services

John Palmer, a theatre owner from Bath, believed that the coach service he had previously run for transporting actors and materials between theatres could be used for a countrywide mail delivery service, so in 1782, he suggested to the Post Office in London that they take up the idea. He met resistance from officials who believed that the existing system could not be improved, but eventually the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Pitt, allowed him to carry out an experimental run between Bristol and London. Under the old system, the journey had taken up to 38 hours. The coach, funded by Palmer, left Bristol at 4 pm on 2 August 1784 and arrived in London just 16 hours later. Impressed by the trial run, Pitt authorised the creation of new routes. By the end of 1785, there were services from London to Norwich, Liverpool, Leeds, Dover, Portsmouth, Poole, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Holyhead and Carlisle. A service to Edinburgh was added the next year and Palmer was rewarded by being made Surveyor and Comptroller General of the Post Office. Australia's first mail coach was established in 1828 and was crucial in connecting the remote settlements being established to the larger centers. The first mail contracts were issued and mail was transported by coach or on horseback from Sydney to the first seven country post offices – Penrith, Parramatta, Liverpool, Windsor, Campbelltown, Newcastle, and Bathurst. In 1863 contracts were awarded to the coaching company Cobb & Co to transport Royal Mail services within New South Wales and Victoria. These contracts and later others in Queensland continued until 1924 when the last service operated in western Queensland. The lucrative mail contracts helped Cobb & Co grow and become an efficient and vast network of coach services in eastern Australia. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia, a mail coach was a stagecoach built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. Mail was held in a box at the rear where the only Royal Mail employee, an armed guard, stood. Passengers were taken at a premium fare. There was seating for four passengers inside and more outside with the driver. The guard's seat could not be shared. This distribution system began in Britain in 1784. In Ireland, the same service began in 1789, and in Australia, it began in 1828. Royal Mail coach services reached their peak in the later decades of the 19th century, operating over thousands of miles of eastern Australia. In the 1870s Cobb & Co's Royal Mail coaches were operating some 6000 horses per day and travelling 28,000 miles weekly carrying mail, gold, and general parcels. Some Concord stagecoaches were imported from the United States and made in New Hampshire by the Abbot-Downing Company. This design was a 'thorough-brace' or 'jack' style coach characterized by an elegant curved lightweight body suspended on two large leather straps, which helped to isolate the passengers and driver from the jolts and bumps of the rough unmade country roads. Soon Australian coach builders using many of the Concord design features customised the design for Australian conditions. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_coach

Very nostagic image for me. The year I left Newcastle for London. The trolley bus is of particular interest. This appears to be number 627 (NBB627); a 70seat monster, delivered in November 1950. The chassis and running gear was constructed by British United Traction and the bodywork was by Metro Camell Weymann of Birmingham. She was sold for scrap to a dealer in Bingley in February 1967. These vehicles were obtained for service on a joint venture with Gateshead & District Tramways Company. This company withdrew from the proposed arrangement and Newcastle Corporation found themselves with a surplus of trolleybuses. Sister vehicle number 628 was intended for preservation by the London Trolleybus Society, as the design was based upon one used by London Transport. (sic) This information is from the records of The PSV Circle, whose mission is to record the history of Public Service vehicles and Operators

The condition of the trolleybus is also worthy of comment. As my memory serves me the bright yellow livery of Newcastle Corporation was always kept spotless. Number 627 appears have missed a few baths!

The street looks so much better before pedestrianisation.

No 33 trolleybus for Osborne Road. Whenever I waited for a 33 to my grandparents a 31, 31A or 31B for Gosforth would come along, and usually they seemed to come in 3s! If I wanted a 31 for Gosforth it woud be a line of 33s.

Never mind the bus, look at the magnificent art deco building it is driving past! Pulled down and replaced with this, a building so ugly they've had to hide it behind plants to try and stop it making puppies cry!

I wonder where the excavated dirt was taken to?