96 THE COACHING ERA 



The two coaches left Oxford at 1 1 o'clock and were due 

 in London at 4.30, but the Age usually managed to beat 

 its rival by a few minutes. This so weighed on the soul 

 of William Snowden of the Royal William that he 

 determined when May-Day came he would get the better 

 of his rival. Accordingly on April 30th, 1834, ^^ S^^^ 

 stringent orders to the horse-keepers down the road to 

 have everything in readiness so that there might be no 

 let or hindrance to his design of beating the Age all to 

 nothing. It happened that the plan leaked out, and 

 came to the ears of Joe Tollit, the coachman of the Age, 

 who wasn't going to have his coach beaten if he knew 

 anything about it, and he laid his plans accordingly. 



The eventful morning came, and the Royal William 

 left the Golden Cross at Oxford with four browns, whilst 

 the Age started from the Vine Hotel in the High Street 

 with a mixed team. The two coaches tore along the 

 Oxford Road to the accompaniment of various martial 

 airs on the key-bugles of their respe6live guards. 



Joe Tollit on the Age won, getting into London at 

 2.40, thus doing the fifty-four miles in three hours and 

 forty minutes: "I was just over two hours going to 

 Wycombe, leaving that place exactly at i o'clock, and 

 I hour 40 minutes going from Wycombe to London. 

 The Old Blenheim coach left the Star Hotel at 9 o'clock, 

 and we passed it at Gerrard's Cross twenty miles from 

 London, and though we had to wait at Uxbridge for 

 the horses were not harnessed, and at Acton I had to 

 drive the same team back to town that had just come 

 down, and had to help harness them. I had a lady just 



