Cobb & Co mail and passenger coach made by Cobb & Co., Charleville, Qld, 1890

This Cobb & Co thoroughbrace coach was built in 1890, the second eight-passenger coach produced by the company’s Charleville workshops in Queensland. It was the combination of strength, stability and the forgiving suspension of the Charleville-built coaches that led them to be described at the time as “the most scientifically built long distance horse vehicles known”.

Cobb & Co was the most famous coaching firm in Australian history. For seventy years it provided a service renowned for its spee...

Summary

Object No.

H3875

Object Statement

Physical Description

Cobb & Co. mail and passenger coach, No.2, for 8 passengers, full-size horsedrawn vehicle, timber / metal / leather, made by Cobb & Co Coach and Buggy Factory, Charleville, Queensland, Australia, 1890, used on Blackall coach route, Queensland

A Cobb & Co mail and passenger coach. The body of the coach is wooden with no glass in the doors or windows. One half of the coach has been restored and repainted in the New South Wales Cobb & Co livery of red and straw. The other side has been left in its original condition, and the remnants of red and yellow paint can be seen on this side. Inside the wooden body of the coach are solid wooden bench seats facing each other. Each bench seat could accommodate three people and would once have been upholstered in thinly padded buff leather. Also missing are the black duck window blinds which were usually rolled up and secured by two leather straps. At the front of the coach is the driver's box seat. A metal scaffold to hold a folding canvas hood can be seen over the box seat. On either side of the driver's box seat is a strong lever brake. Behind the box seat, on top of the carriage roof, is a low iron railing for luggage. A metal ladder can be hooked over the railing to aid access to the rooftop. There is a compartment (the fore boot) under the driver's box seat with a hinged wooden door at the front. There is also another compartment (the hind boot) comprising a hinged wooden platform that extends from the body of the coach and is suspended by leather straps and chains. Luggage carried here was protected by a canvas cover (now missing) and the triangular leather gussets on either side of the platform. On either side, the body of the coach is fitted with brackets to hold candle lamps. There is also an acetylene lamp in the centre front of the coach above the box seat. The body of the coach is fixed to a wood and metal chassis that has been painted yellow. Two large wagon wheels can be seen attached to the axle at the back of the chassis and two smaller wheels are attached to the axle at the front of the chassis. The wheels have also been painted yellow. A long wooden shaft bolts onto the front of the chassis, and there are also a double swingle and two single swingles. The swingles, which allowed horses to be hitched to the coach when in use, are wooden with metal attachments.

Specifications

Type: mail and passenger thoroughbrace coach
Capacity: 8 passengers; 6 inside and 2 outside beside the driver.
Builder: Cobb and Co. Coach and Buggy Factory, Charleville, Queensland.
Finish: one half has been painted in the New South Wales Cobb and Co. livery: the body is vermilion with white fine lines, gold scroll work, and black pick out lines and shading; the undercarriage and wheels are straw colour picked out in black
Brake: sliding bar type with a lever brake at each end of the box seat
Axles: 2 inch square mild steel
Number of horses: 5; 3 in front, 2 behind.

Short URL

https://ma.as/237786

Production

Notes

The Cobb & Co coach owes its origins to the American Concord coach first designed and built in Concord, New Hampshire in the 1820s. It was distinguished by a slightly convex body with a side profile shaped like a truncated "U". Built largely of light but resilient hickory, Concord coaches withstood the jarring and jolting of rough frontier roads far better than any other type of vehicle. The key to their success was the method of suspension: the body was suspended on several thicknesses of tough buffalo hide "thoroughbraces" which no road shocks could break (unlike steel springs) and which provided a relatively comfortable ride.

The coaches designed and built in Australia by Cobb & Co. at Bathurst and later Charleville altered the "U" shape of the Concord coach to a more rectangular shape. These were cheaper to build and featured large open windows more suitable to the Australian climate. The famous thoroughbrace suspension remained.

It was largely the durability of the Concord coach and wagon which made the vehicles so suitable for Australian conditions. In 1853, Freeman Cobb and three other American partners set up the American Telegraph Line of coaches, operating between Melbourne and the goldfields. After less than two and a half years Cobb sold his ownership of the company to a fellow American coach proprietor and retuned to America. The company underwent several rapid changes of ownership during which time the name was maintained and services extended throughout Central and North-Eastern Victoria. In 1861 or 1862 another young American, James Rutherford, bought what was to become a controlling interest in Cobb & Co for the next fifty years. The company's operations expanded north to New South Wales in 1862 and the headquarters and a coach-building factory was set up at Bathurst.

Cobb & Co secured the contract to carry the Royal Mail, and the monograms of three consecutive British sovereigns were painted on the sides of the coaches in turn. Mail was carried in huge mail baskets or bags, and overloading was common. Disastrous capsizes were often avoided by the driver exhorting his passengers to throw their weight to this side or that to preserve the balance.

In 1865, the company moved further north to establish coaching lines in Queensland. A coachbuilding factory was soon in operation in Brisbane, but problems were experienced with moisture content of the timber. As the coaching routes extended inland it was found that the vehicles built with timbers seasoned on the coast would not stand the dry climate and would crack and gape at the joints. It was decided to move the factory, and the site chosen was the central Queensland town of Charleville, some 500 miles inland. This location was also selected to maintain a viable patronage away from the competition with the coastal railway system. The plant and equipment from both the New South Wales factories was moved to Charleville in 1886. Large stocks of timber were purchased and seasoned in the same hot dry climate in which the vehicles were to be built. This remedied the problem and, from the late 1880s, all Cobb & Co. coaches of eight and fourteen passenger capacity were produced in this factory for service in all states. Those coaches which operated in Queensland were painted white, while the New South Wales lines retained their red and yellow colours. It was the combination of strength, stability and forgiving suspension of the Charleville-built Cobb & Co. coaches that led them to be described at the time as "the most scientifically built long distance horse vehicles known"

By 1870 Cobb & Co coaches were in operation in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, travelling 28,000 miles a week and harnessing 6,000 horses each day. In addition to the ordinary coaches, the company owned seven extra large coaches built to carry seventy passengers.

Along the coach routes were inns or change stations,15 to 30 miles apart, where fresh horses replaced tired ones. A bugle carried on the coach was always blown as the coach approached an inn, changing station or town stopping place. The horses were strong and bred for the purpose. Five horses matched by colour were harnessed for the eight-passenger coaches, a formation devised by Rutherford for Cobb & Co. Two horses were used as "polers" for the heavy work in the back row, while three horses were the leaders to "make the pace". The centre horse in the front row was the leader and played a major part in steering the coach. The coach travelled quickly over smooth level roads, but because of streams without bridges, hill country and sandy plains, their average speed on the majority of routes was only about 6 or 7 miles per hour.

Male passengers would open the stock gates, and at night a "gate watch" was organised to ensure someone was awake to answer the driver's call of "gate, gate, oh". Passengers alighted and walked over stretches which were too steep or hazardous to ride. The other slight risk in coach travel was being bailed up by bushrangers. Straw was laid on the floor of the coaches to keep passengers' feet warm and occasionally to hide small valuables from bushrangers.

The coach drivers were required to manage a separate rein for each horse. They had to remember every steep decline, sharp corner, heavy bog and winding path along the route, which had to be to negotiated in all weathers and at night.

Coach travel was far from romantic. The discomfort of riding inside a dark coach all night saw considerable demand for the box seat next to driver, and passengers offered money for this privilege. Some passengers preferred to sit out in a thunder storm, exposed to the elements, rather than being jolted inside the coach, hitting their heads on the roof. Female passengers always had to travel inside the body of the coach. Although coach travel was very uncomfortable, the vehicles were extraordinarily resilient and accidents were relatively rare.

Drought conditions, extensions to the railways in Queensland and the introduction of the motor car and later the aeroplane all contributed to the diminishing profits of Cobb & Co after 1902. The last Cobb & Co coach services in New South Wales probably ran on the Hebel-New Angledool and Hebel-Goodooga-Brewarrina routes in 1913. Services in Queensland were maintained until 14 August 1924, when a 14 passenger coach from Surat to Yeulba (now Yuleba) ran for the last time. The company went into voluntary dissolution in 1929.

Made

Cobb & Co Queensland, Australia 1890

History

Notes

A faded inscription under the box seat indicates that the coach was used during the reign of George V, who ascended to the throne in 1910. It is believed that the coach was last on the road at Blackall in Queensland. The Museum acquired the coach in 1936 from Narrabri, New South Wales, and it is thought that traces of white paint on the untouched side indicate that it operated in Cobb & Co.'s Queensland livery.

Source

Credit Line

Purchased 1936

Acquisition Date

2 October 1936

Cite this Object

Harvard

Cobb & Co mail and passenger coach made by Cobb & Co., Charleville, Qld, 1890 2019, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, accessed 23 September 2019, <https://ma.as/237786>

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://ma.as/237786 |title=Cobb & Co mail and passenger coach made by Cobb & Co., Charleville, Qld, 1890 |author=Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences |access-date=23 September 2019 |publisher=Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, Australia}}

Copyright for the above image is held by MAAS and may be subject to third-party copyright restrictions. Please contact MAAS Rights and Permissions for information regarding reproduction, copyright and fees. Text is released under Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives licence

Submit an image license enquiry.

Know more about this object?

TELL US

Have a question about this object?

ASK US