Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore, Volume 2 (of 2): A picturesque history of the coaching ageHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore, Volume 2 (of 2): A picturesque history of the coaching age
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Coaching (Transportation) -- History
The “Quicksilver” was thereupon repainted and renamed, and, under the
alias of the “Criterion,” resumed its journeys. But ill-fortune clung
to that coach, for on June 7th, 1834, as it was leaving London, it came
into collision with a brewer’s dray opposite St. Saviour’s Church,
Southwark. A little way on, down the Borough High Street, the coachman
was obliged to suddenly pull up the horses to avoid running over a
gentleman on horseback, whose horse had bolted into the middle of the
road. The sudden strain on the pole, already, it seems, splintered in
the affair with the dray, broke it off. It fell, and became entangled
with the legs of the wheelers, who became so restive and infuriated
that attempts were made to put on the skid; but before that could be
done the coach overturned. Sir William Cosway, who was one of the
outsides, and was at that moment attempting to climb down, was pitched
off so violently that his skull was fractured, so that he died in
less than two hours afterwards. A Mr. Todhunter “sustained” (as the
reporters have it) a broken thigh.
1834.--The London and Halifax Mail came into collision with a bridge,
five miles from Sheffield. The coachman, Thomas Roberts, was killed.
The Wolverhampton and Worcester coach, in avoiding a cart coming down a
hill near Stourbridge, was upset, and a passenger killed.
_October._--A wheel came off one of Wheatley’s Greenwich coaches at
London Bridge, and one gentleman was killed.
1835. _August._--The Liverpool “Albion” fell over on entering
Whitchurch, through a worn-out linchpin. A lady inside passenger was
disfigured for life.
_June._--The Nottingham “Rapid” upset, three miles from Northampton,
through the breaking of an axle. A girl’s leg crushed, and afterwards
amputated.
_November._--The Newcastle and Carlisle Mail upset, two miles from
Hexham. Aiken, the coachman, killed.
_December 25th._--The down Exeter Mail upset on Christmas night, on
nearing Andover, through running against a bank in the prevailing fog.
Austin, the coachman, killed.
1836. _June._--The up Louth Mail nearly upset by stones maliciously
placed in the road by some unknown person, near Linger House bar.
Rhodes, the guard, was thrown off and seriously injured.
In September, 1836, a shocking accident befel the down Manchester
“Peveril of the Peak,” five miles from Bedford. The coach turned over,
and a gentleman named O’Brien was killed on the spot. The coachman lay
two hours under the coach, and died from his injuries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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