Equestrian Resources for Historians

I hadn't realised until this last year that many historical novelists don't have even a nodding acquaintance with the world of horses. While to me it's very easy to visualise how the world looked and behaved when only horses were the fastest means of transport, clearly this aspect of life is - ehem - a closed book for many writers.

I had also forgotten that I have been collecting equine trivia from across history since I first created the Fell Pony Museum web site back in 2000. It's been up there on t'interweb for 13 years, waving gently at passers-by, but not making a nuisance of itself. You can Google "Fell pony history" and the Museum site will appear in the first half-dozen entries on page 1 (and: I manage two of the other sites that are up in that bracket!).

Since the concept of pedigree farm animal breeds didn't emerge in England till the 19th century, much of what I've recorded in the Museum site is generic British pony (horse) information. By definition, "Fell pony history" is not really available before then, but a good deal of information can be found about the animals who were of similar size, use and geographical distribution. So, when questions of colour, type, size, use and behaviour arise among my fellow authors, this site is a useful resource. There is a also long list of links to further reading.

This blog, Jackdaw E Books, also has several posts about horse use, and coaches and carriages, which could save much writerly embarrassment at the book reviewing stage!

Search for posts labelled:

"horse"

"carriage driving"

"coaching era"

"bluffer's guide"

MM Bennetts' Literary Historical Fiction blog and Jonathan Hopkins' Cavalry Tales blog frequently offer terrific insights into the world of horse usage. Both are riders and Jonathan is a professional saddle fitter.

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Sue Millard is the author of several equestrian books including Hoofprints in Eden, Coachman and One Fell Swoop, and two children's educational activity books, Fell Facts and Fell Fun.

COACHMAN - a spare chapter

Not all the scenes I wrote for COACHMAN made it into the final form of the novel. Here is an extract that might have been part of the final chapter:

The day they travelled north it was a sharp, bright morning, a day on which George was impatient to drive and irritable at the thought of sitting on a train with nothing to do. To make things worse, Lucy had remembered the smoked and sooted confinement of second class railway travel, and insisted he wore his oldest coat. Its shabby appearance laid another smudge across his mood.

A four-wheeled cab waited in the street with their belongings packed on the roof, the damaged writing case among them, strapped up with an old belt. However, George would not trust his whip up there, and carried it as always with the long lash looped and tied.

Mrs Bowe had wrapped herself in a shawl to lead the farewells. Tom Thetford stood by with a stolid face, and observed the fussing as though determined that no-one should have hysterics while he was about, while Mrs Bowe made sure that Betsy had securely wrapped her few possessions for the journey. Betsy herself was bundled inside a secondhand coat so large it appeared to be wearing her.

‘Now you girls,’ said Mrs Bowe, not really making any distinction between Lucy and Betsy, ‘look after yourselves, and make sure this coachman fellow does the same. I know what these driving men can be like. Betsy – you imp – behave yourself when you get to your new home – it’s a crying shame you leaving me to instruct a new girl from scratch – but it’s your good heart, I know – and I had rather see you go and look after Mrs Davenport than get yourself into trouble with young Robbie.’

‘I never went with ’im,’ muttered Betsy. She pretended to be engrossed in stepping on and off the doorstep.

‘I should think not,’ said Mrs Bowe. ‘I told you, you’re not allowed to have followers. You’re much too young.’

‘E’s walkin’ out with Lizzie Pearson now, anyway.’

‘Stop fidgeting,’ said Lucy.

George, with a wink at her, nudged Betsy’s shoulder. ‘There’ll be a score of sturdy lads come knocking at the door when we get to Kendal.’

‘Only if you introduce them to me first,’ said Lucy firmly, ‘and I arrange what evenings they’re allowed to call.’

‘There now,’ said Mrs Bowe, ‘that’s very fair, that is.’

‘But we shan’t let you hobnob with any old riffraff,’ added George. ‘They’ll have to present calling cards.’

‘Don’t be so foolish, Mr Davenport!’

‘Well, how else are we going to keep track of ’em all?’

Betsy giggled, and Mrs Bowe said, ‘Don’t give her ideas. Oh, dear, Lucy – I shall miss you! Go well and safely, my dear. Breathe deep of that north country air. I’m sure you’re going to have a beautiful healthy baby.’

‘I’ll write to you,’ promised Lucy, and hugged her, and all three women clung to one another.

‘Damned if I’d like to be seen carrying-on in the street,’ said Thetford, and turned to discuss the cab horse with George. ‘There’s been some quality there, y’know.’

‘Showing his age in the hind fetlocks, though.’

‘Ah!’ agreed Tom. ‘Well... I daresay it’s a good thing you’re leaving.’ 

George glanced at him, surprised by his quizzical tone. ‘I have to follow the work, if that’s what you mean.’

‘No. Not entirely. Seems to me there’s a young woman we both know, as gave a fair show of jealousy when she worked at the Swan. I recall as ’ow she come out special-like to travel with you on the Albion.’

George reddened, in spite of himself.  ‘She did.’

‘Kind of flattering, but I ’ope you didn’t do nothing about it.’ The wise old eyes gave nothing away.

‘I warned her off, Tom.’

‘I ’ope you did, for Mrs Davenport’s sake.’

George realized that Tom guessed what had happened, but the old man was a realist. Making a fuss over the truth would benefit no-one. As along as nobody asked him directly, he knew Tom would keep his suspicions to himself.

‘Mrs Davenport knows,’ he said, ‘And as for the young lady – she’ll get over it.’

The cabman, his gaze fixed on the horse’s ears, stolidly observed, ‘If yer party’s wishful to be at Euston for the ten o’clock train, better get in now.’

Tom took the hint, and shook George by the hand. ‘That proprietor in Kendal will be lucky to get you. I wish you all the best, I do, heartily, and Mrs Davenport and the baby too.’

George returned his handshake, liking the old man better than ever. The two of them stood irresolute for a moment before he said, ‘Well, I’d better disentangle these women, or we’ll be here the rest of the morning.’

Mrs Bowe startled him with a hug and a hard kiss on the ear, and when he escaped to help Lucy into the shabby interior of the cab, she showered advice on Betsy.

‘Remember to make yourself useful, gel! Get up early and don’t be to call – you riddle the fires and sift the ashes... make life easy for Mrs Davenport...’

George settled Lucy in a forward facing seat, and put Betsy opposite, where she sat excitedly waving farewell to Mrs Bowe and Thetford, even before the driver called to his horse and they set off. Lucy held her head high and felt for George’s hand, all the while staring rigidly out towards the great dome of St Paul’s. He knew she was struggling not to cry, and gave her tense fist a reassuring little shake.

He wasn’t sad to be leaving London. It wouldn’t be long before Sherman and Nelson and other less canny proprietors realized, as Chaplin had done, that the railway was an implacable competitor, and then they would sell out too, and the coach routes would die, and as they died he would have to seek work in more and more remote areas, and compete with more and more drivers out of place. He’d come here with an ambition to make his name, and instead he’d found that the best part of his driving career was over.

Lucy’s hand in his was a trust he mustn’t betray again. He wasn’t an irresponsible youth any longer, who could move on at a whistle and travel light.

They passed the Queen’s Hotel for the last time, and the Post Office, and somewhere in the clustered buildings behind it, the Swan. He watched as the cab bore him away, until it turned the corner into Newgate Street, and he couldn’t see even the buildings any more.

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The complete book is available here: (Amazon USA) http://www.amazon.com/Coachman-ebook/dp/B009DORFOI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348161105&sr=1-1
or (Amazon UK) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coachman-ebook/dp/B009DORFOI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348161105&sr=1-1

Video links about English coaching and driving (Bluffers' guide part 3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaJtV2KGt_Q
The Bowman and Sutherland families - preview of the TV programmes recently on Sky. The Sutherlands do chuck-wagon racing, the Bowmans do Horse Driving Trials and Coaching; they had a go at each other's sports. The English section starts at 6 mins 11 seconds. This is a late 19th C stage coach (not a Mail) with hand-lever brakes operated both by driver and guard. Notice the horses are in full neck collars, unlike the breast collars that are popular for modern competitions.

If you're quick you can spot me and my daughter at 8:39 and 9:04 (we were in costume, though I admit NOT with any degree of accuracy) on the coach at Naworth Castle. We were aboard during the gallop up the hill to Naworth (black and grey lead-horses).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Zd3QWAfxZT4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlEIEhAjGrc&feature=channel&list=UL - One of my mare's early driving show classes. Notice that my carriage is well balanced and well built so it makes very little noise over the grass, and you can hear Ruby breathing in rhythm to her movement. Other people's carriages are much more noisy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UoLR0g3FA&feature=relmfu - a little schooling at home with my late grand-daughter Naomi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WoEtzCgJdo - this is a curricle, albeit shown in Spain, not in England. To be totally correct as a privately driven vehicle it should have straps from the horses' collars, not chains, to the head of the pole out front. Notice how the weight of the groom behind is needed to make the turnout balance over the axle. You can't drive one without a groom back there.

And for stylish pure English driving and rein handling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgZnOB_1G5Q The carriage parade for Trooping the Colour 2012.

http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/coachman.htm

The Bluffers' Guide to Horses and Carriages (part 2)

Coaches
Tudor
In the TV series "The Tudors" 19th century carriages were shown conveying certain grand personages about on behalf of Henry VIII. WRONG. This was the point at which I began to shout at the screen. Coaches were not in use even by Royalty until his daughter Elizabeth I's reign, and they were uncomfortable, jolting unsprung things suspended on leather braces. Elizabeth complained of being badly bruised from being thrown about in a coach that had been driven too fast, and she was a fairly hardy lady. There was no glass in the windows at this time (guess why) and wheels were shod with iron rims.

17th Century
Lots of authors forget that in a city, it was often convenient to travel in a sedan chair. Of course it didn't allow of company unless on foot, on horseback or in another sedan chair, but it had a lot of advantages over a horsedrawn carriage in the city. It was narrow and manoeuvrable so it could take you to places many carriages could not go, and the motive power understood speech! Also, in London and other cities based on a major river, watermen provided a taxi service up, down or across the water. John Taylor the "Water Poet" complained in "The World Runs On Wheels" that hackney carriages were taking away the ferrymen's business.

Steel springs made an appearance in the 1660s, and Sam Pepys remarked on them on a coach in London. He bought himself a private 4 seater carriage and two black horses, and probably employed a man to drive; and he seems to have been happy with his purchase, despite having to pay £2 to replace the glass in a window.

Commercial coaches were starting to appear on the roads. These were "stage" coaches which changed horses at inns along the road. One "stage" of its journey would be anything from 8 to 15 miles depending on the nature of the terrain. In winter, warmth for the passengers' feet was provided by filling the floor with straw - it works, but could be infested with livestock ranging from woodlice to fleas and even mice, depending on the diligence of the stable staff in providing clean straw.

18th Century
By 1688, stage coaches ran from London to 88 different towns and by 1705 this increased to 180. However, Mail coaches were not seen until after the Post Office adopted John Palmer's suggestion to convey letters by coach instead of on horseback, following a successful experimental run from Bristol to London in 1784.

Smart light two wheeled vehicles for private use, such as gigs and dog carts, became popular from the 1800s onward. Four wheelers such as the various forms of phaeton were common. But for independence and access to open country, to make your own way to a destination, you rode - and were liked all the better for your active character, as opposed to being carried lazily about by carriage.

As for the curricle, that vehicle so beloved of the romance author, like a tandem of horses driven to a gig it was racy and showy and difficult and inherently unsafe... so beware which of your gentlemen you put at the reins. It was an owner-driven carriage. (I mean, you don't buy a Ferrari and let a chauffeur drive.) And don't forget that with a pair or team your whip, no matter how skilful, needs a groom behind him. Why? Common sense and safety... and the blasted curricle wouldn't balance without him.

Manpower and brakes
A gentleman driving his own carriage and four would have had one man, and more likely two, to see to tangles or mishaps with the horses. In Regency Buck, the hero tells off the heroine for driving his team with no groom to help her, because her passenger has an injured arm. Georgette Heyer knew her stuff.

Not even an exceptional "whip" - male or female - would ever have driven without a servant, because early coaches and carriages had no brakes. Down gentle inclines the horses could hold the carriage back with the harness, but on steeper ones the footman or guard got down and fitted an iron drag shoe under the gutter-side hind wheel. At the bottom of the hill, he got down again, the whip backed the team so the carriage wheel rolled off the shoe, and the guard picked it up by its chain and hung it on the hook again - not touching it, because it was hot from the friction! The guard or groom had to deal with broken harness, kicking horses and so on... or just to hold the horses when the driver and passengers got down at their destination.

19th Century
Hand or foot operated brakes were late Victorian inventions which eased the work because the coach did not have to stop. They could still only slow the coach downhill; when loaded it weighed between 3 and 4 tons and the wooden brake shoes only operated on a 6 inch by 2 inch area of each wheel rim, so brakes couldn't stop it completely. Equally, rubber tyres for wheels were not invented till the 19th century, and they were solid, not pneumatic. Vehicles with rubber tyres tended not to have brake-blocks because they pulled the rubber off the wheels.

The idea of a "parking" brake didn't arrive until the advent of the internal combustion engine... a carriage you could turn off when you stopped. There are contemporary stories of coach teams being left unattended at inns, and taking fright or assuming a noise behind meant they were to start, galloping off with the coach with no driver at the reins... Horses require manpower, time and knowledge. Therefore - pretty please, authors - your characters driving a carriage can NOT abandon it at the roadside like a car, unless you want to plot a horrendous accident. You always need someone to take charge of the horses.

Terminology
If you've got to describe a carriage drive or even a ride, it probably pays not to be too clever. Even simple things are very easily got wrong! For instance, you all know reins are for steering, and probably that traces come back from the horses' neck-collars to pull the carriage... the difference between the two purposes may seem obvious, but I've seen a mainstream published novel confuse the two.

Coachmen and good drivers held the reins in their left hand in an understated, workmanlike English coaching style and steered by turning the wrist, or by helping with their right hand which also carried the whip. They wouldn't drive with a rein (or two reins) in each hand; not unless you want to set them up to be ridiculed by their fellow drivers. For sheer style, watch any video of a British Royal parade with coachman driven carriages... the 2011 Royal wedding, or Trooping the Colour.

There is a big difference between sporty owner-driven carriages like phaetons (yes, and gigs and curricles), and sober coachman-driven carriages like barouches. It's very easy to get lost in their subtleties. For instance: pole chains. They were used to steer and stop commercial coaches, carriages and coachman driven vehicles, while pole straps denoted owner driven private vehicles... Probably best not to go into it too deeply unless you are prepared to read specialist books. Even the sainted Ms Heyer occasionally got things wrong.

Phew - I'd better leave waggons and farm carts and commercial trade carts for another day.

Sex
There, that got your attention, didn't it? I saved the best bits for the end.

Don't forget we have three genders in horses who are used as transport. There's the intact adult male, the stallion; the female, the mare; and the gelding, who is an equine eunuch and was probably "attended to" fairly brutally at the age of 18 months or so. Most working horses were geldings, whose lack of sexual interest made them easy to manage even for inexperienced staff.

Mares are the natural leaders in a herd situation - so they can be bossy. If they aren't in foal they come into "season" every three weeks from early spring to late summer, which means they may be distracted as well. Stallions have a sex-drive that rises and falls with time of year - up in early spring and throughout the summer, down again as autumn comes. To deal with either stallions or mares successfully takes tact and good horsemanship. So please don't have your heroine ride a stallion, unless you can also write about how she manages him in the company of strange mares, who will flirt by peeing at him if they're in season and try to kick his teeth in if they aren't. (Don't you love how horses can be upfront and obvious? My two favourite Fell ponies have been mares.)

In Black Beauty Anna Sewell tactfully fails to mention such matters, so generations of readers may well have assumed that Beauty's lack of sexual commentary simply meant that he had excellent manners, and that he was capable of retiring to stud and begetting. This is, sadly, very unlikely.

One final note
A horse in war, in a carriage, hunting or doing any other kind of work will NOT neigh or whinny when in a stressful situation - eg, battle or accident. You may hear a snort of fright, or a grunt of pain or effort, then the sound of hooves galloping rapidly away. Unlike movie heroines, horses do not scream.

The Bluffers' Guide to Horses & Carriages (part 1)

I've joined several forums for historical novelists recently while I've been completing COACHMAN. Reading some of their book previews on Amazon it has dawned on me that while historical novelists seem interested in being authentic about costume and weaponry, I've only found two who have any direct knowledge about horses, and one who understands carriages.

Given that until the start of Victoria's reign (or William IV if you are a Liverpudlian) the fastest means of transport anywhere was either a well bred horse or a well-horsed carriage, this seems rather strange. It's a bit like writing about modern London and not knowing that you can get your character across the city far more easily by Tube than by Ferrari.

Allow me to make some helpful information available!

Horses
Even for late medieval knights, war-horses were not huge beasts. (The modern Shire horse of 17 hands or more was developed for agricultural use, well after gunpowder put an end to the mounted armoured knight.) Ann Hyland proposes that the 15th C knight's "destrier" was likely to have been a sturdy cob type of about 15-2 hands. This type of horse was a "square gaited" animal who walked, trotted, cantered or galloped.

Horses for general riding were probably not taller than 15 hands, often smaller, and frequently they were "lateral gaited" or "soft gaited", which means they walked and cantered but their in-between gait was a pace, rack or amble, rather than a trot. All these were more comfortable than a trot; the pace is similar to that of a fast moving camel or giraffe, with the legs on each side moving at the same time (watch videos of harness-racing pacers). The amble was a rapid, level, shuffling movement. Over good going the rack, like the pace, could be quite fast. Horses that moved in this comfortable way were amblers or palfreys, popular mounts for both ladies and gentlemen.

Horses for racing or hunting were "coursers", ie running horses, who moved "square" like the knight's destrier; they trotted when not galloping, and even the racehorses were not large. Many early thoroughbreds were under 14 hands high.

A useful type from Shakespeare's time onward was the Galloway, originally a type from south-west Scotland. Later the term became a generic one (like Hoover for vacuum cleaner) for any sturdy, sensible small cob of 13 to 14-2 hands. They probably looked much like a Highland, Dales or Fell pony, though for practical reasons they probably didn't carry anywhere near as much hair on neck, tail or fetlocks ("foot locks") as their modern counterparts do.

Women travelling would have a choice of riding pillion behind husband or brother; rich ladies could ride side-saddle; or ride in a litter, which was a covered seat carried on 2 long poles, suspended either side of a horse before and behind.

Distances
Modern endurance horses ridden intelligently at suitable paces for the terrain can cover anything from 25 to 50 or even 100 miles in a day. This isn't just the racy Arabian types; I know a Fell pony that has completed a 100 miler in less than 18 hours. Bear in mind that the riders don't flog on at full gallop, which being anaerobic activity would rapidly exhaust the horses' energy; they go at the pace that suits the country they have to cover, and much of that is aerobic, steady trotting or cantering, with intervals of walk to allow the horse to have a breather.

Military dispatch riders galloped, of course, and covered short distances of 3 or 4 miles in a quarter of an hour (12 to 16 MPH); but ridden horses for civilian travellers over longer distances would average no more than 6 MPH, so a day's journey was probably no more than sixty miles and often much less if roads were bad. Working horses in a city were often forced to walk because of other traffic, and there were few highway regulations to ease their passage.

Unlike cars, horses do need recuperation time before they can reasonably be expected to make another journey. This involves them being groomed, fed with grain and hay, and given water to drink and a stall under shelter in which they can stand quietly and perhaps sleep - though horses can sleep standing up and tend only to lie down for short periods.

Part 2 will look at travelling by carriage and coach.

The next big thing?

English Historical Fiction Authors on Facebook have been writing blog posts based on ten interview questions about their latest Works in Progress. I thought I'd join in.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

1.) What is the title of your book?
Coachman

2.) Where did the idea come from for the book?
A neighbour of ours mentioned that her family’s fortunes had been made by her great-grandfather who had been a coach proprietor in London. He was William James Chaplin (no relation to Charlie). In 1994 she asked me to transcribe a letter written by Chaplin, which a bookseller had bought at auction and brought to show her. Neither of them could read his writing, but I could… I wrote an article for “Carriage Driving” magazine about his career, but I wanted to do more with it. And it simply had to be a novel – the themes were too big for anything else.

Some of the phrases Chaplin used in that letter appear in his conversations in Coachman. Our neighbour also gave me a copy of the family tree, and permission to write the novel.

3.) Under what genre does your book fall?
Historical fiction. It isn’t really a romance in the usual sense.

4.) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
George – Tom Ellis. Chaplin – I’d love to see him played by Kenneth Branagh. For Lucy and Sarah – I’m not au fait with the names of young actresses, can’t think why. The main thing would be to portray their character, though.

5.) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Ambitious coachman George Davenport travels to London with his bride to take up a new job, but he discovers that his boss's daughter has designs on him that have nothing to do with his driving.

6.) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’ve self published the last 3 of my books. As it happens, I’ve designed the covers for all my books, including those produced by mainstream publishers. So it has been quite good fun to go it alone. It would be nice if an agent picked it up but for now I’ll slog on with selling myself.


7.) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
The idea has been there for 18 years! It took all that time for the internet resources to appear, like Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, where I could read the full text of coaching books that were long out of print and hideously expensive to buy secondhand. The MS took about five months, but I kept going back and rewriting, developing the storylines, then putting it away and coming back and rewriting yet again. It’s been the messiest thing I’ve ever written, because I had to do a lot of U turns – into the history, then back to the characters. Lots of “killing my darlings” as the story itself straightened out in my head and much of my research became unnecessary. I probably have half a novel in the “spike” folder on my computer; journeys George made, and people he met, both before and after this story is told.

8.) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Malcolm MacDonald’s “World From Rough Stones” sequence. I don’t know yet whether I will follow George and Lucy any further, but I certainly like them enough to consider it.

9.) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My own great-grandfather was a coachman. I’ve been involved in carriage driving since 1985, and when I’m interested in a subject I read widely round it so I have shelves full of books about the coaching age, plus lots of stuff in PDF format.

There are many historical novels set during the age when the horse was the fastest thing on the road, and a few written about the dawn of the railway age, but there’s nothing – so far as I know, anyway – about what happened to the men who had been the Knights of the Road and whose work suddenly vanished. So I thought it was time to redress the balance. Of course, that one thread as the main theme of the book wasn’t enough; I had to make up characters and relationships that would be interesting, too. I knew I had to invent people whose lives would touch Chaplin’s, so I could show what might have happened to the drivers, stablemen and horses when railways took the heart out of coaching.

My great-grandfather was in domestic service, not on a commercial route, and he lived 50 years after Chaplin’s time, but his existence in my family tree gave me a name to hang my story on: George Davenport. And my great-grandmother really was called Lucy Hennessy, though she didn’t live in Carlisle and my relatives will no doubt be relieved to hear that I have completely invented her unpleasant mother and their unsavoury history. The religious belief that sustains Lucy in the novel is a known factor in the emotional survival of modern victims of child abuse.

Chaplin had a patriarchal number of children, including twin girls, Marianne and Sarah. Sarah was the only one of his children who died unmarried (not counting Rosa who died aged 8 and Horace who died in infancy). Nothing is known of Sarah Chaplin, so I could safely invent whatever reasons I liked to account for her spinster status. I’ve suppressed any mention of her twin sister for the sake of simplicity. My decision to make her obsessed with power sprang from her father’s dedication and the observation of a former coachman, who remarked that Chaplin’s business was founded on “systematic application ... in which the female members of the family were called to assist.”

Many of the drivers mentioned in Coachman were real people in the Golden Age of Coaching: the Ward brothers, for instance, and deaf George Eade. I’ve invented the less attractive ones like Anderson. Some of the real coachmen, such as Cross, wrote autobiographies during their twilight years for the benefit of Coaching Revivalists in later Victorian times. Their works were rich sources for this novel.

10.) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s a love story about a marriage that survives – not perhaps a popular theme today, but probably true of its time. We think now of 1837/8 as the year of Victoria's Accession and Coronation and the opening of the Victorian age, but it was pivotal in England's history because huge changes began in industry due to the opening of the railways. It’s that change which is the catalyst for many of my book’s central events.

There are threads about abusive family relationships, and about same-sex relationships which were still punishable by hanging at that time; so it’s by no means a fluffy fantasy set in a past era as an excuse for heaving bosoms, tight breeches and randy behaviour. Books like that really annoy me as they are so often inaccurate on the history, habits and behaviour of the time in which they pretend to be set.

Victoria’s Coronation year had lots of celebrations, rather like 2012's Olympics and Diamond Jubilee, so it was fun to set my characters against those colourful backdrops.

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For links to other author's blogs please see my Next Big Thing post for November 2012.

A Historical Novel - laid bare (Part 1)

No novel has ever taken me so long to write as Coachman, which has gone onto Kindle in the past few days and will be in print shortly. Here is a taster of the background, which is included in full at the back of the novel in both formats.

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In the 1990s I had the idea that I would chronicle the life of William James Chaplin, who was a huge force in the London coaching business in the 1820s and 30s.

The Dictionary of National Biography says of him:

Chaplin, William James (1787–1859), transport entrepreneur, was born on 3rd December 1787 at Rochester, Kent, the son of William Chaplin, a coach proprietor on the Dover road, and his wife, Eleanor. Chaplin was educated at Bromley, and on 11 July 1816 married Elizabeth Alston at St Nicholas, Rochester. They had sixteen children.

About 1823 Chaplin succeeded William Waterhouse at the Swan with Two Necks inn, Lad Lane, London, and he was to become the largest ever coach proprietor. In 1827 his coach business employed 300 to 400 horses; by 1835 this had risen to 1200. As well as three London inns, he had extensive stables at Purley, Hounslow, and Whetstone, and was said to employ 2000 people. In 1836 he had ninety-two coaches leaving London every day, serving all the main roads from the city. He horsed fourteen of the twenty-seven mail coaches leaving London each night. His annual turnover was said to be £500,000.

Chaplin’s vision was so clear that when the railways came to change long-distance travel he was able instantly to step back and rebuild his business in relation to the new technology. He liquidated all his coaching assets, though he kept the inns, and he went away for six weeks to Switzerland to do his planning. Once his carrier partnership with Benjamin Worthy Horne was established, he invested heavily in railways.

The few stories about Chaplin that are recorded in books by his contemporaries all show him in an affectionate light. He was largely responsible for the abolition of heavy brutal driving whips in London’s coaching trade, and despite his nickname “Bite-Em-Sly,” everybody he employed seemed to like him. He was elected MP for Salisbury, and at his death his business was worth around £300,000. A thoroughly solid, sound, clever fellow.

When I realised how damn boring that story would be – Dallas with only the nice bits on display – I knew I had to invent someone whose life would touch his, so I could show what might have happened to the drivers, stablemen and horses when railways took the heart out of coaching.

My own great-grandfather was a coachman. He was in domestic service, not on a commercial route, and he lived 50 years after Chaplin’s time, but his existence in my family tree gave me a name to hang my story on: George Davenport. And my great-grandmother really was called Lucy Hennessy, though she didn’t live in Carlisle and my relatives will no doubt be relieved to hear that I have completely invented her unpleasant mother and their unsavoury history.

I'm delighted to have been asked to do a guest spot on M M Bennetts' blog. I drive a good deal, as you will know, and in this case, I'm looking at coaching, both stages and Mails.

I've been researching this history extensively for a good many years. Praise be for the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, and places like the Post Office Museum and archive, which have all provided contemporary material or first-hand accounts from people who actually drove commercially in the 1830s and knew the proprietors of the great coaching businesses which, within a few years of Victoria's accession, had vanished from most of England.

I've now completed my historical novel, "Coachman!" George Davenport is a young, ambitious driver whose move to London coincides not only with the Coronation of Queen Victoria but also with the completion of major railways which marked the beginning of the end for coaching. Of course, being a novel, I've further complicated George's life, with Lucy, his pregnant girlfriend, and Sarah Chaplin, his boss's daughter, who is as ambitious as he is, and with far fewer principles.

I hope the Chaplin family will forgive me for having taken liberties with their history, but Sarah was the one member who never married, so there are no direct descendants to protest. My excuses are that the one Chaplin I know well was happy for me to write a novel about her famous coaching ancestor, while George, the coachman, and Lucy, are my own great-grandparents, albeit transplanted a couple of generations back in time ...

I like the results and I hope readers will too.

But first I need to complete the polishing and find an agent - or decide whether to go it alone and self publish.