Hackney coach distance chart, c.1815

Hackney coach distance chart, c.1815

Printer unknown,

letterpress, 184 x 139mm (Collection of Paul Dobraszczyk)

From the late eighteenth century onwards, books, lists and tables of fares for hired coaches were published to provide information for visitors to London and to mediate disputes between passengers and coach drivers, who were invariably seen as intent on extortion. Until the widespread adoption of taximeters in the early twentieth century, printed information attempted to give passengers confidence in the face of a system of fares that was never fixed.

Tables like the one illustrated here gave combinations of distances to and from a series of recognised points in the city, from which passengers could calculate their fares. Thus the 23 places listed in both the rows and columns in this document gave the 300 combinations announced in its title. Significantly, in the top left hand corner of the table (see image below) is an instruction on how to read it, which suggests that even by 1815, some users might have never encountered such a graphic configuration before. Later, more ambitious examples also included similar instructions: A New Table of Hackney Coach and Chariot Fares (London: James Wyld, c.1832) listed 8000 fares; while The Protector Table (London: John Weston, 1837) gave a total of 13,225 fares on a single sheet.