?”

Well, we have survived it, and I am not sure that he was accurate in his per centage of those injured in coach and railway accidents. I have known some very fatal and distressing accidents bearing a very large proportion of injuries and deaths to those in the coach. I may mention that the Lynn coach of Messrs. Hill was very good to take you to the sea, it was very hard work to get to the beach in these days. I believe Skegness consisted of a single house. The nearest place was Yarmouth, and Messrs. Hill’s car took you to Lynn, where you could join the Birmingham and Yarmouth mail. I have never forgotten my first visit to Yarmouth when a boy. From the Norwich Road you caught the first view of the sea. As you enter Yarmouth now by rail you go in over the marshes, and the last two or three miles are by the side of muddy water, and you cannot see the sea until you get on the beach. The contrast between the way by the old coach and by the rail is very striking, indeed.

In the year 1842 or 1843 it was rumoured that the London and North-Western Company were about to feel their way eastward, and the project for making the Peterborough and Northampton Railway was put into shape. Our wildest dreams never expected a railway. We had a coach, and that was quite a novelty. The Bishop and Dean and Chapter had a good deal of property on the line, and strongly opposed the railway. When the Bill came into the House of Lords it was, to our great delight, passed by a majority of One. There is an anecdote of Lord Fitzwilliam, who was an opponent of the Bill. That one day his Lordship was coming down by train, and in the same carriage was one of those gentlemen who knew everything. This gentleman was giving to a friend a history of the line, and when passing Alwalton Lynch said: “That is the road to Milton Park, and do you know that Lord Fitzwilliam opposed the Bill because they would not make him a station there?” A little further on the train stopped at Overton Station, and his Lordship got out. Just as he was shutting the door he said to the gentleman: “That little anecdote which you just told your friend about that crossing is not true, and when you say anything more about it you may say that Lord Fitzwilliam told you so.”

The Northampton line was opened in 1845, and I remember being in the Cathedral when the first engine came down. It stopped at the end of the Fair Meadow, for the Dean and Chapter prevented the line being brought any nearer the town, as they would not have Bridge Fair interfered with. The engine was only about one-third the size of what they are now, but when it blew off steam people said they would never be able to hear anything in the Cathedral! Yet now no notice is taken of what was looked upon then as a deafening noise.

We had next the London and York Railway, which then crossed the Thorpe Road near where the old mill stood. Lord Fitzwilliam compelled the Company to put the line by the side of the Syston and Peterborough Railway, where it is now. There were some amusing incidents connected with the Syston Railway. It was strongly opposed by Lord Harborough, and there were riots and fights between his men and the surveyors of the line. I will say no more about the railway system.

The communications with Peterborough would be very incomplete if one forgot the river, because the river in those days was very necessary to the comfort of the town. I daresay now, if I were to quote Cowper’s lines:

Nen’s barge-laden waves,

people might say they did not think the load is very heavy. But before the construction of the railway, and for some year’s afterwards, barges were found in very great abundance. We derived our whole coal supply from the river, and it was our great channel for carrying corn and timber. The importance of the Nene to the counties through which it passed was very great. Amongst other things was a Packet called “Simpson’s Packet,” and another belonging to Messrs. James and Thomas Hill, which conveyed light goods and passengers between Peterborough and Wisbech. I recollect the old gentleman who commanded the packet held a very high rank in the Navy indeed. He was a wooden-legged old gentleman, very much respected, and known by the name of Admiral Russell. He was commander of the Packet for many years. I do not know who succeeded him, but someone who did not attain so high a rank.

There was a joke against Mr. Whalley, M.P., that he promised to make Peterborough a Seaport. If the projected scheme had been fairly carried out according to the original intention of the promoters, there would not have been a deal of money wasted. Some think even now it should not be given up altogether, if only for the purpose of preventing the railway companies from putting too high prices on the carriage of goods in cases where speed of transit is not essential. Goods used to be brought from Wisbech in lighters, and it was a serious thing in frosty weather, because all our coals were brought by the river, and when the frost lasted long there was danger of a coal famine.

Now I may mention about the postage. When I first knew Peterborough the postage of a letter to London was 8d. A little further on it would be 10d., and go on, until it came to about 1s. 4d. When you were going to London in those days you would receive visits from your friends, who would ask you to take letters for them and put them in the 2d. Post in London, and sometimes it happened that these letters were found in your coat pocket when you got home again! The postage of a ½oz. letter was 8d., but if you cut the sheet of paper in two and used one-half as an envelope, the postage was 1s. 4d. If you divided the sheet of paper again and wrote a cheque on one quarter of it, and the receipt to be signed and returned on the other and put them into the other half sheet, the postage was again doubled. When I was at school my eldest brother, in a fit of benevolence, sent me 2s. 6d. in a letter, and I was delighted until I was told the postage was 2s. 8d. The matron, however, found a way out of it. She put the 2s. 8d. down to the governor’s account, and I had the half-crown.

These rates of postage were very heavy, but Members of Parliament had the privilege of what was called “franking” letters. They were continually being applied to for these franks. They were only allowed, however, to send a certain number of letters, and you always ran the risk of having a bill sent in from the Post Office to the person having the privilege of “franking,” and they would send a footman to you, and you would then have to pay your share. This privilege of franking was abused, and one would hear that so and so had franked a ham, and one person was said to have franked a piano! Whether this was the truth or not I do not know, but it shows the advantage of getting rid of exceptional privileges.

A few words about the government of our City. When I first came to the Town, the principal governor, the one who made the greatest impression on my youthful imagination, at all events, was the Beadle. He was a very important personage. His principal duty was to see the tramps out of the town. He could not arrest them, but had to “fidget” them out. He was always chosen with special reference to his age and infirmity. He had a long robe, a mace, and a cocked hat. He looked very imposing, almost like Old Scarlett in the Cathedral put into a long coat, a pair of knee breeches, and a cocked hat. He was paid in this way: At the Quarter Sessions he waited upon the Magistrates with a bill: “A man and a woman sent out Stamford Road,” “Two tramps and a child, Lincoln Road,” and so on. As we say educationally, he was paid by results. He was allowed so much according to his services. He was the principal officer of the place, and was appointed by the Feoffees.

About the year 1857 we were protected by Parish Constables, and I think the principal duty of the constable was to report himself at the Quarter Sessions. We had two gaols—we could not do with one! One of these was that in the Minster Precincts, recently vacated by the School of Art. The other stood upon what is now the site of the Cumbergate Almshouses. The one in the Minster Yard was maintained by Lord Exeter as Lord Paramount. The other one, I think, was paid for by the Magistrates. In 1840 we got an Act of Parliament for a new gaol, and it was brought about in this way: In about the year 1838 or 1839 a person walking through the Minster Yard saw a head pop up out of the pavement, a body followed, walked off, and was never heard of again. The man had simply undermined the foundations of his cell with a knife or bone and disappeared! He was the first that discovered that way of escape!

About the same time in Peterborough was a family named Rogers. They were the black sheep of the place. The head of the family was known as Jimmy Rogers, and he took it into his head to dine one day upon sheep’s head and pluck which he stole from a butcher’s shop. He was ordered to be put into the Feoffees’ Gaol. He picked his way out, and this thief of the district and his family disappeared and never came back again. It was thought to be time we had a gaol, and the present building on the Thorpe Road was erected.

You must not think that we had no amusements. We used to have a theatre on the site where the Corn Exchange now stands, and a very good theatre it was. A very good company used to come for about three months in the summer, and a very good entertainment was afforded. The Bishop and his Lady of those days used to make a point of attending during the season, and it was quite the thing to go to the theatre.

The Fairs were very important in those days. The importance must not be judged by what is seen of them now. Bridge Fair was then most important. It shows the antiquity of the fairs that they had a special Court. All fairs and markets of any antiquity had this Court which was to do justice between man and man in any disputes arising at the fairs.

We had two Balls regularly, one for the National School and one for the Infirmary. When political feeling ran high one Party would go to the National School Ball and the other to the Infirmary Ball. At other times each party would go to both.

Peterborough was one of the last places in which Sedan chairs flourished. They went on until some time after the railways were established, which altered everything. The men were too much occupied to be able to go with the Sedan chairs when they were wanted, and so they gradually died out.

A Peterborough Sedan Chair. “Peterborough was one of the last places in which Sedan chairs flourished.”—Andrew Percival

Whittlesey Mere existed in those days. It was thus called because it had nothing whatever to do with Whittlesey. It was several miles away. Whittlesey Mere was one of the wonders of Huntingdonshire, Whittlesey being in Cambridgeshire. Whittlesey Mere was a charming place for skating in frosty weather and for fishing in the summer time, when there was water enough, and for boating under the same circumstances. Sometimes, when there had been a dry time it became so shallow that you stirred up mud from the bottom when you attempted to sail. It was very good for fishing. One day we were out with a party, and we stopped at old Bellamy Bradford’s landing place. It shelved off so gradually that the distinction between grass and water was so graduated that a large pike, probably in pursuit of a fish, had gone so far as to be prevented from getting back to his native element. The place was surrounded by reed shoals, where reeds for thatching grew, and these were the resort of innumerable starlings.

Photo. T. N. Green. Ball & Co., Peterborough. A bit of Old Paston. Peterborough people used to be married and buried in the enclosed parish of Paston—a kind of oasis in the desert.—Andrew Percival