MAIL COACH 1877 - LIEUTENANT T.R. MAIN R.E.

The Nels postcard from Series II (2) above, illustrates a mail coach operated by George Hays & Company of Pretoria. Many of the mail coaches carried both paying passengers and mail. There were 59 coaches imported into southern Africa from the USA, built by the Abbot-Downing Company of Concord, New Hampshire. These were far from comfortable, inside there were four rows of three seats, two rows facing forward and two backwards. Only the outer seats had backrests. There were also seats on the roof which could accommodate between six to eight more passengers. The horses required changing every ten or fifteen miles, and nights must have been a freighting experience.

A young driver, Sam Kemp, in his book Black Frontiers records the excitement of driving one of Heys coaches.

The mail coach experienced by Lieutenant T.R. Main was possibly not one built by Abbot-Downing Company of Concord. Nonetheless, the Lieutenant found it a wonderful experience and left us his story.

Lieutenant T.R. Main, of the Royal Engineers, had formerly been stationed on St Helena. He and his company embarked for Cape Town in January 1876. During the first quarter of 1877 they were in Newcastle, Natal; awaiting orders to move into the Transvaal once the annexation by Sir T. Shepstone had been accomplished. He proceeded to Pretoria with the British troops whose purpose it was to form the garrison. On arrival in Pretoria he �expected to have an easy time�, but Colonel Pearson informed him that he was to build huts to accommodate the men immediately. He had difficulty in finding local building materials and �wired for window sashes & doors & lime from Natal.�; the buildings were of brick construction with thatched roofs.

He spent six months with the 1st Battalion of the 13^th (later the Somerset Light Infantry) although on a few occasions he journeyed to other parts of Southern Africa. Returning to Pretoria from Natal on one such trip prior to November 1877, he records.¹ �I returned to Pretoria by the post cart, always an exciting journey, galloping over the veldt with four horses. We stopped for a few hours at night at Heidelberg, a man who was waiting there for the down country cart produced for our inspection a lump, the size of a hen�s egg, which he said was quartz & gold.�.

Although Lieutenant Main does not say where he joined the �post cart�, not many Contractors had four-horse teams for the Conveyance of Mail. Provided that the contract had not changed, F.S.M. Hattie and George Page of Pretoria were the Contractors who held the Pretoria to Newcastle route that passed through Heidelberg as recorded in the Blue Book for 1878².

References
1 The recollections of Colonel T.R. Main R.E., unpublished account held at the Royal Engineers Corps Library, Brompton Barracks, Gillingham, Kent.

2 Transvaal Blue Book 1878, p.52-53, C.- Particulars of Contracts for the Conveyance of Mails during 1878.

Other notes
- see Allen, Vivien, (1971), Kruger�s Pretoria, A.A. Balkema, Cate Town, pp.68-73.

- see Kemp, Sam (1931), Black Frontiers Brewer, Warren & Putnam, New York.