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Auction: 17020 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 867

Autographs
Mail Coach Contract
1788 contract for the London - Manchester mail coach service between Thomas Wilson in Lad Lane, London plus John Dixon in Manchester and John Palmer, Surveyor and Comptroller General of the Mails. Mostly printed, this detailed document in which the contractors agreed "that each of the Guards shall be ... provided at the (contractors) joint expense ... with a complete Blunderbuss, a Brace of Pistols, and an allowance of six pence a week to purchase a sufficient quantity of Powder and Ball and also a proper Post Horn to sound as occasion may require".

This document is a pre-agreement with the exact terms laid out in considerable detail. Whilst the names of Wilson and Dixon are written in several times, there are no signatures. It is thought that this agreement was a preliminary contract which Wilson and Dixon could show to recruit innkeepers who would horse the coach at the various stages on the way, and would join in the final contract. There is a date printed (half way down the second column) so this form was only printed for contracts entered into that year. In remarkably fine condition; a fine and rare document relating to the carriage of mail by stage coach. Photo

John Wilson's inn in Lad Lane was The Swan with Two Necks, one of the best known posting houses


A print (probably dating from some time in the 1820s) showing the large yard of the inn. The coach office is to the left with a board outside, advertising the services. Nearby is a coachman, with a whip in his hand. In the centre of view is a fully laden coach about to depart through the large archway on the far left.

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Sold for
£320