Passengers

Life in Britain During the Stagecoach Era

James Hobson

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Hardback

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English

FONTHILL
03 September 2021

History; British & Irish history; Social & cultural history; Road & motor vehicles: general interest

‘Passengers’ is a social history of Britain between 1790 and 1840. This is the period of the Napoleonic War and of rapid technological change and social tension. It was a contradictory age, simultaneously the elegant era of Jane Austen and the inspiration for Charles Dickens’s work on poverty and injustice. The book has an initial focus on transport and hospitality, but it is also a wider portrait of this important but neglected period of British history. The author covers

all aspects of the period-work, law, technology, finance, politics, poverty and crime are the most prominent. The inn and the stagecoach were some of the few places that the different classes met and co-existed in a country that was stratified and deferential. The poor served the transport and hospitality system, the middle classes used it and the ruling classes profited from it. The life of women is an important part of this book; they worked at levels in the travel and hospitality industries.

This is everybody’s story, an exposition of real places and real people in a society that was ‘on the move’, in all senses of the phrase.

By: James Hobson
Imprint: FONTHILL
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 700g
ISBN: 9781781558225
ISBN 10: 1781558221
Pages: 196
Publication Date: 03 September 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: Is there Really a Stagecoach History of Britain?; 1 The Walking Classes; 2 Scandal at the Swan; 3 Respectability; 4 Bad Education ; 5 Calculated Charity; 6 The Stagecoach Masters; 7 The Entrepreneurial Widows; 8 Crime in the Coaching Inn; 9 Crime On The Road; 10 Roads Work; 11 Who’s on Board Today?; 12 The Stagecoach Driver: A Class Act; 13 A Georgian Family and their Struggle with Transport; 14 Melancholy Events; 15 The Stagecoach v the Law; 16 Hell for Horses; 17 A Journey up the Great North Road; 18 Moving the Mail; 19 Attacked by a Lioness; 20 The Brighton Line; 21 Inn Hospitality; 22 Poor Women and their Work; 23 New Times, New Time and New Timing; 24 First with the News; 25 The Stagecoach Defeats the Steam Engine; 26 The Steam Engine Defeats The Stagecoach; Conclusion: Immortality via Nostalgia.

James Hobson studied history at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He developed a new interest in writing about the Georgian and Victorian era after retiring from twenty five years teaching in British secondary schools. He enjoys discussions and debates about History on social media and writes and gives talks, mostly about the ordinary people of his specialist period, and has a successful blog about 1816 . He is a volunteer at a local living history museum, stewarding historic houses, talking about history to visitors and contributing to the educational service. He comes from Liverpool and now lives in Chichester, West Sussex.