CH. XIX DRIVING CLUBS 43 1 



should have availed themselves of the opportunities 

 which the public-coaches afforded of gratifying this 

 fondness was natural, and many an amateur, as 

 skilful as the best professional, passed pleasant 

 hours on the driving cushion. 



After 1835, however, the locomotive came rapidly 

 upon the scene, and one by one the coaches disap- 

 peared, the coachmen dropped into other employ- 

 ments, and four-in-hand driving bade fair to become 

 one of the lost arts. Its traditions were kept up, 

 however, by the Driving Clubs, the earliest of 

 which, The Bensington Driving Club, was formed 

 in 1807. Other clubs, the histories of which are 

 pleasantly told in the volume on Driving, of the 

 Badminton Library, were formed and dissolved, 

 but the ' B. D. C lasted until 1854. There seems 

 to have been a short gap until 1856, when The 

 Four-in-Hand Driving Club was formed, but ac- 

 cording to the annals, this gap was filled by a 

 solitary coachman, Sir Henry Peyton, who, with 

 his yellow coach and grey horses, was a well known 

 figure on the London streets. 



From 1856 until 1870 The Four-in-Hand Club 

 kept Coaching in memory, and in 1870 The 

 Coaching Club was formed in London with a larger 

 number of members, and both clubs now maintain 

 a vigorous existence. 



The Brighton Road, always famous in the annals 

 of coaching, had on it, in different years, some public- 

 coaches, notably 'The Age,' driven first by Clark, 



