Urban transport systems are a modern phenomenon. Until the middle of the 19th century working people lived within walking distance of where they worked, and the middle classes used their own transport to get to and from their leafy dwellings. Only in the second half of the Victorian age did rising wages create the social mobility that could fund public transport. The first horse tram began operation in Leeds in 1872.
Wheeled transport over longer distances was constrained for years by the poor state of the roads. Travellers rode on horseback, or by horse litter. Goods were carried on packhorses. Traditionally, the upkeep of highways was the responsibility of parishes, who generally had little interest in through traffic. Turnpike roads, managed privately by trusts who levied tolls on road users and used the money to improve and maintain the carriageway, eventually solved the problem of increasing road traffic during the second half of the 18th century. There was huge opposition to the new Turnpikes from local people who could no longer drive carts or livestock wherever they pleased without charge, and this resentment caused riots at Otley, Harewood and Leeds in 1753.
However the new roads paved the way for the Stagecoach era. The first scheduled coach from Leeds to London started in 1708, but it took another 60 years to reduce the journey time for the 200 mile ride to less than 3 days. By 1838 (the high point of coaching) there were 10 or 11 services between Leeds and Harrogate via Harewood, on the route still used by the 36 bus. Coaches ran from particular Inns, and coaching inns like the (former) Old Kings Arms in Briggate became important centres of public life.
[To be continued]
Fascinating.
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