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The Royal Mail Coaches
Being a short history of their mail and passenger service, embellished with interesting accounts and handsome prints.

Part 1
Enter, Stage Left.

John Palmer was an enterprising theatrical manager whose ideas would soon grace another form of stage. Finding it necessary to keep in close touch with actors and managers in London, and to deliver scripts and contracts, he began using his own light private coach, which was twice as fast as the post-riders of the period, more dependable--and a good deal safer. Palmer also gained valuable experience by shuttling actors, costumes, and baggage between Bath and Bristol, where the cast performed at each of the theaters he managed--on alternate nights.

John Palmer

In 1784 Palmer made a proposal to the Postmaster General, suggesting that coaches like his fast, compact, private one should replace the ambling, often-drunken, in-league-with-the-thieves postboys. Pointing out the need for a better quality of mail deliverers, he also expressed his opinion that drivers be recruited only from the cream of the available crop. To assure maximum speed, Palmer suggested that stages (stops) should be no more than ten miles apart. The punctuality of the “Mail Machine”, as he termed it, would be a further safeguard, because if it did not arrive at each stage at the appointed time there would be cause for inquiry. Ex-soldiers, according to Palmer, were the most suitable men for guards, since they were used to handling firearms and the “watch and fatigue of Late Hours.”

We’ll write and let you know.

Palmer's first proposal met with typical British resistance to change, and Palmer then asked for assistance from his friend William Pitt. Pitt used his power and position to obtain permission for a test of Palmer’s scheme, and it was then given a trial run between Bristol and London. Farley’s Bristol Journal for July 31st reported the approaching test. “Monday next the experiment for the most expeditious conveyance of the mails will be made on the road from London to Bath and Bristol: the letters to be put into the London Office every evening before eight, and to arrive next morning at Bath by ten, and Bristol at twelve o’clock (noon) - the letters for London, or any place between and beyond, to be put into the Bristol Office before three, and into the Bath Office every evening before six o’clock; which will be delivered in London the next day.”

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The “trial” mail-coach left the Rummer Tavern on All Saints Lane in Bristol at four o’clock on the afternoon of August 2nd, 1784, and arrived in London at the Swan With Two Necks, Lad Lane, before eight o’clock the following morning. It had travelled 119 miles in under 16 hours. The coach which left London at eight in the evening arrived in Bristol before noon the following day. What normally took a postboy 50 hours to accomplish, Palmer had done in his own private coach--in less than 1/3 the time. Postal history had been made to the applause of the public--but to the opposition of the highly bureaucratic Post-Office.

P.O’d.

Defying Palmer’s new scheme to improve their service and drag them kicking and screaming up the ladder of success, the P. O. neatly compiled a criticism of the proposed “new” service which ran to 3 volumes of writing. Fortunately, against their protests, the trial, which was originally scheduled for nine days, was extended. It proved continually successful, and the next year, mail-coaches were running between London and Norwich, Liverpool, Leeds, Dover, and Exeter. In May,1785, the Bath Chronicle reported a further extension of Palmer’s plan:

POST-OFFICE, BATH, May 12, 1785.
A Further extension of Mr. PALMER’s PLAN for the more safe and expeditious conveyance of the MAIL took place on MONDAY the 9th instant, when Letters on the Cross-Post for Frome, Warminster, Heytesbury, Salisbury, Romsey, Southampton, Portsmouth, Gosport, Chichester, and their Delivery, together with the Isles of Wight, Jersey, and Guernsey, all parts of Hampshire and Dorsetshire, will be forwarded from this office at five o’clock in the afternoon every day (Sunday excepted.) Letters from the above places will arrive here every morning (Monday excepted.) N.B. Letters must be put in the Office before five o’clock.

Palmer had organized and financed the service, practically unaided, for two years before the government agreed to its permanent establishment and put him in charge. And it was a good thing they did. At the same time, an officer of the Royal Engineers had proposed putting the mail inside artillery shells and firing them by cannon between stage stops. Had this plan gone into effect, mail delivery certainly would have been a “booming” business--but not of the kind hoped for by Palmer.

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What would you give for a body like this?

The prototype of the first mail-coach was Palmer’s own vehicle, which weighed less than a ton. It was smaller and 250 pounds lighter than the standard stage coach, and provided room for only 4 inside passengers, with the coachman and guard riding above. Taking these specifics into account, the special coaches for the Royal Mail were then built by London carriage maker John Besant with his own patented design. When Besant passed on in 1791, his partner John Vidler took up the reins and continued to produce the light, agile mail-coaches--with only minor modifications-- until 1835. Since the coaches were built to tight specifications and standards, interchangeability of parts proved to be a boon for repairs, both on the road and at the coach-builder’s shop.

The mail-coach was extremely well-designed and constructed primarily of ash framing with deal side-panels and a mahogany floor. The side panels were covered in leather and painted. The under-carriage was ash; felloes were beech or ash; and the wheel spokes were oak. The pole was made of ash, as were the luggage and the mail box frames.

128”-61”-86”--and snuggly!

The coach body measured 10’ 8” long, from the bottom of the footboard to the end of the mail box. Its height from the ground to the top of the door was 7’ 2”, and the width of the track was 5’1”. Inside, the 4-passenger compartment measured a cramped 43-1/2“ wide and 42-1/2” from top of seat to roof top. Legroom was a compressing 18-1/2“. The fore wheels were 42” in diameter and the rear ones 54”.

The front boot of the coach held passenger luggage and the rear boot held the mailbags. Access to this mail compartment was through a locked trap door below the guard’s feet. The guard’s seat was situated above the mail box and fastened to an iron perch. A padlocked wooden case was attached behind the passenger compartment and held the guard’s blunderbuss. The coachman’s seat rested above the luggage box, unsprung, to avoid the possibility of his being too comfortable on a journey and falling asleep. A metal skid-pad (often called a “shoe” or “slipper”) was fastened to a chain attached to the undercarriage. When the occasion arose, this was placed beneath the rear wheel to prevent the coach from rolling too fast down steep declines in the road

Who’s your decorator?

The interior of the coach had a drab fawn-coloured fabric and lace lining with double crimson stripes and matching carpet. The cushions were stuffed with the best horsehair, oilcloth was fitted to the bottom of the coach and door kick-panels, and there were two pockets made of drab fawn fabric on each door.

The body was painted in understated but elegant style; first in blue and orange, then--for most of its life--the mail coach sported the combination of maroon lower body and door panels, set off against black upper body and boots. The undercarriage and wheels were a highly contrasting “Post-Office” red. Although there were exceptions, this was pretty much the standard paint scheme for the Royal Mail. On each door, the Royal cypher was emblazoned in color between the two words “Royal” and “Mail” in gilt outlined in black. On the maroon panel just below the window, the destination town was lettered in the same style. The reigning monarch’s initials were painted in gilt on each side of the luggage boot, and the coach’s number was emblazoned on the mail boot. The Stars of the Garter and Thistle were painted on the near side of the upper body, and the Bath and St. Patrick signet on the offside. 11” brass lamps, fastened to each side, set off the elegant appearance like a pair of fashionable earrings, and gave it a truly aristocratic bearing.

With its beautiful compact appearance, the Royal Mail-coach was a site to behold as it sped along the highways --post-horn blaring to alert toll keepers
and postmasters of its arrival, and to warn everyone to clear the road. All
other vehicles were required to give way to the Royal Mail as it virtually ran
like clockwork, living up to the cry, “The mail must go through!”

In our next installment: It’s a Man’s Life in the Guards.

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