Chapter V: Act 18: Geo. II., c. 33, provided, among {50}other things, that the streaks (2)

Postlethwayt's authority on the roads of Sussex declared that their condition at that time (1745) "hardly admits the country people to travel to markets in winter, and makes corn dear at the market because it cannot be bought, and cheap at the farmer's house because he cannot sometimes carry it to market." This fact is confirmed by G. R. Porter, who, in his "Progress of the Nation" (1846), gives the authority of an inhabitant of Horsham, Sussex, then lately living, for the tradition that at one time sheep or cattle could not be driven to the London market at all from Horsham, owing to the state of the roads, and had to be disposed of in the immediate neighbourhood, so that "under these circumstances a quarter of a fat ox was commonly sold for about fifteen shillings, and the price of mutton throughout the year was only five farthings the pound."

In Devonshire the Rev. James Brome, who published in {75}1726 a narrative of "Three Years Travels in England, Scotland, and Wales," found the farmers carrying their corn on horseback, the roads being too narrow to allow of the use of waggons.

Altogether the need for improved facilities for inland communication in the interests alike of travellers and of traders was great beyond all question, and there was unlimited scope for the operation of such improvement as was represented by the turnpike system, now coming into vogue.

It was, however, not so much the general needs of the country as the rebellion in Scotland in 1745, accompanied by such disasters for the Royalist troops as their defeat at Preston Pans, which had led the Government to pay special attention to the subject of road-making and road-improvement. Between 1726 and 1737 General Wade, employing in summer about 500 soldiers on the work, had constructed in Scotland itself some 250 miles of what were, in point of fact, military roads, being designed as a means of reducing disorder in that country. The communications between Scotland and England still remained, however, very defective, and, though English cavalry and artillery had gone forward bravely enough when the rebellion broke out, they found roads that, apart altogether from any question of fighting on them, were not fit for them even to move upon; so that while the troops from the south were hampered and delayed by the narrow tracks, the ruts and the bogs which impeded their advance, the enemy, more at home in these conditions, had all the advantage.

No sooner, therefore, had the rebellion been overcome than the Government, recognising that, even if turnpikes were set up along the roads on the border between Scotland and England, the tolls likely to be raised there would be wholly inadequate for the purpose, themselves took in hand the work of road construction and improvement; and this action gave impetus to a movement for improving roads in England and Wales generally.

Down to this time the turnpike system had undergone very little development. For a quarter of a century after it had been applied, by the Act of 1663, to the Great North Road, no Turnpike Acts at all were sought. A few were then obtained, but until the middle of the eighteenth century, at least, even if not still later, travellers from Edinburgh to London met {76}with no turnpikes until they came within about 110 miles of their destination. Newcastle and Carlisle were still connected by a bridle path only, while a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for November, 1752, in alluding to the journey from London to Falmouth, says that "after the first 47 miles from London you never set eyes on a turnpike for 220 miles."

The policy adopted by the Government so far stimulated the action of private enterprise that between 1760 and 1774 no fewer than 453 Turnpike Acts were passed for the making and repairing of roads, and many more were to follow.

{77}CHAPTER X

THE TURNPIKE SYSTEM

The fundamental principle of the turnpike system was that of transferring the cost of repairing main roads from the parish to the users.

The mediæval practice, under which the roads were maintained by religious houses, private benevolence and individual landowners, had, of course, still left the common law obligation that each and every parish should keep in repair the roads within its own particular limits, the Act of Philip and Mary, with its imposition of statute duty, being, in effect, only a means for the regulation and carrying out of such requirement. The parishioners were even indictable if they failed to keep the roads in repair.

But in proportion as trade and travel increased, the greater became alike the need for good roads and, also, the apparent injustice of requiring the residents in a particular parish to do statute labour on roads, or to pay for labour thereon, less in the interest of themselves and their neighbours than in that of strangers, or traffic, passing through on the main road from one town to another. In effect, also, whether such requirement were reasonable or not, the work itself was either not done at all or was done in a way that still left the roads in a condition commonly described as "execrable."

The principle that the users should pay for the main roads by means of tolls was thus definitely adopted; but the obligation in regard to other than main roads still rested in full with the parish. It was not, however, until the passing of 24 Geo. II., c. 43, that turnpike roads were mentioned as distinct from "highways," this being the accepted designation for roads for which the parish was responsible. When the adoption of the turnpike system became more general, that is to say, about the year 1767, the turnpike roads were maintained--or were supposed to be maintained--by tolls, and the {78}statute labour and contributions in lieu thereof were mainly appropriated to the cross roads constituting the parish highways, on which no turnpikes were placed; though certain proportions of the statute labour or statute labour contributions also became available for turnpike roads which could not otherwise be properly maintained.

At first there was a pronounced disinclination on the part of the public in various parts of the country to tolerate toll-bars. It might be supposed that, the state of the roads having generally been so deplorable, everyone would have welcomed their amendment under almost any possible conditions. Defoe, at least, was enthusiastic over the prospect of better roads that turnpikes foreshadowed. Alluding to them in his "Tour," he says: "And 'tis well worth recording, for the Honour of the present Age, that this Work has been begun, and is in an extraordinary Manner carry'd on, and perhaps may, in a great Measure be compleat within our Memory, as to the worst and most dangerous Roads in the Kingdom. And this is a Work of so much general Good that certainly no publick Edifice, Alms-house, Hospital or Nobleman's Palace, can be of equal Value to the Country with this, nor at the same time more an Honour and Ornament to it."

But there was another point of view which is thus expressed by Whitaker in "Loidis and Elmete": "To intercept an ancient highway, to distrain upon a man for the purchase of a convenience which he does not desire, and to debar him from the use of his ancient accommodation, bad as it was, because he will not pay for a better, has certainly an arbitrary aspect, at which the rude and undisciplined rabble of the north would naturally revolt."

Objections to turnpikes had been further fomented by demagogues who went about the country proclaiming that the gates which were being put up were part of a design planned by the Government to enslave the people and deprive them of their liberty.

Not only did many individuals in various parts of the country refuse to use the turnpike roads, or to pay toll if they did use them, but in some instances the gates were destroyed, by way of making the protests more emphatic. In 1728 it was thought necessary to pass a general Act against "ill-designing and disorderly persons" who had "in various parts of this {79}Kingdom associated themselves together, both by day and by night, and cut down, pulled down, burnt and otherwise destroyed several turnpike gates and houses which have been erected by authority of Parliament for repairing divers roads by tolls, thereby preventing such tolls from being taken, and lessening the security of divers of her Majesty's good subjects for considerable sums of money which they have advanced upon credit of the said Acts, and deterring others from making like advances." Persons convicted of such offences were--without any discretion being given to the justices--to be committed for three months' imprisonment, and were, also, to be whipped at the market cross. These penalties appear to have been unavailing, since we find that four years later the punishment, even for a first offence, was increased to seven years' transportation.

But the hostility increased rather than diminished. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1749 there is an account of some turnpike riots in Somerset and Gloucestershire which began on the night of the 24th of July and were not suppressed until the 5th of the following month. A start was made with the destruction of the gates near Bedminster by "great numbers of people." On the following night a crowd bored holes in the gates at Don John's Cross, a mile from Bristol, blew up the gates with gunpowder, and destroyed the toll-house. Cross-bars and posts were erected next day, in place of the gates, and the turnpike commissioners took it in turns to enforce payment of the tolls. At night "a prodigious body of Somersetshire people," armed with various instruments of destruction, and some of them disguised in women's clothes, went along the roads to an accompaniment of drum-beating and much shouting, demolished the turnpikes, and pulled down the toll-houses. Re-erected, the gates were guarded by a "body of seamen, well armed with musquets, pistols and cutlasses"; but two nights afterwards the rioters were out again, this time with rusty swords, pitch-forks, axes, guns, pistols and clubs. They demolished and burned some turnpikes which had been put up a third time, and destroyed others besides. By August 3 "almost all the turnpikes and turnpike-houses" in the neighbourhood of Bristol had been demolished; but a report dated Bristol, August 12, says: "By the arrival of six troops of dragoon guards on the 5th, {80}we are secured from all insults of the country people who immediately dispersed and posts and chains are again erected, and the tolls levied, but the turnpikes are fixed nearer the city."

The revolt in Yorkshire referred to by Whitaker occurred in 1753, four years later than the disturbances in the west. At Selby the inhabitants were summoned by the bellman to assemble at midnight, with hatchets and axes, and destroy the turnpikes. They obeyed the summons, and any gate left unprotected was soon level with the ground. In the neighbourhood of Leeds the rioting was especially serious. Whitaker says concerning it:--

"The public roads about Leeds were at that time narrow, generally consisting of a hollow way that only allowed a passage for carriages drawn by a horse in a single row, and an elevated causeway covered with flags or boulder stones.

"The attempt to improve this state of the public roads excited great discontent among the lower classes of the people, who formed the design of pulling down all the turnpike bars in the neighbourhood."

They pulled down, or burned down, as many as a dozen in one week; and when some of the rioters had been arrested, and were on their way to York Castle, their friends attempted a rescue, following this up by assaulting the magistrates and breaking some windows. Troops were called out, and, warnings and the firing of blank cartridge being of no avail, ball cartridges were used, with the result that two or three persons were shot dead, and twenty-two were wounded, some fatally.

Whatever the justification for the turnpikes that gave rise to this popular discontent, the way in which the system itself was developed was certainly open to criticism.

The precedent set by the Act of Charles II. in the grouping together of several counties, and in conferring on the justices the powers of chief control, was wholly disregarded. Instead of even an improvement on this procedure being effected by the creation of a national system of turnpike roads, directed by some central authority, and responding in regard to internal communication to the wants of the country as a whole, there was called into being an almost endless number of purely local trusts, each taking charge of, as a rule, from ten to {81}twenty miles of road, each concerned only in its own local, or even its own personal, interests, and each operating under conditions that involved an excessive expenditure with, too often, the most unsatisfactory of results for the general public.

The defects of the system thus brought about were well recognised by various authorities at a time when they were still being experienced to the full.

The Select Committee appointed by the House of Commons in 1819 to consider the subject of public highways said in the course of their report:--

"The importance of land-carriage to the prosperity of a country need not be dwelt upon. Next to the general influence of the seasons ... there is, perhaps, no circumstance more interesting to men in a civilised state than the perfection of the means of interior communication. It is a matter, therefore, to be wondered at, that so great a source of national improvement has hitherto been so much neglected. Instead of the roads of the Kingdom being made a great national concern, a number of local trusts are created, under the authority of which large sums of money are collected from the public, and expended without adequate responsibility or control. Hence arises a number of abuses, for which no remedy is provided, and the resources of the country, instead of being devoted to useful purposes, are too often improvidently wasted."

Writing in 1823, Dehany said in reference to the Act of 1663, "It is to be regretted that this plan of passing one Act applicable to a considerable district, and carrying it into execution under the superintendence of the magistracy, was not pursued, instead of parcelling out the roads into smaller divisions, with independent bodies of trustees"; while the "Westminster Review," in its issue for October, 1825, argued that the whole system of roads should be one, and continued:--

"Such a work might have been thought the duty of the Government most interested in it; but that Government seems generally to be otherwise occupied. Leaving all to individual exertion, it perhaps often leaves too much; since there are matters in which individual exertion has an insufficient interest, while there are others which it is unable to accomplish without unjustifiable sacrifices. We do not desire the perpetual, nor even the frequent interference of Government, that is most {82}certain; but there is an useful medium between the intermeddling of some of the continental states and that neglect, or, rather, discountenance, which our own throws on numerous matters where its aid would be of use, and which, without that aid, cannot be accomplished.... The freedom of universal communication is the object, and it is to little purpose that one portion of a road be good if the other is impassable. It is a national and not a private concern."

Under the conditions actually brought about it was left for any group of landowners and others in any particular district where better roads were needed to apply to Parliament for an Act authorising them to raise a loan in order to meet the initial cost of making or repairing a road, and to set up gates or bars where they could enforce payment of tolls out of which to recoup themselves for their expenditure and meet the costs of maintenance. Theoretically, these were simply temporary expedients, and the turnpike trustees, having once provided a good road, and got their money back, would take down the toll-gates again, and leave the road for the free use of the public. Hence every Turnpike Act was granted only for a limited period, generally about twenty years, and had to be renewed at the end of that term if, as invariably happened, the debt on the road had not been cleared off, and the need for toll-collection still remained. The cost of procuring the periodical continuance of all these Acts was, in itself, a not inconsiderable burden on the finances of the trusts. In, for example, the twenty-four years from 1785 to 1809, the number of Turnpike Acts, whether new Acts or renewals of old ones, passed by the Legislature was no fewer than 1062.

One result of the excessive localisation of the turnpike system was that trusts of absurdly large proportions were created to look after absurdly small stretches of road. "The fundamental principle," says a writer in the "Edinburgh Review" for October, 1819, "is always to vest the whole management in the hands of the country gentlemen; and, as they act gratuitously, it has been the policy of the law to appoint in each act a prodigious number of commissioners--frequently from one hundred to two hundred, for the care of ten or fifteen miles of road; and thus a business of art and science is committed to a promiscuous mob of peers, squires, farmers and shopkeepers, who are chosen, not for their {83}fitness to discharge the duties of commissioners, but from the sole qualification of residence within a short distance from the road to be made or repaired."

That the best interests of the community could be served under these conditions was an impossibility. The "Edinburgh Review" declares, in fact, that the whole time of the meetings of turnpike trusts was "occupied in tumultuous and unprofitable discussions, and in resolving on things at one meeting which run a good chance of being reversed at the next; that the well informed and civilized commissioners become very soon disgusted with the disorderly uproar, or the want of sense, temper or honesty of some of their companions; and that the management finally falls into the hands of a few busy, bustling, interested persons of low condition, who attend the meetings with no idea of performing a public duty, but for the purpose of turning their powers, by some device or other, to the profit of themselves or of their friends or relations."

The writer of the article on "Roads" in "Rees' Cyclopædia" is no less condemnatory of the whole system, speaking of the "violent disputations and bickerings" at the meetings of the trustees, where, he says, "a proposed new line of road or, perhaps, the repair of an old one, will sometimes be contested with as great keenness and vehemence as if the parties were contending whether Great Britain shall be a monarchy or a republic."

Each trust, again, had its own organisation, with attorney, treasurer, clerk and surveyor; and one may assume that each of these individuals, in turn, was inspired by no greater sense of public duty than were many of the trustees themselves, and was much more concerned in what he could make out of the business for himself than in helping to provide through routes of communication in the interests of the community. The surveyors were, generally speaking, hopelessly incompetent. The short length of road in charge of a trust and the consequent limitation of the amount received for tolls did not, as a rule, warrant the payment of an adequate salary to a really qualified man, and the individual upon whom the courtesy title of "surveyor" was conferred was often either the pensioned servant of a local landowner or some other person equally unfit to be entrusted with those functions of {84}road-management which the trustees, whether as the result of their mutual differences or otherwise, generally left in his hands. The "Edinburgh Review," in the article already quoted, declares that "the state of the roads displays no symptoms of well qualified commissioners. They leave the art and science of the business to their surveyor--who is commonly just as much in the clouds as themselves as to his own proper calling. With a laudable veneration for his forefathers, he proceeds according to the antient system of things, without plan or method; and fearing no rivalry, and subject to no intelligent control, he proceeds, like his predecessors, to waste the road money on team work and paupers, and leave nothing for the public like a road but the name and cost of it."

Nevertheless, the turnpike system, defective in itself, badly administered, and burdensome to the toll-payers, did bring about an improvement in roads which previously had too often received little or no attention; and this improvement, as will be shown in the chapter that follows, had a material influence on trade, travel and social conditions; though it was not to attain its maximum results until the turnpike roads had been supplemented by a further system of scientific road-making and road-repairing.

{85}CHAPTER XI

TRADE AND TRANSPORT IN THE TURNPIKE ERA

In strong contrast to the vigorous denunciations of Arthur Young of so many, though not all, of the roads over which his extensive journeyings through England had led him, are the statements of other authorities, writing about the same time, as to the commercial and social advantages resulting from such improvements as had been brought about. The conflict of testimony appears inconsistent until one remembers that, bad as were the particular conditions which Arthur Young describes, the general conditions were, nevertheless, better than before. Just as the first bone-shaking stage-coach, without springs, seemed to Chamberlayne an "admirable commodiousness," such as the world had never before seen, so, in the view of the writers who had not the same experience of travel as Arthur Young, turnpike roads of any kind may have appeared a vast improvement on the boggy roads or the narrow bridle paths they had succeeded.

Whatever, again, the dangers and discomforts of so many even of the new turnpike roads, there is no doubt that a distinct stimulus was given to trade and travel as the result not only of the better roads but of the better vehicles that could be, and were being, used on them. Agriculture, industries, commerce and social progress all, in fact, took another step forward as these opportunities for transport and communication relatively improved.

Under the influence, possibly, of such considerations as these Henry Homer, writing in 1767, regards with great satisfaction the general outlook at that time. He says:--

"Our very Carriages travel with almost winged Expedition between every Town of Consequence in the Kingdom and the Metropolis. By this, as well as the yet more valuable Project of increasing inland Navigation, a Facility of Communication is soon likely to be established from every Part of the Island {86}to the sea, and from the several places in it to each other. Trade is no longer fettered by the Embarrasments, which attended our former Situation. Dispatch, which is the very life and Soul of Business, becomes daily more attainable by the free Circulation opening in every Channel, which is adapted to it. Merchandise and Manufactures find a ready Conveyance to the Markets. The natural Blessings of the Island are shared by the Inhabitants with a more equal Hand. The Constitution itself acquires Firmness by the Stability and Increase both of Trade and Wealth which are the Nerves and Sinews of it.

"In Consequence of all this, the Demand for the Produce of the Lands is increased; the Lands themselves advance proportionably both in their annual Value and in the Number of Years-purchase for which they are sold, according to such Value....

"There never was a more astonishing Revolution accomplished in the internal System of any Country than has been within the Compass of a few years in that of England.

"The carriage of Grain, Coals, Merchandize, etc., is in general conducted with little more than half the Number of Horses with which it formerly was. Journies of Business are performed with much more than double Expedition. Improvements in Agriculture keep pace with those of Trade. Everything wears the Face of Dispatch; every Article of our Produce becomes more valuable; and the Hinge, upon which all these Movements turn, is the Reformation which has been made in our Publick Roads."

In the article on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) it is declared that the country had derived great advantage from the improvements of the roads, and from the application of tolls collected at the turnpikes. Travelling had been rendered safer, easier and pleasanter. "That this end is greatly answered," we are assured, "everyone's experience will tell him who can remember the condition of the roads thirty or forty years ago." There had been, also, a benefit to trade and commerce by the reduced cost of carriage for all sorts of goods and merchandise. On this especially interesting point the writer of the article says: "Those who have made it their business to be rightly informed of this matter have, upon inquiry, found that carriage is now 30 per cent {87}cheaper than before the roads were amended by turnpikes." He proceeds to give a number of examples of such reductions in freight, among them being the following:--

"From Birmingham to London it is said there is not less than 25 or 30 waggons sent weekly; 7s. per hundred was formerly paid, the price now paid is from 3 to 4s. per hundred.

"From Portsmouth to London the common price was 7s. per hundred, the Government paid so in Queen Anne's war, and now only 4 to 5s. per hundred is paid; and in the late war arms and warlike stores for his Majesty's service were carried at the rate of 4 or 5s. per hundred.

"From Exeter to London, and from other towns in the west of like distance the carriage of wool and other goods is very great, especially in times of war.--12s. per hundred was formerly paid, now only 8s. per hundred. The same can be affirmed with respect to Bristol, Gloucester and the adjacent counties."

While the traders and the consumers were, presumably, both benefitting from these reduced charges, the carriers also gained, by reason of the greater loads they were able to take with the same number of horses. On this point the writer says: "The roads in general were formerly so bad and deep, so full of holes and sloughs that a team of horses could scarce draw from any place of 60 miles distant, or upwards, above 30 hundred weight of goods; whereas the same team can now draw with more ease 50 or 60 hundred." On the other hand he did not overlook the fact that the keeping up of the turnpike roads was "a prodigious expense to the nation," so that, in his opinion, the reduction in transport charges was only "a seeming alleviation" of the general burden.

At the time Defoe made his tour of England the turnpike system was still in its infancy; but he is very eulogistic over the improvements then already made.

Having, as already mentioned on p. 65, described the roads from London to the North across the clay-belt of the Midlands, Defoe tells how "turnpikes or toll-bars" had been set up on "several great roads of England, beginning at London, and proceeding through almost all those dirty deep roads" in the midland counties especially, "At which Turn-pikes all Carriages, Droves of Cattle and Travellers on Horse-back are obliged to pay an easy Toll; that is to say, a Horse a Penny, {88}a Coach three Pence, a Cart four Pence, at some six Pence to eight Pence, a Waggon six Pence, in some a Shilling, and the like; Cattle pay by the Score, or by the Head, in some Places more, in some less." Several of these turnpikes had been set up of late years and "great Progress had been made in mending the most difficult Ways."

On these roads toll was, of course, being taken by authority of Act of Parliament; but there was one road, at least, on which tolls were being enforced without Parliamentary sanction; for Defoe goes on to say:--

"There is another Road, which is a Branch of the Northern Road, and is properly called the Coach Road ... and this indeed is a most frightful Way, if we take it from Hatfield, or rather the Park Corners of Hatfield House, and from thence to Stevenage, to Baldock, to Biggleswade and Bugden. Here is that famous Lane call'd Baldock Lane, famous for being so impassable that the Coaches and Travellers were oblig'd to break out of the Way even by Force, which the People of the Country not able to prevent, at length placed Gates and laid their lands open, setting men at the Gates to take a voluntary Toll, which Travellers always chose to pay, rather than plunge into Sloughs and Holes, which no Horse could wade through.

"This terrible Road is now under Cure by the same Methods, and probably may in Time be brought to be firm and solid."

In regard to the turnpike system in general he says:--

"The Benefit of these Turnpikes appears now to be so great, and the People in all Places begin to be so sensible of it, that it is incredible what Effect it has already had upon Trade in the Counties where the Roads are completely finished; even the Carriage of Goods is abated, in some Places, 6d. per hundred Weight, in others 12d. per hundred, which is abundantly more Advantageous to Commerce than the Charge paid amounts to....

"Besides the benefits accruing from this laudable Method we may add, The Conveniency to those who bring fat Cattle, especially Sheep, to London in the Winter from the remoter counties of Leicester and Lincoln, where they are bred: For before, the Country Graziers were obliged to sell their Stocks off in September and October when the Roads began to be bad, and when they generally sell cheap; and the Butchers {89}and Farmers near London used to engross them, and keep them till December and January, and then sell them, though not an Ounce fatter than before, for an advanced price to the Citizens of London; whereas now the Roads are in a Way to be made everywhere passable the City will be serv'd with Mutton almost as cheap in the Winter as in the summer, and the profit of the advance will be to the Country Graziers, who are the original Breeders and take all the Pains.

"This is evidenc'd to a Demonstration in the Counties where the Roads are already repair'd, from whence they bring their fat Cattle, and particularly their Mutton, in Droves, from Sixty, Seventy or Eighty Miles without fatiguing, harrassing or sinking the Flesh of the Creatures, even in the Depth of the Winter."

Whether or not the fat cattle and the sheep were really able to do their long walk to London without fatigue and loss of flesh, it is certain that the naturally bad condition of the roads leading to London was made worse by the "infinite droves of black cattle, hogs and sheep" which passed along them from Essex, Lincolnshire and elsewhere. When the roads were being continually trodden by the feet of large heavy bullocks, "of which," says Defoe, "the numbers that come this way"--that is, out of Lincolnshire and the fens--"are scarce to be reckon'd up," the work done by the turnpike commissioners in the summer was often completely spoiled in the winter. Among, therefore, the many advantages of the rail transport of to-day we may reckon the fact that the roads and highways are no longer worn to the same extent as before by cattle and sheep on their way to the London markets.

Defoe alludes, also, to the influence of improved communications on the development of the fish industry, with the subsidiary advantage of improving the food supplies of the people, saying, in this connection--

"I might give Examples where the Herrings which are not the best Fish to keep, used, even before these Reparations were set on foot, to be carried to those Towns, and up to Warwick, Birmingham, Tamworth and Stafford, and though they frequently stunk before they got thither, yet the people were so eager for them, that they bought them up at a dear Rate; whereas when the Roads are every where good they will come in less Time, by at least two Days in Six of what they {90}used to do, and an hundred times the quantity will be consumed."

Until, again, the advent of better roads, food supplies and provender--peas, beans, oats, hay, straw, etc.--for London were brought in on the backs of horses. In proportion as the roads improved and were made available for carts and waggons the area of supply widened, and the counties immediately adjoining London even petitioned Parliament against the extension of turnpikes into the remoter counties. These other counties, they alleged, would, from the cheapness of their labour, be able to sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than the nearer counties, and would reduce the rents and ruin the cultivation in the latter. Here, of course, the producer wanted protection against competition, and wished to retain the benefit of his geographical advantage. The broader view as to the effect of improved communications on national progress in general was expressed by Adam Smith. In Book I., chapter xi., Part I., of his "Wealth of Nations," he says:--

"Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the remote, which must always be the most extensive circle of the country. They are advantageous to the town, by breaking down the monopoly of the country in its neighbourhood. They are advantageous even to that part of the country. Though they introduce some rival commodities into the old market, they open many new markets to its produce. Monopoly, besides, is a great enemy to good management, which can never be universally established but in consequence of that free and universal competition which forces everybody to have resource to it for the sake of self-defence."

The conditions under which the traders of the country in general conducted their business was, naturally, influenced, if not altogether controlled, by the conditions of locomotion.

Hutton tells us in his "History of Birmingham" that the practice of the Birmingham manufacturer for, perhaps, a hundred generations was to keep within the warmth of his own forge. The foreign customer, therefore, applied to {91}him for the execution of orders, and regularly made his appearance twice a year.

Concerning the Manchester trade, Dr Aikin, in his "Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round Manchester" (1795), says:--

"For the first thirty years of the present century, the old established houses confined their trade to the wholesale dealers in London, Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle, and those who frequented Chester fair.... When the Manchester trade began to extend the chapmen used to keep gangs of pack-horses, and accompany them to the principal towns with goods in packs, which they opened and sold to shopkeepers, lodging what was unsold in small stores at the inns. The pack-horses brought back sheep's wool, which was bought on the journey, and sold to the makers of worsted yarn at Manchester, or to the clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth and the West Riding of Yorkshire. On the improvement of the turnpike roads waggons were set up, and the pack-horses discontinued; and the chapmen only rode out for orders, carrying with them patterns in their bags. It was during the forty years from 1730 to 1770 that trade was greatly pushed by the practice of sending these riders all over the kingdom, to those towns which before had been supplied from the wholesale places in the capital places before mentioned."

Thus one effect of the improvement in communications was to allow of the Manchester manufacturers establishing direct relations with retailers in the smaller towns who had hitherto been supplied by the wholesale dealers in the large towns, one set of profits being saved. Dr Aikin adds:--

"Within the last twenty or thirty years the vast increase of foreign trade has caused many of the Manchester manufacturers to travel abroad, and agents or partners to be fixed for a considerable time on the Continent, as well as foreigners to reside at Manchester. And the town has now in every respect assumed the style and manners of one of the commercial capitals of Europe."

In an article headed "Change in Commerce," published in No. XI. of "The Original," (1836), Thomas Walker gives ("by tradition," as he says) some particulars as to the methods of business followed by a leading Manchester merchant who was born there early in the eighteenth century {92}and realised a sufficient fortune to be able to have a carriage of his own when not half a dozen were kept in the town by persons connected with business.

"He sent the manufactures of the place into Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the intervening counties, and principally took in exchange feathers from Lincolnshire and malt from Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire. All his commodities were conveyed on pack-horses, and he was from home the greater part of every year, performing his journeys entirely on horseback. His balances were received in guineas, and were carried with him in his saddle-bags. He was exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, to great labour and fatigue, and to constant danger.... Business carried on in this manner required a combination of personal attention, courage, and physical strength not to be hoped for in a deputy.... The improvements in the way of carrying on commerce, and its increase, may be attributed in a great degree to the increased facility of communication, and the difference between the times I have alluded to and the present is nearly as great as between a pack-horse and a steam-carriage."

Walker also mentions that in the early days of the trader here referred to Manchester was provided with wine by a wine merchant who lived at Preston and carried his supplies to Manchester on horseback. The quantity then consumed, however, was but small, as "men in business confined themselves generally to punch and ale, using wine only as a medicine or on very extraordinary occasions."

A no less interesting phase of the improvements being brought about, and one to which I shall revert in the chapter on "The Canal Era," was found in the influence of better communications on the social conditions of the people.

That these conditions had been greatly prejudiced by the bad roads is beyond all question. Villages which could be reached only with difficulty in summer, and were isolated from the rest of the world for four or five months in the autumn, winter and early spring, were steeped in ignorance and superstition. True it is that in such communities as these the games, sports, customs and traditions which represented the poetry of old English life survived the longest, and have not even yet disappeared before the march of Modern Progress. But no less {93}true is it that such communities were the longest to foster that once popular belief in witchcraft which meant, not merely the looking askance at any decrepit old creature who was believed to have turned the milk sour in the pails, or to have stopped the cows and ewes from breeding, but the putting to death of many thousands of supposed "witches" in England and Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The total number of victims in the first eighty years of the seventeenth century alone is estimated by Dr Charles Mackay, in "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions," at forty thousand! This particular mania was certainly shared by Kings, Parliaments and ecclesiastics no less than by ignorant villagers; but it decreased in proportion as general intelligence increased, and the increase in general intelligence was materially influenced by those improvements in locomotion and communication which led to wider knowledge and a greater intermingling of the classes.

The same isolation fostered the belief in ghosts, goblins, wraiths, kelpies and other inhabitants of the world of spirits, whose visitations or doings probably formed a leading topic of conversation as the isolated family sat round the fire in the long winter months, wives and daughters busy, no doubt, with their distaffs, their spinning-wheel or their needlework, but none the less able to tell or to listen to the favourite stories.

The whole conditions of existence were of the most circumscribed kind. Many a village got no news at all of what was happening in the world except such as the pedlar might bring, or, alternatively, might circulate through his London-printed "broadsides," telling of some great victory, giving the last dying speech of a noted highwayman, or recording the death of one ruler and the succession of another, of which events the villagers might not hear for two or even three months after they had occurred. "Whole generations," in the words of Samuel Smiles ("Early Roads and Modes of Travelling"), "lived a monotonous, ignorant, prejudiced and humdrum life. They had no enterprise, no energy, little industry, and were content to die where they were born."

In the Elizabethan era, and even later, inhabitants of the northern counties were regarded by dwellers in the south as people among whom it would be dangerous for them to go. {94}English navigators were entering on voyages of discovery and conquest in distant seas, where they would fearlessly encounter the enemies of England or the Indians of the New World, at a time when their fellow-countrymen at home would have shrunk from the perils of a journey across the wilds of Northumberland or of an encounter with the supposed savages of Lancashire.

Even when it was a matter of visiting friends, journeys to distant parts of the country were but rarely undertaken. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" for December, 1752, it was remarked that English people were readily going to France, where they spent in 1751 nearly £100,000; but though a rich citizen in London who had relatives or friends in the west of England might hear of their welfare half a dozen times in his life, by post, "he thinks no more of visiting them than of traversing the deserts of Nubia."

On the other hand, one result of this limitation in the facilities for home travel was to give to many a county town a far greater degree of social distinction that it can claim to-day.

Just as in mediæval times England had consisted of so many separate self-governing and self-dependent communities, each with the house of the lord of the manor as the "hub" of its own little universe, so--in the days when communications had certainly, though still only relatively, improved--did the county town become the recognised centre of social life and movement for each and every county where there was any pretence to social life at all. The country gentry, with their wives and daughters, came to regard a visit to the county town, and indulgence there in a round of balls, feasts, visits and functions, in the same light as a season in London is regarded at the present date.

London in the seventeenth century, if not even down to the middle of the eighteenth, was, for all practical purposes, as far away from the western counties of England as London to-day is from Vienna or St. Petersburg. Visits to the Metropolis were then, indeed, of extremely rare occurrence. In Macaulay's sketch of "The State of England in 1685," forming chapter iii. of his "History of England," there is a diverting account of what must have happened to the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor when he appeared in Fleet Street, to be "as easily distinguished from the resident population {95}as a Turk or a Lascar," and to be subjected to numerous "vexations and humiliations" until, enraged and mortified, he returned to his mansion where "he was once more a great man, and saw nothing above himself except when at the assizes he took his seat on the bench near the judge, or when at the muster of the militia he saluted the Lord Lieutenant."

Adding to such "vexations and humiliations" the cost, the inconveniences and the perils of a journey to London--perils, too, that arose from highwaymen as well as from the roads themselves--the country gentleman was generally content to seek his social distractions nearer home than London. To quote again from Macaulay:--

"The county town was his metropolis. He sometimes made it his residence during part of the year. At all events he was often attracted thither by business and pleasure, by assizes, quarter sessions, elections, musters of militia, festivals and races. There were the halls in which the judges, robed in scarlet and escorted by javelins and trumpets, opened the King's commission twice a year. There were the markets at which the corn, the cattle, the wool and the hops of the surrounding country were exposed for sale. There were the great fairs to which merchants came from London, and where the rural dealer laid in his annual stores of sugar, stationery, cutlery and muslin. There were the shops at which the best families of the neighbourhood bought grocery and millinery."

Defoe, in his "Tour," affords us some interesting glimpses of the social life of various country towns in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Dorchester he describes as "indeed a pleasant town to live in.... There is," he says, "good company and a good deal of it," and he thinks "a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well, in Dorchester" as in any town he knew in England. Exeter was "full of gentry and good company." He has much to say in praise of social life in Dorsetshire. In Plymouth "a gentleman might find very agreeable society." Salisbury had "a good deal of good manners and good company." The "neighbourhood" of "Persons of Figure and Quality" caused Maidstone to be "a very agreeable place to live in," and one where a "Man of Letters and Manners" would always "find suitable Society both to Divert and Improve himself," the town being, in fact, one of "very great {96}Business and Trade, and yet full of Gentry, of Mirth, and of Good Company." King's Lynn, the head-quarters of so important a shipping business in those days, he found "abounding in very good company," while of York he writes: "There is abundance of good Company here, and abundance of good Families live here, for the sake of the good Company and cheap living; a Man converses here with all the World as effectually as at London; the Keeping up of Assemblies among the younger Gentry was first set up here, a thing other Writers recommend mightily as the Character of a good Country and of a Pleasant Place."

The general effect, from a social standpoint, of the combination of better roads and better coaches is well told in an essay "On the Country Manners of the Present Age," published in the "Annual Register" for 1761. The writer has much to say that is of interest from the point of view of the present work, but the following extracts must suffice:--

"It is scarce half a century since the inhabitants of distant counties were regarded as a species almost as different from those of the Metropolis as the natives of the Cape of Good Hope.... Formerly a journey into the country was considered almost as great an undertaking as a voyage to the Indies. The old family coach was sure to be stowed with all sorts of luggage and provisions; and perhaps in the course of the journey a whole village together with their teams, were called in to dig the heavy vehicle out of the clay, and to drag it to the next place of wretched accommodation which the road afforded. Thus they travelled like the caravan over the deserts of Arabia, with every disagreeable circumstance of tediousness and inconvenience. But now the amendments of the roads with the many other improvements of travelling have in a manner opened a new communication between the several parts of our island.... Stage-coaches, machines, flys and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his arrival. In short the manners, fashions, amusements, vices and follies of the metropolis now make their way to the remotest corners of the land as readily and speedily, along the turnpike road, as, of old, Milton's Sin and Death, by means {97}of their marvellous bridges over the Chaos from the infernal regions to our world.

"The effects of this easy communication have almost daily grown more and more visible. The several great cities, and we might add, many poor country towns, seem to be universally inspired with the ambition of becoming the little Londons of the part of the country in which they are situated."

But if the easy communication rendered possible by turnpike roads and flying coaches conferred on the country towns a hope of becoming so many little Londons, the day was to come when a still easier communication by means of railway lines and express trains was to take provincial residents just as readily to the great and real London, and so deprive not a few provincial centres of much of that social life and distinction which the improved transport facilities had brought them.

In London itself, as may also be learned from Defoe, the betterment of the roads around the metropolis led to the citizens flocking out in greater numbers than ever to take lodgings and country houses in "towns near London," which many people having business in the City had not been able to do before because of the trouble involved in riding to and fro on the bad roads. We are told, further, of the consequent increase in the rent of houses, and of the greater number of dwellings being built, in places the roads to which had thus been improved, as compared with other suburban districts to which the turnpike system had not yet been extended.

We have here the beginnings of that creation of a Greater London which has since undergone such enormous developments, and has led to the almost complete disappearance of the custom, once in vogue in the City of London, of a merchant or tradesman living on the same premises as those in which he carried on his business.

Of the various circumstances that led to the eventual decline and fall of the turnpike system, which, with all its faults and short-comings, had at least helped to bring about the improvements in trade, transport and social conditions here described, I shall speak in Chapter xxiii.

{98}CHAPTER XII

SCIENTIFIC ROAD-MAKING

One question which naturally arises in connection with the turnpike roads is, "Why was it, when there was so widespread an organisation of turnpike trusts, and when so much money was being spent on the repair of the roads, that the roads themselves were still so defective, and only relatively better than they had been before?"--this being the real position, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on the turnpike system by those who were gratified with the stimulus given to trade, travel and commerce by the improvements actually made.

The answer is that although a vast amount of road-making or road-repairing was going on, at the very considerable expense of the road users, and to the advantage of a small army of attorneys, officials and labourers, it was not road-making of a scientific kind, but merely amateur work, done at excessive cost, either with unintelligent zeal or in slovenly style, and yielding results which mostly failed to give the country the type of road it required for the ever-increasing traffic to which expanding trade, greater travel, and heavier and more numerous waggons and coaches were leading.

Before the adoption of scientific road-making, the usual way of forming a new road was, first to lay along it a collection of large stones, and then to heap up thereon small stones and road dirt in such a way that the road assumed the shape of the upper half of an orange, the convexity often being so pronounced that vehicles kept along the summit of the eminence because it was dangerous for them, especially in rainy weather, to go along the slope on either side.

This form of road was adopted in order to ensure good drainage for rain-water; and in this connection the writer on "Roads" in Postlethwayt's "Dictionary" (1745) says:--

"The chief and almost the only cause of the deepness and {99}foulness of the roads is occasioned by the standing water which, for want of due care to draw it off by scouring and opening ditches and drains and other water courses, and clearing of passages, soaks into the earth, and softens it to such a degree that it cannot bear the weight of horses and carriages."