The Brighton Road

into existence almost contemporaneously. Very soon after 1800 it became "the thing" to drive a coach, and shortly after this became such a definite ambition, there arose that contradiction in te

ching won on the Brighton Road a

RATIC C

The "Age," too, had been driven by Mr. Stevenson, a gentleman and a graduate of Cambridge, whose "passion for the bench," as "Nimrod" says, superseded all other worldly ambitions. He became a coachman by profession, and a good professional he made; but he had not forgotten his education and early training, and he was, as a whip, singularly refined and courteous. He ca

and took to the road; became part proprietor of the "Age," broke off from Stevenson, and eventually l

and such full-fledged expertness in driving a coach that Cripps, a coachmaster of Brighton and proprietor of the "Coronet," not only was overjoyed to hav

s advent upon the Brighton Road. In 1828 his famous "Age" was put on the road, built for him by Aldebert, the foremost coach-builder of the period, and appointed in every way with unex

llence of this as fatal to the production of those qualities that went to make an historic name.

A slow coach, the "Life Preserver," was even put on the road to win the support of old ladies and the timid, who, as the record of accidents tells us, did well to be timorous. But accidents would happen to fast and slow alike. The "Coburg" was upset at Cuckfield in August, 1819. Six of the

AUFORT" COACH S

OFFICE, PICCADI

tint after W

s for the times they individually made, and for the inns from which they started, you who are insatiable of dry bones of fact may go to the Library of the British Museum and find your Cary (without an "e") and do your gnawing of them. That they started at all manner of hours, even the most unc

OF THE

mes," "Duke of York," "Royal George," "True Blue," "Patriot," "Post," and the "Summer Coach," so called, and they nearly all started from the City and Holbo

ished; the "Old Bell and Crown" Inn, Holborn, where the "Alert," the "Union," and the "Times" drew up daily in the old-fashioned galleried courtyard, is swept away. Were Viator to return to-morrow, he would surely want to return to Hades, or Paradise, wherever he may be, at once. Around h

who would know aught of the coaches that plied in the years when it was published, gives no particulars of the many

that the sixteen permanent coaches then running, summer and winter, received between them a sum of ￡60,000 per annum, and the total sum expended in fares upon co

and dashed the coach and themselves into an area sixteen feet deep. The coach was battered almost to pieces, and one lady was seri

TARTING FROM CASTL

ing after C. C

CARR

land-steamers" between London and Brighton, but did not actually appear upon this road with his "Infant" until November, 1832. The contrivance performed the double journey with some difficulty and in slower time than the coaches: but Hancock on that eventful day confidently declared that he was perfecting a newer machine by whi

on on some eventful morning of that same year. A prison-van is, by comparison with this fearsome object, a thing of beauty; but in the picture you will observe enthusiasm on foot and on h

ndon coaches ran from the Blue Office (Strevens & Co.), five from the Red Office (Mr. Goodman's), four from the "Spread Eagle" (Chaplin & Crunden's)

f excursionising was not so acute as now, that day's return was remarkable; it was a day that fully justified the note made of it. Then, too, those few hundreds benefited the town more certainly than perhaps their number multiplied by ten does now. For the Brighton visitor of a hundred years ago, once set down in Castle Square, had to remain the night at least in Brighton; for him there was no returning to London the same day. And so the Brighton folks ha

day upon the King's Road, and his evening in town again, yet the pace at which the coaches went in

te stopping-place, the "Elephant and Castle." But on July 15th of the same year an accident, by which several persons were very seriously injured, happened to the up "Quicksilver" when starting from Brighton. Snow, who was driving, could not hold the team in, and they bolted away, and brought up violently agai

AM-CARRIAGE LEAVING LON

t after G.

ING R

reat drive of July 13th, 1888, his times being out and in respectively, 3 hours 56 minutes, and 3 hours 54 minutes. Then again, on another road, on May Day, 1830, the "Independent Tally-ho," running from London to Birmingham, covered those 109 miles in 7 hours 39 minutes, a better record than Selby's London to Brighton and back drive by eleven minutes, with an additional mile to t

en in the cut-throat competition of coach proprietors with their fellows in previous years to 10s. inside, 5s. outside for the single journey, now rose to 21s. and 12s. Every man that horsed a coach, seeing now was

so that we often fail to note the disadvantages and discomforts endured in those days; but, amid regret

side inn and a d

saloon, but ther

that "even in a 'case' in a coach, it's 'there you are'; whereas

coach proprietors who wished to retain the competencies they had accumulated were well advised to shun all competition with steam, and others had been wise enough to cut th

Mail in 1838-continued a few months longer. The Day Mail ceased i