Various
Notes and Queries, Number 03, November 17, 1849
TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND
I suppose that the history of travelling in this country, from the Creation to the present time, may be divided into four periods—those of no coaches, slow coaches, fast coaches, railways. Whether balloons, or rockets, or some new mode which as yet has no name, because it has no existence, may come next, I cannot tell, and it is hardly worth while to think about it; for, no doubt, it will be something quite inconceivable.
The third, or fast-coach period was brief, though brilliant. I doubt whether fifty years have elapsed since the newest news in the world of locomotive fashion was, that—to the utter confusion and defacement of the "Sick, Lame, and Lazy," a sober vehicle so called from the nature of its cargo, which was nightly disbanded into comfortable beds at Newbury—a new post-coach had been set up which performed the journey to Bath in a single day. Perhaps the day extended from about five o'clock in the morning to midnight, but still the coach was, as it called itself, a "Day-coach," for it travelled all day; and if it did somewhat "add the night unto the day, and so make up the measure," the passengers had all the more for their money, and were incomparably better off as to time than they had ever been before. But after this many years elapsed before "old Quicksilver" made good its ten miles an hour in one unbroken trot to Exeter, and was rivalled by "young Quicksilver" on the road to Bristol, and beaten by the light-winged Hirondelle, that flew from Liverpool to Cheltenham, and troops of others, each faster than the foregoing, each trumpeting its own fame on its own improved bugle, and beating time (all to nothing) with sixteen hoofs of invisible swiftness. How they would have stared if a parliamentary train had passed them, especially if they could have heard its inmates grumbling over their slow progress, and declaring that it would be almost quicker to get out and walk whenever their jealousy was roused by the sudden flash of an express.
Certainly I was among those who rejoiced in the increased expedition of the fast-coach period; not because I loved, but because I hated, travelling, and was glad to have periods of misery abridged. I used to listen with delight to the stories of my seniors, and to marvel that in so short a space of time so great an improvement had been made. One friend told me that in earlier life he had travelled from Gloucester to Hereford in a coach, which performed the journey of about thirty miles between the hours of five in the morning and seven in the evening. I took it for granted that they stopped on the road to dine, and spent a long afternoon in smoking, napping, or playing at bowls. But he would not acknowledge anything of the kind, and the impression on his mind was that they kept going (such going as it was), except during the time necessarily expended in baiting the horses, who, I think, were not changed—unless indeed it were from bad to worse by fatigue. Another friend, a physician at Sheffield, told me that one of the first times (perhaps he may have said, the first) that a coach started for London, he was a passenger. Without setting out unreasonably early in the morning, or travelling late at night they made such progress, that the first night they lay at Nottingham, and the second at Market Harborough. The third morning they were up early, and off at five o'clock; and by a long pull and a strong pull through a long day, they were in time to hear Bow Church clock strike eleven or twelve (I forget which) as they passed through Cheapside. In fact such things have always seemed to me to be worth noting, for you never can tell to what extent, or even in what direction, they may throw some little ray of light on an obscure point of history. On this principle I thought it worth while to copy an original bill which lately fell into my hands. Many such have been reprinted, but I am not aware that this one has; and as what is wanted is a series, every little may help. It is as follows:—
"YORK Four Dayes
"Stage-Coach
"Begins on Monday the 18 of March 1678.
"All that are desirous to pass from London to York, or return from York to London or any other Place on that Road; Let them Repair to the Black Swan in Holborn in London and the Black Swan in Cony-Street in York.
"At both which places they may be received in a Stage-Coach every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which performs the whole journey in Four days (if God permit) and sets forth by Six in the Morning.
"And returns from York to Doncaster in a Forenoon, to Newark in a day and a half, to Stamford in Two days, and from Stamford to London in Two days more.
But I cannot deny that, while I have listened to, and rejoiced in, these stories, I have had some doubt whether full justice has been done to the other side of the question. I have always felt as if I had a sort of guilty knowledge of one contradictory fact, which I learned between twenty and thirty years ago, and which no one whom I have yet met with has been able to explain. For this reason I am desirous to lay it before you and your readers.
Just one hundred years ago—that is to say, on Sunday, the 10th of August, 1749—two German travellers landed at Harwich. The principal one was Stephen Schultz, who travelled for twenty years through various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the service of the Callenberg Institution at Halle, of which he was afterwards Director, being at the same time Pastor of St. Ulrich's Church in that city, where his picture is (or was about twenty years ago) to be seen affixed to the great pillar next the organ. It represents him as an elderly divine in a black cap, and with a grave and prediger-like aspect; but there is another likeness of him—an engraved print—in which he looks more like a Turk than a Christian. He is dressed in a shawl turban, brickdust-red mantle, and the rest of the costume which he adopted in his Eastern travels. Our business, however, is with his English adventures, which must, I think, have astonished him as much as anything that he met with in Arabia, even if he acted all the Thousand and One Nights on the spot. As I have already said, he and his companion (Albrecht Friedrich Woltersdorf, son of the Pastor of St. George's Church in Berlin), landed at Harwich on Sunday, August 10. They staid there that night, and on Monday they walked over to Colchester. There (I presume the next morning) they took the "Land-Kutsche," and were barely six hours on the road to London.
This statement seems to me to be so at variance with notorious facts, that, but for one or two circumstances, I should have quietly set it down for a mistake; but as I do not feel that I can do this, I should be glad to obtain information which may explain it. It is no error of words or figures, for the writer expresses very naturally the surprise which he certainly must have felt at the swiftness of the horses, and the goodness of the roads. He was a man who had seen something of the world, for he had lived five-and-thirty years, thirteen of which had elapsed since he began his travels. As a foreigner he was under no temptation to exaggerate the superiority of English travelling, especially to an extent incomprehensible by his countrymen; and, in short, I cannot imagine any ground for suspecting mistake or untruth of any kind.1
I have never been at Colchester, but I believe it is, and always was, full fifty miles from London. Ipswich, I believe, is only eighteen miles farther; and yet fifteen years later we find an advertisement (Daily Advertiser, Thursday, Aug. 30, 1764), announcing that London and Ipswich Post Coaches on steel springs (think of that, and think of the astonished Germans careering over the country from Colchester without that mitigation), from London to Ipswich in ten hours with Postillions, set out every morning at seven o'clock, Sundays excepted, from the Black Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate Street.
It is right, however, to add that the Herr Preniger Schultz and his companion appear to have returned to Colchester, on their way back to Germany, at a much more moderate pace. The particulars do not very exactly appear; but it seems from his journal that on the 16th of September they dined with the Herr Prediger Pittius, minister of the German Church in the Savoy, at twelve o'clock (nach teutscher art, as the writer observes). They then went to their lodging, settled their accounts, took up their luggage, and proceeded to the inn from which the "Stäts-Kutsche" was to start; and on arriving there found some of their friends assembled, who had ordered a meal, of which they partook. How much time was occupied in all this, or when the coach set out, does not appear; but they travelled the whole night, and until towards noon the next day, before they got to Colchester. This is rather more intelligible; but as to their up-journey I really am puzzled, and shall be glad of any explanation.
Yours, &c.
G.G.