52 History of Inland Transport 



passengers is sufficiently suggestive of the very small amount 

 of travel by land between London and Scotland that went 

 on even in the middle of the eighteenth century. Fourteen 

 days for the journey between London and Edinburgh was 

 then considered a very reasonable time-allowance. In 1671 

 Sir Henry Herbert had said in the House of Commons, " If 

 a man were to propose to convey us regularly to Edinburgh 

 in coaches in seven days, and bring us back in seven more, 

 should we not vote him to Bedlam ? " 1 



In 1712 a fortnightly coach from Edinburgh to London was 

 advertised to " perform the whole journey in thirteen days 

 without any stoppages (if God permits), having eighty able 

 horses to perform the whole journey." The fare was ^4 ros. 

 with a free allowance of 20 Ibs. of luggage. In 1754 the 

 Edinburgh coach left on Monday in winter and on Tuesday in 

 summer, arrived at Boroughbridge (Yorkshire) on Saturday 

 night, started again on Monday morning, and was due to reach 

 London on the following Friday. 



In 1774 Glasgow had been brought within ten days of 

 London. The arrival of the coach was then regarded as so 

 important an event that a gun was fired off when it came in 

 sight, to let the citizens know it was really there. A lo-day 

 coach to London was also running from Edinburgh to London 

 in 1779, an advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant of that 

 year stating that such a coach left every Tuesday, that it 

 rested all Sunday at Boroughbridge, and that " for the better 

 accommodation of passengers " it would be " altered to a new 

 genteel two-end coach machine, hung upon steel springs, 

 exceedingly light and easy." 



York was a week distant from London in 1700 ; but on 

 April 12, 1706, there was put on the road, to run three times 

 a week, a coach which, said the announcement made respecting 

 it, " performs the whole journey in four days (if God permits)." 

 The time of starting on the first day was five o'clock in the 

 morning. 



The proprietors of a coach that ran between London and 

 Exeter in 1755 promised their patrons " a safe and expeditious 

 journey in a fortnight " ; though this record was improved 

 on before the end of the century, the time being reduced to 



1 Passengers are to-day regularly conveyed between London and Edin- 

 burgh by train in eight and a quarter hours. 



