Passengers: Life in Britain During the Stagecoach Era

by James Hobson

‘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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Research, Regency, History

274 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2021

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Exceedingly niche social history of Britain in the stagecoach era. I found it fascinating, full of interesting chewy detail and with a terrific bibliography. Very poorly copy edited, regrettably, but written with huge enthusiasm and obvious love of the subject. If you're a social history nerd / writer, this will be for you.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting snippets but not really what I was hoping for. This reads like an MA thesis with a quite narrow focus so we learn a little about some of the aspects of stagecoach life without really getting to the meat.

[Sam Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covering the period 1780-1840 and crammed with scrumptious detail. Scammers, hustlers, swindlers at very turn, heavily armed passengers, drunken drivers, deadly roads. And then you got to the inn, where things were no better. Loved the couple who stole the feathers from mattresses. And that late Regency social events were specifically advertised as being on 'moonlit nights' because there was less chance of footpads/street robbers being about. The violence meted out to strangers arriving on foot in far flung towns. The total chaos.

[Eliza Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good collection of information I'll refer back to for my historical writing.

[M.A. Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible book about an interesting part of British history. Loved it!