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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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« Regency Riding Habits
The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer, A Review »

A Grim Reality: The Life of a Coach Horse in the Regency Era

June 9, 2009 by Vic


Stage coach travel. Notice the number of passengers laden on the coach and the number of horses.

Stage coach travel. Notice the number of passengers laden on the coach and the number of horses.

At the height of 19th century coaching days Northallerton in North Yorkshire had four inns that catered to travellers – the Black Bull, the King’s Head, the Old Golden Lion and, the largest, the Golden Lion. Horses that pulled the public coaches suffered mightily for the sake of speed. In a previous post I had already discussed that if forced to run at breakneck speed, coach horses did not last longer than three years. Recently I ran across this description:

The Highflyer changed horses at the King’s Head but the horses belonged to Mr Frank Hirst. This coach was driven by a coachman called Scott, a very big fellow of the Old Weller type who had to be hauled into his seat and nearly broke the coach down. The Express also stopped at the King’s Head but the horses that worked this coach stood at the Waggon and Horses and belonged to Mr Hall of Northallerton. The Wellington London and Newcastle coach changed horses at the Golden Lion and was horsed by Mr Frank Hirst. At one time it was driven by Ralph Soulsby, who was a terror to drive, and it is on record that once during a period when the Wellington was running in opposition he succeeded in killing three out of his four horses on the short stage seven miles from Great Smeaton to Northallerton. Opposition coaches were terribly hard on horseflesh; they used to gallop every inch of the road up hill and down dale, and Soulsby’s third horse dropped dead just opposite the church, and he finished his journey to the Golden Lion with but a single horse. When the railway began to supersede the road and coach after coach began to fall away, the Wellington still held on until it at last stood alone. One of the oldest and first coaches on the road, it had withstood the tide of opposition through all time until it remained the absolute last regular coach running on this section of the Great North Road. The old coaching days in Yorkshire By Tom Bradley

Coach and four

Coach and four

Horses were chattel and the general attitude towards beasts of burden during the Regency Era was one of exploitation. Fresh teams of horses were kept ready to replace an exhausted team that had just run the previous stage of a journey. These teams were contracted to stage lines or the Royal Mail. Other horses were available to be leased by individuals. Crack teams of hostlers prided themselves in changing mail coach teams in as little as three minutes. The combined refinements in coach design, and in road construction and maintenance allowed the heavy coach horses to be replaced by teams of faster half-bred or pure Thoroughbred horses. The luxurious coaches of the wealthy pulled by warmblooded horses or Thoroughbreds seemed to fly down the better roads at the unheard of speed of ten miles per hour. *

Coach leaving Brighton, 1840

Coach leaving Brighton, 1840

It wasn’t until 1821, that Colonel Richard Martin, MP for Galway in Ireland, introduced the Treatment of Horses bill. This piece of legislature was greeted by laughter in the House of Commons. The first known prosecution for cruelty to animals was brought in 1822 against two men found beating horses in London’s Smithfield Market, where livestock had been sold since the 10th century. They were fined 20 shillings each. Colonel Martin’s “Ill Treatment of Horses and Cattle Bill,” or “Martin’s Act”, as it became known, was finally passed in 1822 and became the world’s first major piece of animal protection legislation. Not much changed for working horses, however.  After a coaching horse’s usefulness ended, they were sold to labor for others**:

Mrs Mountain of the Saracen’s Head kept some 2,000 horses in her stables for the routes she served. Lord William Lennox sometime later estimated that it took some 2 pounds per week to keep coach horses. It is also estimated that the life of a coach horse was some three years. After that they were sold for they still had significant working life left. It was the nature of coaching with the strain of pulling a coach weighing more than 2 tons for an average of 10 miles at a speed of some 12 miles per hour 2 days out of 3.  Farm work seemed easy by comparison. – Coaching Inns

The Breakdown of the Christmas Stage shows how heavily laden the coaches were

The Breakdown of the Christmas Stage shows how heavily laden the coaches were

A society that lacked adequate social service systems to take care of the poor did not place a high priority on the ethical treatment of animals. Cockfighting, bear baiting, and dog fights were common”betting” sports prevalent during the Regency Period. A retired coach horse would have an easier life plowing a farmer’s field than pulling a coach. Accidents were frequent, but horses were seldom given a break, forced to struggle through blizzards and quagmire after passengers alighted and luggage was taken off to lighten the load. Not every horse led a harsh life. The following excerpt describes a private, more benevolent owner, the Rev. George Bennet, Jane Austen’s father, whose horses pulled heavy carriages over poor roads:

Coach stuck in snow

Coach stuck in snow

A carriage and a pair of horses were kept. This might imply a higher style of living in our days than it did in theirs. There were then no assessed taxes. The carriage, once bought, entailed little further expense; and the horses probably, like Mr. Bennet’s, were often employed on farm work. Moreover, it should be remembered that a pair of horses in those days were almost necessary, if ladies were to move about at all; for neither the condition of the roads nor the style of carriage-building admitted of any comfortable vehicle being drawn by a single horse. When one looks at the few specimens still remaining of coach-building in the last century, it strikes one that the chief object of the builders must have been to combine the greatest possible weight with the least possible amount of accommodation. – Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh, Description of life at Steventon

Rowlandson, Coach Travel

Rowlandson, Coach Travel

  • Coaching days and road engineers
  • Road Accidents Regency Style
  • *Quoted from Stage Travel in Britain, Georgian Index
  • **Wikipedia, Animal Rights
  • The Stage Coaches of Great Britain
  • Sport in the Olden Times, 1912

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Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, Travel | Tagged coaching days, Regency Transportation, Regency Travel, treatment of horses in teh 19th century | 8 Comments

8 Responses

  1. on June 9, 2009 at 10:17 Joanna Waugh

    The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals formed in 1824 and used the courts to end abuses like those you mentioned with regard to coach horses. The Society often lost the cases but exerted enough political pressure to cause change. One case comes to mind — the practice of running with the bulls in Stamford, England. (To read more, see my November 8, 2008 blog at http://www.joannawaugh.blogspot.com/)

    The custom dated from 1209 but the Society took the town to court in 1836 to stop it. They lost the case but, by 1839, the run ceased, thanks to the Society.


    • on June 10, 2009 at 17:07 Vic

      Thank you for that additional fact about The Royal Society, Joanna. The exact link to your fascinating post is here:
      http://joannawaugh.blogspot.com/2008/11/running-with-bulls-english-style.html


      • on June 10, 2009 at 17:45 Joanna Waugh

        Thanks so much, Vic. It was sweet of you to post the link. Your blog is my favorite! It’s always chock full of things I didn’t know.
        ~Jo~


  2. on June 9, 2009 at 13:43 Maeri

    Hi Vic,

    I know this is totally off topic, but I’ve just finished reading Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer, and have a question. How did Miles Calverleigh buy Danescourt from his nephew? I always though great family properties were entailed, so as to keep the property in the family.
    It would be great if you could answer this question! I’ve come to regard you as a fount of knowledge in all things Regency.


    • on June 14, 2009 at 19:59 Vic

      Maeri, sorry your question took so long to answer. Busy week. Miles’s nephew, Stacy, was so irresponsible and felt so little fealty towards his inheritance that he gambled away all but his ancestral house and the demesne lands. He did not reinvest any money towards either and let both go to ruin. Stacy also borrowed heavily against those properties and ultimately his creditors caught up with him. He had no way of paying them back, and only an alliance with an heiress could have saved him from total ruin. Miles stepped in and offered to purchase the ancestral estate and lands (which he secretly loved) with a sum that would pay off Stacy’s debts and provide his nephew with enough money to live off if he lived prudently. (Georgette Heyer hints that this will not happen.) Notice how tough Miles was in his negotiations with Stacy – there was no love lost between the two men.

      In reality many heirs during this era of heavy drinking and gambling did lose their inheritances, which at the time was considered scandalous. Their debts provided some rich merchants the means to purchase ancestral estates. Some disgraced heirs fled to the Continent rather than face ruin or their contemptuous peers.


  3. on June 9, 2009 at 18:19 Bart

    Ah, that’s so sad — horses as chattel — they are beautiful animals to be worked to death!


  4. on June 12, 2009 at 17:05 Linda

    Fascinating post. Horses and how they were used and abused is something I for one tend not to think about when thinking about the pre-car world. Thanks very much.


  5. on March 12, 2010 at 01:48 18th & 19th Century Carriage Databases & Resources « Jane Austen's World

    […] A Grim Reality: The Life of a Coach Horse in Regency England […]



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