264 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DA YS OF YORE 



The mail-guards in many instances were 

 drafted to the great railway stations, where they 

 assisted in despatching the mails by railway. Most 

 prominent among all whose career was thus 

 diverted was Moses James Nohbs, who died in 

 1897, half a century after the road as an 

 institution came to an end. 



The career of this old servant of the Post Office 

 is, from a variety of circumstances, exceptionally 

 interesting. He was horn on May 12th, 1817, at 

 Angel Street, Norwich, and was the son of a 

 coachbuilder. Entering the Post Office service on 

 June 27th, 1836, as guard of the London and 

 Stroud Mail, he was shortly transferred to the 

 Peterhorougli and Hull Mail, and then to the 

 Portsmouth and Bristol. In 1837 he was on the 

 new Exeter Mail, just started, on the accession 

 of Queen Victoria, to go through Salisbury 

 and Yeovil — 170 miles in 18J hours, doing the 

 journey to Exeter in two minutes' less time 

 tlian the famous " Quicksilver " mail, which with 

 this vear varied its route and, avoidins; Salis- 

 bury and Yeovil, went by the slightly shorter 

 route through Amesbury and Wincanton. Nobbs 

 went the whole distance, resting the following day. 

 The following year found him as guard on the 

 Cheltenham and Aber^-stwith Mail, on which he 

 remained until 1851 — sixteen years of nightly 

 exposure on a route one hundred miles long, 

 through the difficult and mountainous districts 

 of mid- Wales. One of his winter experiences may 

 be given as a sample, 



