It was long thought that railways would never succeed in penetrating into the Peak district, and the “Derby Dilly” maintained its existence until 1858, when the impossible came to pass. Then also the strictly local mail-coach, the Manchester and Derby Mail, was withdrawn; its last journey being on Saturday, October 2nd, 1858. [Sidenote: _PICKFORD AND CO._] But, indeed, these sixty miles between Derby and Manchester must needs be of a peculiar interest to the student of traffic and its growth, for it was in this district that the carrying firm of Pickford & Co. had its beginnings, so far back as three hundred years ago. It was some time early in the seventeenth century that the original firm of pack-horse carriers began, from whose descendants, the Pickfords, by purchase; or otherwise, acquired the business, about 1730. From pack-horses, the goods came at last to be carried by waggons, and about 1770 we find Matthew Pickford established at Manchester, with his scope of operations extending to London, to which his “Flying Waggon” travelled in the then unprecedented time of four days and a half; and so the already historic firm continued until 1817, when Joseph Baxendale was admitted to the old firm of Matthew and Thomas Pickford. He soon acquired control of the business and bought out the Pickfords, and although the name has ever since been retained, the firm still remains the property of his descendants. Great fortunes have been made in the carrying business, and Baxendales, Suttons, and others have, almost unsuspected, amassed amazing wealth; but not every carrier was satisfied with his lot, and one, at least, saw a more excellent way. This was William Bass, who, about the middle of the eighteenth century, was a carrier between Burton-on-Trent, Ashbourne, and Derby. The greater part of his business was done in the carrying of Burton ale for Benjamin Printon, who had, a good many years earlier, begun brewing for the trade. He had started with three men, but the fame of his beer grew, and induced others to set up. Bass, impressed greatly with the increase of his carrying, caused entirely by the beer trade, planned a way to brew and carry his own beer, and accordingly set up as a brewer at Burton. There is no need to enlarge upon the history of the great firm of Bass & Co., probably now the largest firm of brewers in England, thus founded by William Bass, grandfather of the present head of the firm, Michael Arthur Bass, created Baron Burton in 1886. William Bass very soon withdrew from the carrying business, which was left to other members of his family and eventually absorbed by the firm of Pickfords, in whose service there remained many years, until his death at an advanced age, a Michael Bass, great-uncle, I believe, of Lord Burton.