312 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



been a coachman on the Exeter lioad, and lived 

 at Overton at the time Charles Avas born. He 

 afterwards became landlord of the " White Hart," 

 Hartford Bridge, on the same great highway, 

 eighteen miles nearer London. Harry Ward's 

 career is partly told on page 247, Vol. I. In 

 after years he drove coaches started in the revival 

 on the Brighton lload and elsewhere. 



" Last," it Avas again said, of the coachmen who 

 drove the famous coaches u]) to the time when 

 railways ran them oif the road, was Charles S. 

 Ward, elder brother of the above. He Avas born 

 in 1810, and died in his eighty-ninth year, 

 Decemljer 9tli, 1801). His Avas an interesting 

 career. Son of one Avho had been a small ^yq- 

 prietor as Avell as coachman, and thus familiar 

 from his birth Avith horses, he AAas driving the 

 Ipswich and Norwich Mail as far as Colchester 

 at the early age of scAenteen, and Avas thus 

 probably the youngest coachman ever entrusted 

 Avith the conduct of a mail on any road. But 

 he drove it for nearly five years Avithout an 

 accident, and Avas then promoted to the Devon- 

 port " Quicksilver," at that time the fastest 

 out of London, nightly driA^ing the 29 miles 

 to Bagshot, and then back, in the small hours 

 of the morning, Avith the up-coach. After nearly 

 scA^en years of this niglit-AVork, trying and 

 monotonous CA'cn in summer, l)ut extremely 

 hazardous in Avinter, he sought a change, and 

 applied to Chaplin, avIkj Avas the proprietor of 

 the " Quicksilver," for day-Avork. The very fact 



