COACHING. Driving or being driven in a coach (q.v.) drawn by four or more horses. The driving of a coach requires great skill, coolness, judgment. and a knowledge of horses on the part of the driver; and, where indulged in as a sport or pastime. may be said to derive its greatest attraction from that fact alone. The history of coaching is naturally part of the history of the coach, for which see article COACH. The first stage in England was put on the road in 1659 and traveled between London and Coventry. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were many coaches employed throughout the country; hut the slowness of travel was such that it took a week to go from London to York, and proportionately for all lesser distances. The royal mail. which had been carried by a system of post-boys under a contract speed of five miles an hour, was, in 1734, undertaken by Palmer's mail-coach service, which carried mail as well as passengers, and grew to such a success that the average speed-rate of mail coaches was brought up to 10 miles an hour. This, however, was due almost entirely to the improvements in road construction instituted by Macadam and Telford.
In 1836 coaching had become so important an institution that 54 coaches were employed in England. 30 in Ireland, and 10 in Scotland. The British Government exercised a rigid supervision d discipline over the stage-coach service, be cause of its connection with the post-office sys tem, and exacted a military punctuality and regularity in its running and general manage ment. The landed and country gentry, generally, maintained a zealous watchfulness over the con dition of the roads, and consequently much competition was indulged in by the people of the countryside, to attract coaches to some par ticular route, and among the coaches thewselves, to establish the best records. The drivers were frequently gentlemen, and often members of the aristocracy. The 'Brighton Age,' in its palmy days, numbered among its professional drivers Charles Jones, Sir Saint Vincent Cotton, Dick Brackenbury, and many others: while such dis tinguished men as the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Chesterfield, and Prince Henry Battliyilnyi were among the amateur drivers of that and similar coaches. Professional drivers would frequently receive as much as $3000 and $4000 per year for their services; an immense salary for those days, and the best indication of the importance attached to the position. After 1840 coaching as a public necessity ceased to be; and with dimin ishing business, decay set in rapidly.
In Atoeriea, even in Colonial times, four-horse stage-wagons were in regular employment through out the country, the most important (1760) ply ing between Philadelphia and New York. Owing to the absence of regular roads, the saddle-horse was the favorite means of transport. Coaching as a recreation or amusement began in England about 1868—a revival which spread to America as well as throughout Continental Europe. In England it had as its leading supporters men who remembered the pre-railroad coaching days, and desired to save the institution from the oblivion which threatened it. A more or less successful effort had been made to keep alive the old spirit of coaching on one or two of the older routes; but at the time of the so-called revival, the Four-in-Hand Club, established in 1S56, and Sir Henry Peyton, were the only in terested ones. The results were not very per manent so far as England was concerned; for in 1880 there were only four coaches running— a state of things, however, which has since con siderably improved.
In 1877 the 'Old Times' was again put on the road between Undon and Saint Albans; the Four-in-Hand and the Coaching Clubs afterwards became permanent organizations, and their 'meets' have come to be regarded as among the social events of the London season. The first English coaching club was the B. D. C., or Bensington Driving Club, limited originally to sixteen members, and first organized in 1507. In 1823 the annual club meets were abandoned, and in 1850 the club ceased to exist. The Four Horse Club, frequently but inaeeu•ately referred to as the Four-in-Hand ChM, was formed in 1808, and, after a varied career, disbanded in 1S30. Amateur coaching in the States may be said to have antedated the English re vival by two or three years. Mr. August Belmont putting the first coach on the road in 1864. Mr. Leonard Jerome is credited with the dis tinction of driving the first American-built coach, and he, together with a number of other gentle men, founded in 1875 the New York Coaching Club. Since then coaching has been a regular feature of fashionable New York and Newport life, the number and equipment of the coaches employed comparing most favorably with those of either London or Paris. Indeed, modem coach ing in both England and France has received no little impetus from American lovers of the pas time.