The last Scottish stage coach apparently took to the roads as late as 1913, running between between Tarbet and Campbelltown. In Angus and most other parts of Scotland, the coach had been displaced for decades at this date. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the stage coach was a necessity for many travellers who wanted to go any considerable distance within a 'reasonable' time. It is easy to forget that journeys we now take for granted were then a daunting proposition. One eighteenth century Dundonian trully remarked that a journey to Edinburgh 'was a serious business for a thinking person'. Before coaches, most letters and important documents were transported long-distance usually by messengers or 'runners' who travelled on foot.
An article in the Montrose Review (Friday 21 September 1928) dug up interesting information from the British Almanac for 1830, detailing the journey from coach between Dundee and London. The coach left the Bull and Mouth Inn at London shortly after eight in the evening, arrived at York at 5:30 pm next day and made Darlington shortly before the second midnight. Bu eleven next morning it had reached Berwick and was heading for Dunbar. Crossing the Forth at Queensferry, passengers arrived at Perth at 11 pm and in Dundee at a quarter past one in the morning. The whole journey took two days and nights, and five hours over.
One of the earliest coaches in our area was the 'Royal Mail' which started running north to Aberdeen in 1798. I have detailed some of the names and stories of the various other early stage coaches in my earlier post Before the Days of Steam - the Stage Coach! Plus the Amazing Captain Barclay There were more than a dozen coaches ploughing the very rudimentary roads of Angus at various points in the nineteenth century.
Journeys were perilious and comfort not guaranteed. the boldly named 'Flying Machine' travelled between the Grassmarket in Edinburgh and Dundee 'every Tuesday, God willing, and every Wednesday, whether or no'.
Leslie Gardiner paints a vivid picture of the bustling commercial hubs which the coaches were crucially part of for many years:
In Dundee's busiest days, just before the railways came, Sinclair's Hotel sent off the 'Royal Mails' to Aberdeen and Edinburgh every night; changed the 'New Times' on its way from Aberdeen to Perth; ran the 'Fair Maid' to Glasgow and a couple of locals, the 'Sir Henry Parnell' to Brechin and the 'Commercial Traveller' to Arbroath. Campbell's Hotel dealt with the flamboyant red-and-green 'Highlander' (Edinburgh-Montrose) and a slow coach ironically named 'Express' to Aberdeen. (Stage-Coach to John O'Groats, London, 1961, 135.]
Among the establishments in Dundee which did a roaring trade with the coaches was the Merchants Hotel, where there was a large team of horses under a Mr Cruickshank. From Dundee, passengers could catch Croall's 'Strathmore Union' to Forfar, Brechin and Aberdeen, or the 'New Times', 'Highlander', or 'Royal Union' to Montrose and Aberdeen. The 'Strathmore' was deemed an unlucky coach. Three times in six months it overturned on Carrot Hill in Angus. On another occasion it was hit by a fallen tree at Laurencekirk.
Pedestrians were wise not to get too close to the fiercely competitive rival vehicles. At ten in the morning the 'Kingdom of Fife' raced away from the Royal Hotel in Dundee, tearing along the Seagate, racing the 'Tally-Ho' east to Broughty Ferry, vying to be the first to board the ferry across to Fife.
There was occasional drama of other varieties too. Late on the night of 13 July 1834, the coach for Aberdeen was due to set off from Sinclair's Hotel in Dundee. An important passenger turned up late, delaying the journey. At Muirdrum, a strap on one of the horses snapped, nearly diverting the coach into a ditch. It was further delayed while Robert Steel, the guard, repaired it. On the outskirts of Arbroath, the road was barred because the toll-keeper had gone to bed. This was the third time the gate had been barred in a month, which riled Steel, who was no friend of the man and had sworn to get back at him if it happened again. Steel approached the cottage window and sounded a loud blast on his horn, but the only response was an enfuriating snore from inside. Enfuriated, the guard got his blunderbuss and blasted it through the window. The keeper rushed out in his night gown and opened the gate. The incident made Arbroath famous in the stage coach community.
'On the same road, a few months later, ' Gardiner wrote, 'David Gardiner drove through a funeral process and, not long afterwards, scattered a company of Seaforth Highlanders when they demurred at giving way before him.'
Some of the coach drivers became famous celebrities for their skill and speed. The Lowdnes brothers often plied the route between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Later, when the railways were taking business away from the old coaches, John Ross and John Kidd were two drivers who tried to race the locomotives on the Dundee to Perth route. They also had a serious rivalry with each other.
