It was soon impressed upon the new partner’s active and penetrating intelligence that the requirements of the time, and still more the requirements of the succeeding years, imperatively demanded a thorough reorganisation--more thorough, perhaps, than the old partners were altogether ready to concede. He soon acquired entire control, and the Pickfords, unable or unwilling to meet new times with new methods, left their already historic business and its destinies in his hands. He speedily altered the aspect of affairs. Soon he had close upon a thousand horses, all his own, on the great roads between London and the north-west; while advertisements were issued, announcing “Caravans on Springs and Guarded, carrying Goods only, every afternoon at 6 o’clock,” from London and Manchester, taking only 36 hours to perform the 186 miles. To this, then, the “caravan” had come at last. Travellers from the Far East had originally brought the word to England. They had seen the Persian _kārwāns_ toiling under those torrid skies--covered waggons in whose shady interiors the poor folks travelled; and when the first stage-waggons were established in England, they were often known by an English version of that name. Some of the caravans of the late seventeenth century were, however, by no means the rough-and-ready affairs generally supposed, if we may judge from the description of one offered for sale in the _London Gazette_ of May 6th, 1689. This, according to the vendors, was:-- “A Fair easie going Caravan, with a very handsom Roof Brass Work, good Seats. Glasses on the sides to draw up; that will carry 18 Persons, with great Conveniency for Carriage of Goods, so well built that it is fit for Carriage of all manner of Goods--to be sold.” But there was one more change before the caravan in 1817. Already the popular voice, unwilling to enunciate three syllables when one could be made to serve, had clipped the name to “van,” and as vans all covered vehicles of the kind have been known ever since. At the time when Baxendale appeared upon the scene the headquarters of the business were still at Manchester, and the London establishments had been for many years past at the “Castle,” Wood Street, and the “White Bear,” Basinghall Street. To the first house, then a galleried inn of the ancient type, at the corner of Wood Street and what is now Gresham Street, but was then Lad Lane, the London and Manchester waggons and caravans resorted; and to and from the “White Bear” went the Leicester and Nottingham traffic.