File:Stage-coach and mail in days of yore - a picturesque history of the coaching age (1903) (14595825950).jpg

Identifier: stagecoachmailin01harp (find matches)
Title: Stage-coach and mail in days of yore : a picturesque history of the coaching age
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Harper, Charles G. (Charles George), 1863-1943
Subjects: Horses Coaching (Transportation) -- History
Publisher: London : Chapman & Hall, limited
Contributing Library: Tufts University
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University and the National Science Foundation

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itsaflluents. There, indeed, they were numerous.The old original of the name was started in1788, and kej^t the road between London andEdinburgh until 18f0. There Avere at leastsix others. Telegrapli coaches, however, were notpeculiar to any one road or district. Introducedabout 1781 on the Leeds and Newcastle road,there were two others in Yorkshire, and in 1805and 1811 New Telegraph and Telegraphcoaches were on the Brighton Road. In thetwenties a Southampton Telegrajih, a Man-chester Telegrajih, and a Reading Telegraph flourished; while beyond all others in theirfame and exploits were the immortal ExeterTelegraph, started in 1826 l)y Mrs. Ann Nelson,of the Bull, Aldgate, to travel the 173 milesbetween Piccadilly and Exeter in 17 hours,and the Manchester Telegraph day coach of1833, doing 186 miles in 18 hours. Before theadvance of the Great Western Railway broughtthe Exeter Telegraph off the road, it hadcut down the length of the journey by threehours, Coaches rejoicing in this name^a
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HOIV THE COACHES HERE NAMED 303 synonym for siDeed—were necessarily the fasteston the road, but they did not, of course, obtainthe title from the electric telegraph, inventedonly in 1838. It Avas derived from the systemof semaj^hore signalling, the quickest method ofcommunication then known, by which messageswere signalled between London and the coast,from lofty hills even yet marked on the Ordnancemaps, Telegraph Hill. Of how inconceivablyswift telegraphy would in a comparatively shorttime become, the old coach-projirietors could havehad not the remotest inkling, but they did notsuffer from excess of modesty, and had the in-stantaneous signalling of electricity been knownin their time, it would by no means have deterredthem from christening their coaches in impudentrivalry with it. The Exeter Telegraph was put on tocompete with another, and equally famous,coach, the Devonport Mail, generally known incoaching annals as the Quicksilver. Thiscelebrated mail started about 1820. Passing

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