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walking « Top of the Campops: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages

Top of the Campops: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages

Posts Tagged ‘walking’

Sorry, you’ll have to walk!

Thursday, September 12th, 2024

Alan Rosevear

Imagine! No bike, no car, no bus, no train; a walk to work and a wet trudge to the shops. Our social support miles away; how to keep in touch? Can granny look after the sick kids? How far do we dare move from home? 

The personal diaries of men and women from the mid-1600s to the early 1800s show how people in England and Wales resolved these dilemmas. What emerges from the analysis of 300,000 miles of journeys is a story of evolutionary change in travel, facilitated by technological improvement.  

Walking

Walking is the simplest mode of travel. Most people lived and worked in one locality, and physical labour was the norm. A ploughman walked for miles a day, and most jobs would easily clock up 10,000 steps. So, for travel from place to place, diarists of all ages and classes were quite prepared to walk several miles.  

For a town dweller, all their needs could be met within walking distance. Those in the country needed to travel further to trade or socialise so walked more often, perhaps carrying a pack or pushing a barrow. However, people only occasionally record walking more than 10 miles, and doing more than 20 miles in a day was rare; average speeds of 3mph were typical after including rests. 

George Chinnery, A Man Carrying Faggots, ca. 1799. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.96.

Good old Dobbin

Prior to 1750, the preferred mode of travel for our diarists (other than walking) was the saddle horse. In rural areas, horses were kept for agricultural work but were often available to carry riders and panniers. Both men and women rode, though men had more opportunities to make journeys for business and for recreation. They preferred small, agile, low-maintenance mares that would keep going through all conditions. There was another option with a stronger horse; a woman could ride “double”, sitting on a pillion saddle behind her husband or a male servant. 

Thomas Rowlandson, “Migrants“, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Maintaining a horse was costly, so only the better-off could justify a dedicated mount; and even they found keeping a horse at livery in town too expensive. This created a steady market for hired horses or post horses. These were hired from a licensed posting inn.  

People also borrowed a horse from a friend, relative or employer. This was not as generous as we might expect. A horse needed daily exercise and food, even when not “working, so avoiding that on a slack day was a bonus. Getting a small payment sweetened the deal. 

A rider travels almost twice as fast as a pedestrian, and with more luggage. In one day they might cover up to 50 miles, at an average 5mph, making allowance for resting and feeding horse and rider. In an emergency a horse might gallop 12 miles in an hour, but then need a long rest. However, using a post horse, a fresh mount could be taken at the next inn and so an average speed nearer 10 mph might be sustained during daylight hours. Nevertheless, at 6d per mile this was an exceptional option for most. 

Hitching a ride

Helping neighbours extended beyond lending a horse. Those with a cart gave friends a lift into the market, while farmers provided a wagon to carry workers to festivities such as a fair or the races. Carriers had always been prepared to treat passengers as just another cargo; it was not fast (maybe 2mph) or comfortable (sitting on baggage), but it was cheap and dry (0.5p per mile, with a tarp over). For poorer travellers this was a good way to make a visit or move to fresh employment in the town. 

People in rural areas had access to the two-wheel cart. The main cost of this was the horse, so running a small cart to carry one or two people and goods to market was common. By the late 1700s, gigs designed for travel were often illustrated, sometimes with women drivers 

Detail from Thomas Rowlandson, Plate 21, World in Miniature (1816). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Snug inside a vehicle 

Four-wheeled vehicles, pulled by horses, had been used by the wealthy since Elizabethan times. However, keeping a coach and dedicated horses meant substantial costs. Early coaches moved at walking pace and might be regarded as status symbols rather than a convenient mode of transport.  

In large towns there was a demand for short distance travel in a privately hired vehicle. Entrepreneurial drivers repurposed old coaches to carry the comfortably off, such as Pepys, slowly through the dirty streets of London. Even at 2s per mile, this became so popular that the government taxed it – requiring Hackney Coaches to pay for a limited number of licences. 

Rowlandson, A Comfortable Nap in a Post Chaise (1788), Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Technical innovation 

Prior to 1700, most roads were maintained by local parishes. Though roads were not universally bad, there were plenty that travellers described as “execrable” or dangerous, making travel in a vehicle uncomfortable and unreliable. 

After 1760, diaries record a steady increase in travel made by coach or carriage outside the towns. The mileage of main road under the management of turnpike trusts was growing rapidly. Trusts took a toll payment for horses and vehicles using a particular road. This was used to repair the road and raise capital to make major improvements. Fixing potholes, deep enough to swallow a horse, and burying the mud under welldrained gravel meant that lighter, faster vehicles could travel reliably between the main towns. 

Rowlandson talking with a Lady outside ‘The Angel’ Inn, Lymington. Royal Museums Greenwich, via Wikimedia.

Posting inn keepers now saw the opportunity to offer a small carriage with their posthorses; the postchaise had arrived. These light vehicles were drawn by two or four horses with a postillion sitting astride the lead horse. They were normally available to hire for journeys of about 10 miles, typically the distance to the next posting inn. They were returned by the postillion. At 9d to 18d per mile they were expensive, but shared between a party of 3 or 4 passengers and with a good luggage capacity, they were affordable for the better-off.

Importantly, postchaises would go wherever and whenever you wanted, away from the main roads where a rudimentary coach service operated. By jumping into a new chaise with a fresh team at regular “stages”, the traveller might average 8mph and hope to cover up to 80 miles in daylight. By the 1770s, travel by postchaise had begun to challenge the saddle horse as the preferred mode. Women valued the privacy and freedom to wear elegant clothes. However, the diaries regularly recorded that male members of the party still chose to ride horses alongside the chaise. 

Age of the stage 

Stagecoaches had offered a public service since the late 1600s, but demand was low for a slow, bumpy, expensive trip in a cramped compartment. However, after 1760 there was a steady rise in the number and frequency of “scheduled” stagecoach services. Maybe, this was driven by the improved design of steel spring suspension on coaches running on the new turnpikes. But better management by innkeepers who were already collaborating in hiring postchaises helped 

Professionals and gentry could afford the four inside seats, costing 3d to 4d per mile. Initially, outsiders had to hang on the edges of the roof but these “places” were half price and were affordable by less wealthy tradesmen, soldiers and servants. 

By 1800 the number and security of outside seats increased, and typical speeds rose to 8mph as the design of coaches continued to evolve. By 1830, the standard stagecoach had four inside and 12 outside seats and was averaging 10mph. The same coachmasters ran the Mail coaches, though, to protect the mailbox, only three outside passengers outside were allowed. Mails left London each evening and could be 240 miles away by the following evening. 

Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, Revellers on a Coach, between 1785 and 1790. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.222.

Commuters’ omnibus 

The population of London grew rapidly and by the late 1820s many of the better-off had moved to suburbs in Hackney, Islington, Paddington and over the new bridges to the Surrey bank from Camberwell to Clapham. These areas were initially served by short stage coaches, but this market was transformed by a new concept: the omnibus. This was a box on wheels with the passenger door at the back and longitudinal seats inside for easy access. You bought the ticket from an onboard conductor and the vehicle could stop at the kerbside to accommodate passengers.  

William Maw Egley, ‘Omnibus Life in London’ (1859). Image credit: Tate. Image released under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED

Vested interests slowed introduction into the City of London, but in 1829 Shillibeer ran a regular omnibus from the new suburb of Paddington to Bank, along the Marylebone Road turnpike. The full fare of 1s was affordable for betterpaid office workers and tradesmen. Soon new services crisscrossed the urban and suburban areas. By 1836, vehicles with a seating capacity of 188,000 per week were running to The Bank and there were 100,000 seats available over London Bridge. Daily commuting was here.  

Mary Cassatt, “In The Omnibus“, c.1891.

However, the majority working in the city still walked – a survey on London and Blackfriars bridges in 1812 claimed 175,000 pedestrians each day crossed from the Surrey bank into the city. 

How wide was the circle? 

These travel options set the horizons for social, business and contact groups. Diarists generally travelled less than 50 miles in a whole day. So, to get home by night the destination needed to be under 25 miles away. To meet someone, buy or sell goods, pay or receive rents or socialise reduced this circle of regular experience to a radius of around 10 to 15 miles. 

This might also encompass one’s eligible marriage prospects. A wider circle for less frequent travel involved an overnight stay at the destination – most people stayed with friends, relatives or a member of their religious congregation. At under 50 miles radius this was the limit for regular contact with “home” for economic migrants.  

The appearance of high-speed stagecoaches in the 1820s, travelling at 10mph, meant that the growing conurbations were now within the travel orbit of most small towns. An occasional trip on the outside of a coach might now be feasible for the non-labouring classes. The stage was set for the railways. 

Further reading

Dorian Gerhold, Bristol’s Stage Coaches (2012). 

Peter Edwards, Horse and Man in Early Modern England (2007).

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