The Stage Coaches

Besides this excellent convenience of conveying letters, and men on horseback, there is of late such admirable commodiousness, both for men and women of better rank, to travel from London to almost any great town in England, and to almost all the villages near this great city, that the like hath not been known in the world, and that is by stage coaches, wherein one may be transported to any place, sheltered from foul weather, and foul ways, free from endamaging one’s health or body, by hard jogging or over violent motion, and this not only at a low price, as about a shilling for every five miles, but with such velocity and speed, as that the posts in some foreign countries, make not more than a mile a day; for the Stage Coaches called Flying Coaches, make forty or fifty miles in a day, as from London to Oxford, or Cambridge, and that in the space of 12 hours, not counting the time for dining; setting forth not too early, nor coming in too late.


Text from The World in Miniature, a series of volumes created for the publisher Rudolf Ackermann, and written by W.H. Pyne. Illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, Augustus Pugin, and W.H. Pyne.

Text, p 98-97, The World in Miniature: England, Scotland, and Ireland, edited by W.H. Pyne, containing a description of the character, manners, customs, dress, diversions, and other peculiarities of the inhabitants of Great Britain. In Four Volumes; illustrated with eighty-four coloured engravings, Volume 1, London, 1827, Printed for R. Ackermann, Repository of Arts, Strand.

Click below for more about this publication:

• The World in Miniature: Click on the topics, such as stagecoach, the bishop, or the milk woman, to read about those topics.

• Henry Pyne's vignettes of working class life, Republic of Pemberley

• Prints from Pyne's

• R.E. Lewis and Daughter: Original Prints

• Click here for a biography about William Henry Pyne
  

An American in Regency England: From Richmond to Hyde Park Corner

From 1809 to 1811, Louis Simond, a French emigre who lived in America, spent 21 months in England. He chronicled his trip in journals, which he published as The Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain.

I have in my possession a copy of his book, which has been retitled "An American in Regency England." Occasionally, I will post Simond's observations, as they seem as fresh now as the day he recorded them.

"January 11.--We arrived yesterday at Richmond. This morning I set out by myself for town, as London is called par excellence, in the stage-coach, crammed inside, and herisse outside with passengers, of all sexes, ages, and conditions. We stopped more than twenty times on the road--the debates about the fare of way-passengers--the settling themselves--the getting up, and the getting down, and damsels shewing their legs in the operation, and tearing and muddying their petticoats--complaining and swearing--took an immense time. I never saw any thing so ill managed. In about two hours we reached Hyde Park corner; I liked the appearance of it; but we were soon lost in a maze of busy, smoky, dirty streets, more and more so as we advanced."

Click here to find the Royal Parks, including Hyde Park and Richmond Park.

Travel During the Regency Period

When Sir Richard, The Corinthian in Georgett Heyer's novel of the same name, escorts his young charge, Pen, to her childhood home, he is boxed inside a public carriage with an assemblage of memorable characters. Jane and Georgette refer to Postillions as a matter of course whenever their heroes and heroines travel. I found the following definition from a public British site:

"In practice the Postillion was the man with spare horses held in a stable by the difficult spots in the road, to help speed the mail and passenger coaches on their way. This would generally develop into a break-point in the journey for the driver and passengers to pause on their journey, eat, refresh themselves etc. Over time this would develop into a Coaching Inn, Services."

For more details about public travel, click on this link to the History of Coaching, from the Regency Collection.

For more about the conditions of England's roads during this era, click on Coaching Days and Road Engineers by J. B. Calvert.

Regency Transportation includes illustrations of carts, coaches, carriages, horses, chariots, dog carts, phaetons, curricles, and more.

Carriages in Regency and Victorian Times includes a detailed description of the vehicles in an article by Ellen Micheletti.

This link to the Hackney Horse Society includes a short historical description.

Question:
I am setting a novel in 1784 England. My lead character is to take a hackney coach from London to Yorkshire in June. I am hoping to find out how long this trip would take and what towns she would pass through. Thanks for your help.

Answer:
1784 was just before the highly improved mail coaches were introduced on the main routes across Great Britain. They cut travelling times by nearly half. The London-York route in 1784 would have taken about three days, leaving London early on the first day and arriving in York late on the third day about 60 hours later. Overnight stops would have been made at such towns as Royston, Grantham or Doncaster depending on the distance travelled. By the 1780s roads had improved thus allowing for a quicker journey, but this was offset by the fact that the improvements in the roads were paid for by turnpikes. These basically were tollgates on selected turnpike roads which every vehicle had to stop at and pay a toll for the upkeep of the road, so journey times were lengthened by stopping at these turnpikes. Horses were changed every ten miles or so and there were lunch stops, so the journey was far from smooth, there were many stops along the way. If you had set your novel a few years later then the mail coaches would have been running on the Great North Road from 1788. These were faster carriages that passed straight through the turnpikes without stopping by paying the toll in advance and sounding the posthorn to warn the turnpike keeper to open the gate to let the carriage through. The same journey in 1788 took about 40 hours with one overnight stop. You could mention such towns as Huntingdon, Stamford, Newark and Pontefract in addition to those already mentioned.My home town was a coaching town on the London-Liverpool and London-Holyhead (for ferries to Ireland) routes. The old coaching inn is still standing. If your character ever travels that route I can give you the name of the landlord in the 1780s for extra authenticity! Mark Smith, All Experts