The Royal Mail Coaches.

THE ROYAL MAIL THE ERA OF COACHING 1780 TO 1840

A stage coach was a public vehicle which did regular runs between major towns, London to York and London to Bath, Bristol, Plymouth and Brighton, Lynn, Ely, Norwich, Manchester, Leeds, were becoming essential destinations for the business man and the wealthy traveler in search of entertainment.

In 1835, 700 Mails and 3,300 coaches, needing 150,000 horses and 30,000 men used the vast network of well-made roads. The last of the London based coaches ceased in 1846, although they continued for cross post services between provincial towns until the 1850’s. The last coach in the Midlands ran out of Manchester in 1858. The Mail coaches lasted longer in places where the railways were slow to connect. In remote parts of Scotland where the railways were never built there continued coaching services until they were replaced by motor vehicles.

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Coaches had names, Magnet, Comet, Express, Lightening, Rocket, Dart, Celerity, Greyhound, Nelson, Wellington Waterloo, High Flyer, Prince Regent, Sovereign, Telegraph, Hope, Perseverance, Paragon, Good Intent, Hawk, Eagle, Swallow, Star and Aurora. Trains too on this personalisation and called a class of engines after Derby winners.

By 1839 the market was flooded with unwanted coaches. A parliamentary paper in 1836 recorded that 4,800,000 less people traveled by coach in 1838 than in 1836 and 14,400,000 more people traveled by rail in the same period.

Inner city travel by horse drawn Omnibus or Hackey cab, continued well into the 20th century. In 1891, 300,000 horses were still in use in London, 92,372 vehicles were licenced or still in use in the city, chiefly omnibuses and cabs. Much the same would have been in use in all the major cities, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Brighton etc. The coaching days were over but the use of horse drawn vehicles continued until nearly up to the Second World War.