Revisiting coaching traffic 1680 to 1840: a comment on Gerhold’s ‘Development of Stage Coaching’ 1

Alan Rosevear, Research Affiliate, University of , [email protected]

and

Dan Bogart, Associate professor, University of California Irvine, [email protected]

Aug. 27, 2018

Abstract

Research by Dorian Gerhold has yielded many insights into the stage coaching era, including estimates of the number of coaching services from London. This comment provides new estimates for the number of coaching services from London between 1681 and 1839. Both service numbers and vehicle miles for the early 19th century are higher than Gerhold’s estimates. We also find a more rapid growth in services between 1760 and 1790 when coaching speeds grew substantially. The key difference concerns a mismatch between licensed and advertised services. A potential cause is offered and its implications on projecting growth in traffic considered.

1 This project was funded as part of the Leverhulme Trust Grant (RPG-2013-093) Transport, urbanization and economic development in and Wales c.1670-1911 and NSF Grant (SES-1260699) Modelling the Transport Revolution and the . We especially thank Leigh Shaw Taylor and Max Satchell for providing valuable support on this project.

1 From the mid-17th century until the mid-1830s, scheduled coach services grew to provide a reliable, frequent and affordable system in England and Wales. As speed and comfort of coach travel increased, so did passenger numbers, promoting the flow of people, culture, news and business. Several scholars have estimated the growth of London coaching services from the late 17th century to the mid-1830s. Most recently, Gerhold (2014) estimates a six- fold growth in the number of long distance London coach services between 1755 and 1836.2 While this estimate indicates a significant growth in London passenger services, there are reasons to think it might be understated. Average journey speeds to London by coach increased from 4.86 miles per hour in 1755 to 6.53 mph in 1783 and 8.85 mph in 1835 (Gerhold 2014, p. 821). In the process, the generalized price of passenger transport (money plus time cost) fell significantly. Theoretically, one could imagine that lower generalized prices led to large increases in coaching traffic because historical estimates for the price elasticity of travel demand are high, perhaps 1.5 (Fouquet 2012).

Moreover, higher national incomes (estimated to grow at 1.46% per year between 1755 and 1835 by Broadberry et. al 2015) should have also significantly increased coaching traffic to London because the income elasticity of travel demand is also thought to be high (Fouquet 2012).

This comment revisits the growth in London passenger services between 1681 and 1835. It builds on methodologies for counting services in directories and licensing records. Importantly, it uses Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to better process and manage the enormous amount of spatial and numerical data. GIS digital mapping of individual services integrates the tabular data from directories with geographical information on the main road network at the relevant period. This facilitates checking both the logic of a route and matching of potential duplicates in the directory data. Information can be accumulated on service routes so that patterns established over several years guide the assignment of later services and identify when new or

2 Gerhold’s estimated growth rate is lower than previous studies like Chartres & Turnbull (1983) and Bogart (2005).

2 changed routes were used. It is particularly useful for the period after 1830 when almost all major coach services were given a “name” that could be tracked along a route and between directories.

There are several major findings. First, licensed coach services of the late 1830s do not correspond exactly to the services advertised in the directories. Second, when like-for-like advertised services are compared, the growth rate over the period from 1680 to 1835 is greater than Gerhold’s estimates. Our figures diverge most between 1760 and 1790, where we find a higher rate of growth. Gerhold’s figures imply that the number of London passenger services grew by 3.4% between 1755 and 1791. We find that the number of services grew by 4.3% between 1760 and 1791. Our figures point to a more dramatic communications revolution in the late 18th century.

I

The Trade Directories listed in Appendix 1 are used here as the primary sources on advertised services for 1680 to 1839. The tables in Robson’s London Directories 1835 to 1839 were the source of coach license data. The ancient highway and turnpike road shapefiles for 1680 to

1838 and town point files are taken from (Satchell 2017) and Rosevear et al (2017). They were created as part of a larger project on transport in England and Wales c.1670-1911.3

As a first step in our methodology, advertised London services listed in the directories were screened by tabular matching. The data on the inn, departure day, time and frequency was entered into a spreadsheet and these characteristics matched to consolidate potential duplicate entries where intermediate stops were listed or coaches calling at more than one London inn. The service lines from tabular matching of the coach routes listed in the London Volume of the Universal British

Directory (1791) (UBD) were plotted over the GIS turnpike road map for 1790. The table associated

3 See Modelling the Transport Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in England http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~dbogart/research_page_nsf/ and Transport, urbanization and economic development in England and Wales c.1670-1911https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/

3 with each line had fields for all the tabular data and fields holding information on intermediate stops, route length and the number of services per week at each date for that line.

The resulting collection of routes radiating from London formed the initial “London route palette” of polylines in the GIS. Tabular data from the earlier Directories was entered into the palette, working backwards in time, with the most appropriately dated main road map as base.

Where the Directory data was consistent with an existing palette line this was used, otherwise new lines were drawn using the most plausible direct route on the map and maximising the use of existing turnpikes. The services advertised in the 19th century directories were assigned directly to the pre-1800 London route palette; an additional field recorded the names of coaches at each date.

The Robson London Directories for 1830, 1835, 1836 and 1839 have the fullest descriptions of routes and were used as a more certain base to amend any ambiguous, earlier entries. Stage coach and Mail coach services were entered in a single service category. The coach license data from Robson’s Directories of 1835, 36 & 39 were assigned to routes based on the nearest equivalent advertised services (The licenses have no information about the route from A to B).

Finally, services were checked by highlighting areas on the map to make visible the data on all services to destinations along the road and its branches. Where coaches were named, duplicates were consolidated until only one final destination carried the named service.

By comparison, Gerhold (2014 pp. 835-6) broke the period 1681 to 1836 into three phases.

From 1681 to 1760, Gerhold used tabular matching of the advertised services in a similar way to us.

For the anticipated peak year of 1836, Gerhold used the licensed services in the Robson Directory

(also as here). For the period between 1765 and 1827, Gerhold sampled towns (including 10 of the largest provincial towns) for which the service information was least ambiguous because there

4 were secondary sources and local directories to resolve uncertainties. For these sample towns,

Gerhold calculated the ratio of the number of London services advertised in 1836 and the number in the directories for intervening years and then used the 1836 licensed services as the maximum against which to proportion the number for the intervening years. This value for the sample towns was scaled up to estimate the total number of services to all places in four distance bands from

London.

II

Our methodology generates two sets of estimates for the number of coach services up to

1839. The first set is from services advertised in Trade Directories. The second, shorter set, is from the list of coaches services that were licensed either as services to and from London as they appeared in Robson’s Directory for 1835 to 1839.4 Our discussion begins with advertised services.

The number of advertised services for London services is tabulated in the left portion of

Table 1 against the length of the coach service and the proportion of services at each distance is reported. This illustrates that the total number of advertised services of more than 10 miles increased during the 18th century reaching a peak in early mid-1830s. Short services of less than 10 miles are the dominant category of London coaches from the mid-1700s. Growth of short stage services into London and particularly a proliferation of omnibus services after 1833 has been described previously by Barker & Robbins (2006) and the present data are consistent with this.

However, this category carries the greatest uncertainty due to the proliferation of similar services which cannot be checked for duplication or omissions.

4 This list was compiled and printed with the authority of The Commissioners for the Affairs of Stamps and contains only those services for which coach tax had been paid by the named operator.

5 Our analysis focuses on long-stage coaching services where measurement uncertainty is lower. The total number of London services over 10 miles derived from Trade Directories is plotted in Figure 1 alongside the previous estimate of service numbers made by Gerhold (2014). Up to

1760, small differences in the number of services may be accounted for by judgments made on ambiguous entries and the London “Standard” used for mileage. Nevertheless, there is a significant deviation between the present study and Gerhold for the period after 1760. Our analysis suggest that the increase in London services was not a smooth curve and that there were two periods of more rapid growth between 1760 and 1790 and from 1810 to the peak in 1835. The compound growth in the number of advertised services from 1681 to 1760 is 0.6% per year; from 1760 to 1835 it is 2.7% per year.

Our figures also show a significant increase in average journey length from 1681 to 1810

(see bottom of Table 1). The percentage of services in the 10 to 25 mile category falls at the expense of the 25 to 50 mile category between 1681 and 1791, suggesting the relatively faster growth in intermediate distance traffic during this period. We also find a step change in contribution from very long-distance services in the 1791 lists; this occurs just after the introduction of Mail coaches in 1784 (Austin 1981). However, their role is progressively diluted as stage coach services covering < 200 miles grow over subsequent decades.

6 Table 1. Number of advertised and licensed services per week in London Directories, classified by mileage length of journey.

LONDON advertised services / week (number) licensed services / week** Distance in 1681 1715 1738 1760 1779 1791 1810 1828* 1830 1835 1836 1839 1835 1836 1839 mi. 1 to 9 90 166 460 464 2028 1547 188 3040 5366 7578 8191 9742 18665 18454 18668 10 to 24 97 122 219 162 455 455 237 736 1072 1248 1122 1198 1126 1177 1472 25 to 49 120 108 90 96 329 291 380 484 574 674 643 641 416 450 453 50 to 99 47 95 79 133 405 466 606 724 732 855 773 757 751 731 735 100 to 199 38 63 45 78 265 391 391 494 548 573 509 400 545 577 413 >200 3 3 3 2 40 165 204 224 190 206 200 132 83 94 46 total 394 557 896 933 3521 3315 2005 5700 8482 11134 11438 12870 21585 21481 21786 total over 10 304 391 436 470 1493 1768 1817 2661 3116 3556 3247 3128 2920 3028 3118 advertised services / week (% of total) licensed services / week** 10 to 24 32% 31% 50% 34% 30% 26% 13% 28% 34% 35% 35% 38% 39% 39% 47% 25 to 49 39% 28% 21% 20% 22% 16% 21% 18% 18% 19% 20% 20% 14% 15% 15% 50 to 99 15% 24% 18% 28% 27% 26% 33% 27% 23% 24% 24% 24% 26% 24% 24% 100 to 199 12% 16% 10% 17% 18% 22% 22% 19% 18% 16% 16% 13% 19% 19% 13% >200 1% 1% 1% 0% 3% 9% 11% 8% 6% 6% 6% 4% 3% 3% 1% total over 10 304 391 436 470 1493 1768 1817 2661 3116 3556 3247 3128 2920 3028 3118 Average trip length in miles to destinations over 12 miles licensed services / week** Over 12 47 59 49 60 69 90 93 85 73 69 67 60 69 68 57 Sources: see Appendix 1.

Notes: *Average of numbers from Pigot’s London Directory 1828 and Pigot’s County Directories for 1828/30; the latter underestimates services to small places near London, the latter may exaggerate number of long services. ** licensed journeys/wk halved to give services/wk;

7

Figure 1. Number of advertised services per week from London derived in this study compared with previous estimate

GIS mapping Gerhold (2014)

4000

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

services perweek 10 over miles 1000

500

0 1680 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840

Sources: Gerhold (2014, table 5, p. 836). GIS mapping are the authors calculations. See text for details.

Vehicle miles (the product of services numbers and length of the round trip) rather than service numbers, provide a more useful quantitative measure of changes in coaching activity. In Figure 2, the vehicle miles per week for advertised London services (> 10miles) are plotted. The increase in London advertised vehicle miles from 1681 to 1835 is around 17-fold; a compound growth rate of 0.8% per year from 1681 to 1760 and 2.9% per year from 1760 to 1835.

8

Figure 2. Vehicle miles per week over 10 miles for advertised and licensed services from London.

advertised (London) licensed (London)

500000

450000

400000

350000

300000

250000

200000

150000

vehicle vehicle per miles week over 10 miles 100000

50000

0 1680 1700 1720 1740 1760 1780 1800 1820 1840

Sources: See table 2.

There is a second series based on licenses between 1835 and 1839. Table 1 compares with advertised services and Figure 2 shows the implications for vehicle miles travelled. There is a disturbing and consistent mismatch between advertised services and licensed services over 10 miles, with the licensed services 20% below the value for advertised services; advertised services peaking at 460,000 vehicle miles per week for long-stage coaches and licenced services at 367,000 vehicle miles per week. This pattern is greater than measurement uncertainty, suggesting that there is structural uncertainty in the data and its interpretation.

Comparison of individual routes suggests the incongruence between advertised and licensed may arise from not comparing like-for-like “services”; i.e. advertisements are for a different service than was licensed. In an online appendix we provide evidence that there may be real differences between licensed services and actual operating services during a year and the number of services per week advertised in

9 Robson’s Directory. However, even if the license data is to be used as a relatively firm value for what actually ran, then the comparison must be made with the earlier directory data suitably adjusted for under-performance. This would logically give the same percentage growth on the same trajectory as for advertised services but with lower absolute numbers (i.e. the proportion of exaggeration is likely to be similar across the period). Hence the values for an 11 fold increase in service numbers (Figure 1) and 17 fold increase in vehicle miles (Figure 2) for London services between 1681 and 1835 would stand.

III

In this section, we provide estimates for the growth in passenger miles (the product of vehicle miles and average number of passengers per vehicle). It is generally assumed that the carrying capacity of vehicles increased over the period considered here. The heavy 6-passenger coaches of the early-18th century evolved into coaches carrying more outside passengers and the lighter, machines, post coaches, diligences, carrying 3 to 4 passengers by the 1760s. However, Gerhold (2014) concluded that the average carrying capacity remained around the 6 per vehicle until the 1750. Post coaches persist in the list of advertised services until the late 1820s, albeit as a decreasing proportion of the total. Only after 1835 when the load capacity was listed in the licenses, are there firmer grounds for estimates of potential passenger numbers.

The operating capacity would be lower, and like Gerhold (2014) we have used the value of two thirds licensed capacity which was quoted by coach operators in Parliamentary enquiries (PP 1837a/b), taken as

13 passengers in 1836. We interpolate between these values to get an average capacity for 1791.

Table 2 shows a date series of passenger miles/week. This compares like-for-like services, using advertised services throughout and estimated average capacity of the vehicle, and so is useful for estimating real growth rates. The average growth rate in London passenger capacity is 4.0% per year over the period 1760 to 1835, which is greater than the 3.4% estimate made by Gerhold (2014) for a similar period using licensed coaches as the peak value for 1836.

10

Table 2. Growth in passenger miles for advertised London services of over 10 miles.

annual growth since previous London vehicle miles/wk Passengers/vehicle passenger miles/wk observation 1681 27665 6 165989 1727 43580 6 261482 1.0% 1760 52065 6 312391 0.5% 1791 294449 9 2650039 7.1% 1830 421121 13 5474568 1.8% 1835 457210 13 5943724 1.7%

IV

In summary we find that advertised long-stage coach services to London grew from around 400 per week at the start of the 18th century to over 3,500 per week in 1835. Licensed services were around 3,000 per week in 1835. Vehicle miles for advertised London long-stage services had grown from 36,000 at the start of the 18th century to 457,000 in 1835 and the peak in licensed services to 367,000 in 1836. Although it is subject to more uncertainty, growth in passenger miles for London was more than 3% per year between 1681 and 1835.

How do we explain these patterns? Demand for travel grew as coaches became faster and more comfortable without significant increase in fares. Gerhold’s productivity figures imply an annual decline in real passenger costs equal to -1.5% per year between 1755 and 1835. Note this figure captures speed improvements as well as lower passenger fares. Assuming a price demand elasticity of -1 this decline in passenger costs would translate into a 1.5% annual growth in London passenger traffic.5 Higher national income would also translate into higher demand for passenger travel. According to Broadberry et. al., real

GDP increased by 1.5% per year between 1760 and 1835. If we assume an income elasticity of 2 then the higher national income would translate into 3.0% annual growth in London passenger traffic.

5 Fouquet (2012) estimates a price elasticity of travel demand equal to -1.5 starting the in 1850s. The income elasticity of travel demand is estimated to be 2.5. 11 What about turnpike road improvements? London coach services began in the 17th century when individual parishes maintained sections of each road. They expanded during a period of radical change during the mid-18th century when turnpike trusts were given responsibility to improve and maintain the principal roads and reached a peak after these trusts had built well-engineered new roads in the 1820s

(Albert 1972, Pawson 1977). The relationship between changes in vehicles, roads and services is not easily resolved (Bogart 2005, Gerhold 2014). Major improvements in roads corresponded to increases in coach traffic, though which is responding to which is not clear. However, it is unlikely that the fast and more comfortable coaches could have reached their full market potential at the growth rates reported here, without an improved turnpike road network on which to operate.

References

Austen, Brian. "The Impact of the Mail Coach on Public Coach Services in England and Wales, 1784– 1840." The Journal of Transport History 2.1 (1981): 25-38.

Barker, Theodore Cardwell, and Michael Robbins. A history of London transport: The nineteenth century. Routledge, 2006.

Bates, Alan. Directory of stage coach services 1836. David & Charles Publishers, 1969.

Bogart, Dan. "Turnpike trusts and the transportation revolution in 18th century England." Explorations in Economic History42.4 (2005): 479-508.

Broadberry, S., Campbell, B. M., Klein, A., Overton, M., & Van Leeuwen, B. (2015). British economic growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge University Press.

Chartres J.A. & Turnbull G.L. “Road Transport” in , Freeman, Michael John, and Derek Howard Aldcroft, eds. Transport in the Industrial Revolution. University Press, 1983. Fouquet, Roger. "Trends in income and price elasticities of transport demand (1850–2010)." Energy Policy 50 (2012): 62-71.

Copeland, John. "An Essex Turnpike Gate." The Journal of Transport History 2 (1963): 87-94.

Fouquet, Roger. "Trends in income and price elasticities of transport demand (1850–2010)." Energy Policy 50 (2012): 62-71.

Gerhold, Dorian. "The development of stage coaching and the impact of turnpike roads, 1653–1840." The Economic History Review 67.3 (2014): 818-845.

Rosevear, A., Satchell, A.E.M., Bogart, D., Shaw Taylor, L., 'Turnpike roads of England and Wales,' 2017. http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~dbogart/research_page_nsf/files/turnpikes1830datanote_may242017.pdf

Satchell A.E.M (2018) Identifying the Trunk Roads of Early Modern England and Wales, https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/trunkroadspaper.pdf 12 Official Publications

Minutes of evidence before Lords Committee; and Birkenhead Railway (on line) PP (1837a) (June 1837)

Report of Committee on the Taxation of Internal Communications. Minutes of evidence PP(1837b) (June 1837)

APPENDIX 1

Table 1. Directories used for scheduled coach services 1680 to 1839

Date published London Services 1681 The Present State of London, Thomas de Laune Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1705 The Traveler’s and Chapman's Daily Instructor Available in Early 18th Century Collections Online (GALE) 1715 The Merchants and Traders Necessary Companion Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1727 The Tradesman' Guide or Chapman's and Traveler’s Companion Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1738 The Intelligencer or Merchant's Assistant Available in Early 18th Century Collections Online (GALE) 1760 Complete Guide to all persons or concerns with the , 8th Edition (Hitch & Hawes) Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1770 Baldwin’s New Complete Guide to all persons who have any trade or concern with city of London Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1779 The Shopkeeper's and Tradesman's Assistant Available in Early 18th Century Collections Online (GALE) 1791 Universal British Directory (UBD) – Volume 2 London, publ. Stalker( Archive CD Books) 1810/19/28 Cary's new itinerary Available in The Making Of The Modern World. 1828 Pigot’s London Directory Microfilm in Guild Hall Library London 1828/30 Pigot’s National Directories (individual southern counties for 1830, individual northern counties 1828, Sussex 1832 –(Kent, Essex & Surrey augmented with 1839)) Michael Winton Facsimiles and Archive CD Books and Midlands Historical Data pdfs) 1835/36/39 Robson London Directory (including London licenses 1835/6/9) Available in The Making Of The Modern World.

13 Online Appendix

This Appendix provides contemporary evidence of real differences between licensed services and actual operating services during a year and the number of services per week advertised in Robson’s

Directory. The main points are:

(a) A significant number of licenses are not congruent with the most probable equivalent advertised

services. Several of the advertised long distance London services are split at intermediate hubs such

as , York and with a Country licence covering the distant section. Some short

services from London are cut so that the quieter outer section has a Country license

(b) There was an incentive for operators to over license short-stages because in the 1830s they only

paid tax on services that were actually provided.

(c) On less popular routes some advertised daily services were amalgamated, reduced to 3 day

operation or even suspended during slack periods, such as the winter when demand fell, especially

when this was discretionary travel for social and leisure purpose.

(d) Elsewhere, particularly on services to “resorts”, advertised and unadvertised service only ran

“during the season”. Operators would choose a licensing schedule that minimised liability in the

winter.

(e) Some operators may have avoided having licenses for the whole service for the whole time.

(f) The Robson Directory list for Mail coaches was prepared the previous November, and it seems

likely that the license list was compiled at the same time, which would be during the slackest period

of the coaching year. In contrast the advertised services were probably a declaration of all services

that are likely to run in the coming year, based on the peak levels of the previous summer months.

(g) Finally, the deficit in long-stage licenses is much greater for services running north and east from

London than those running south and west.

14 So can any reliable estimate be derived from these data sets? The license concession for London short- stages confirms the uncertainty that must be applied in using service data on these coaches. It also is reasonable to assume that the long-stage license data represents what was running at the time the list was compiled. The unlicensed services and the licensed services that did not run are likely to be of a similar, small magnitude so balance each other out. Hence if the license list is from the winter, it would measure the minimum service level during a year. The advertised services may be regarded as the upper edge of the service level intended at the busiest months of the year. On some roads the two levels are quite similar; on others the services are overstated in advertisements (e.g. the detailed example of the Shenfield gate below) but at certain peak times actual service levels could be more than 25% higher than the listed license level. This could be the result of the frequency of individual services being reduced, merging of services from a hub for the last leg to London or speculative new services failing.

In estimating traffic the proposers of railways used the Stamp Office license information rather than the advertised services and so it must be assumed that license data is a closer, conservative match to the average annual services. However, since in years before 1835 estimates can only be made on advertised services uncertainty must inevitably arise when comparing pre-1830 services with the licensed services after 1835 and estimating growth rates.

We now turn to Contemporary evidence of differences between advertised and licensed coach services. Each heading below addresses a different issue.

1. No exact match between licensed and advertised services

Some advertised services are covered partly by a London license and partly by a Country license. For instance, there is no licensed stage coach from London to Holyhead in 1836, but there are four London licenses to Shrewsbury (three assigned by Bates (1969) to the Stag, Nimrod and Wonder, each with 11 passengers outside) and one Country license each for Shrewsbury to Holyhead (only licensed for 5 outside passengers), Shrewsbury to Bangor (only licensed for 8 outside) and Bangor to Holyhead. Pigot’s Directory of 1835 for Bangor (i.e. at the destination end), lists services to London by The Stag, The Royal Wonder and

15 The Nimrod (i.e. the same names as the London Directory) and later Directories list the latter two. So the local and London directories indicate a through service but the licenses are for two part services. Although the example of the London to York Highflyer being horsed by a different license holder from York onwards to Newcastle had been noted by Bates, this was not exceptional. London proprietors appear to have spread the risk on very long services, having partners who not only horsed the coach but were the licensee of that service. York, Shrewsbury and typically reached in a long day of travel could be overnight stops where coach changes would occur naturally. However, the persistence of coach names like the

Nimrod and High Flier through to the furthest destination suggests an integrated service and would have been assigned in this way on any analysis based on the Directory information.

Another type of license splitting is illustrated closer to London where there were isolated Country licenses.

Mr Tollitt had London licenses for 18 service trips per week to Uxbridge (17 miles) and 6 services to but also had 24 Country licenses from Uxbridge to three other towns and an isolated license to Taplow. He advertised 18 services from London to Uxbridge and 30 services from London through Uxbridge to three of the six other destinations. Similarly, an isolated Country license for Frimley to Bagshot for Mr Monk appears is a branch from Monk’s London to Basingstoke license. These allowed flexible working of the remoter, less assured parts of the service lines.

A possible explanation for some license spitting closer to London is revealed in evidence to the

Parliamentary Committee dealing with the Birkenhead Railway Act in 1837 (PP 1837). The number of licensed short-stage coach services given in evidence by the Stamp Office exceeded those actually logged in a traffic survey and the number given by the coach operator’s way bills. When challenged on this discrepancy the Stamp Officer revealed that for London short-stages and for a number of northern towns, including Chester, the operators were given a concession of only paying for service trips performed and not for the number stated in the licence. Hence there was a benefit in having part licensed as a short-stage and licensing this up to the potential maximum of trips per week. Inevitably actual services on the short-stage section would be fewer than licensed and the Duty paid less than calculated from the license. The residual

16 journey would appear as a Country service not a London license. The degree to which the concession affected estimates based on licenses is illustrated by the evidence given by the Stamp Office; in the first two weeks of February 1837 on the short-stages from the Birkenhead and Eastham ferries to Chester there were 636 journeys licensed but duty was only paid on 164 (i.e. only a quarter of licensed services actually ran – from elsewhere it is estimated that the advertised services amounted to 416 journeys).

2. Seasonal variability

On some remote roads, though services are consistently advertised, there are no London licenses and no complete complementary Country licences; e.g. all the roads of South Wales and the Ludlow Road. Some of this may be a result of tax evasion but seasonality is probably an important factor. Copeland (1963) published survey data taken at the Shenfield Gate in Essex in 1838. On the 26th February, excluding the mails, 16 named stage coach services passed through the gate (3 of these only once so presume a three day/week service); equivalent to 87 return journeys per week on 6 day running. GIS mapping shows that at this point there were the equivalent of 104 return journeys licensed in the 1839 list (i.e. probably for

November 1838) whereas the advertised services in the main Robson Directory were equivalent to 150 return journeys. This would suggest that the operators had reduced some services from 6 days per week to

3 and not run others, notably 2 of the 4 services from the far end of the road at Great Yarmouth (the

Yarmouth Star had no inside passengers on its return trip that day).

Seasonality was explicit in the advertised services in the 18th century, when it arose from the vulnerability of roads to bad weather. This proposed seasonality in the 19th century would be a result of variability in demand, not only because travellers avoided exposure to the cold and wet but because such a high proportion of London traffic was discretionary travel for social and leisure purpose.

3. Running only during the season

Services to “resorts” are often advertised as only running “during the season”, so it seems likely that operators would choose a licensing schedule that minimised liability in the winter. Seasonality may also

17 modulate service levels more broadly. For instance evidence given to the Holyhead Road Committee in

1817 (PP1817) stated that of the 4 mails and 21 stage coaches passing through the gate at Hockciffe, 10 only passed once a day, suggesting only half of the stage coach services which were advertised as daily were actually running a three days/week service. Evidence given by the Stamp Office in 1837 (PP1837) stated that coach duty is evaded particularly at race times, “principally by parties who pay no duty at all”. A survey of traffic from the Mersey ferries to Chester during two weeks in the autumn of 1836 (PP1837) further illustrated the way service numbers responded to market opportunities for limited periods. When challenged about an advertised service not being recorded in the traffic survey, the operator admitted that

“The Doctor” was a coach that no longer ran. It had been partly replaced by “The Vesuvius” but they had not bothered to revise the published information since “Advertisements are made in a manner to fill a column up”. These examples further lead to the possibility that on roads such as London to Brighton, where licences and advertised services appear to match, there was also seasonality and for part of the year there were actually more services running than advertised or licensed in Robson. Mr Levy’s evidence in

1837 (PP1837) suggested that there were irresponsible people in the country who “kept unlicensed coaches in the summer but flew away in the winter”. Writing in 1898, Blew claimed that in 1828 there were 21 services from London to Brighton, of these 16 operated all year round and there were 26 extra coaches that ran during the season. The Brighton season probably ran from July to December and so would include November when Directories were compiled. Nevertheless, these are modulations in service capacity along particular roads; most evidence suggests that the actual service routes and destinations did not vary significantly.

4. Incomplete licensing

Some operators may have avoided having licenses for the whole service for the whole time. The regularly advertised multiple services from Kings Langley and from St Albans cannot be matched to any licenses. It is possible that they only had short-stage licenses to get through the London turnpike gates and evaded licencing beyond that. Although not quantifiable it is probable that some advertised services ran

18 temporarily without a license or with a license plate which did not match the actual number of days or the length of the route. Informers were more active around London so this is more likely to occur in the

Country services. On the other hand, some regular services may not have needed advertising. Mr Kershaw has London licenses to Welwyn, Baldock and Hitchin but only advertises the latter. More significantly, the number of very short-stage licenses for omnibus type services within London exceed the already extensive advertised service schedules.

5. Time of year to which lists refer

The Robson Directory seems to have been complied just before the end of the previous year – the list of

Mail coaches for the 1839 Directory is “Corrected to November 30th 1838”. It is noticeable that destinations that have a seasonal trade are under recorded in the license list. For instance there are only

23.5 services per week with County licenses to Blackpool in 1836 but Pigot’s National Directory of 1834 lists 33 services per week from four Lancashire towns some listed as “during the summer months”. It is unreasonable to think that potential passenger numbers remain constant on all routes every day of the week and year but it is likely that adverts would describe the maximum potential service. Hence a “daily” advertised service (12 single journeys per week) might be covered by two licences each for 6 journeys, run out of phase to allow variation in service level. Hence the number of licensed services recorded would be for what were actually running in the winter season and the advertised services reflect the potential number in the summer.

6. Geographic distribution of difference between licensed and advertised services

Figure A shows the differences between licensed and advertised services on the main radials roads into

London, based on Robson’s 1835 Directory (i.e. the peak year for services). The two service numbers match for the busiest roads running south of the Thames (to Dover, Brighton, Portsmouth, and

Bristol). There is a substantial deficit of licenses on roads north of the Thames; with the exception of the

Cambridge, Manchester and Worcester roads, the deficit is more than 25%. This deficit could be evidence

19 of seasonality, merging of services or poor license enforcement on roads to the north. However, several of these service routes are also the ones that were suffering greatest competition or anticipated competition from steam powered boats and railways.

Figure A. Comparison of advertised and licensed coach services from Robson’s Directory of 1835. At the named sampling points the number of advertised and licensed services per week are recorded. Double lines show roads where ratio of these is below 1.1; the single line up to 1.25 and the dashed line over 1.25. (roads with less than 18 services per week not shown)

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