3302) Cobb & Co. Coach Service: A $1 (One Dollar) Coin issued by the Royal Autralian Mint (RAM) recreates the legendary service active from 1853 to 1924:
From the Victorian gold rushes in 1853 until 1924, Cobb & Co coaches crisscrossed Eastern Australia, braving dust and bushrangers and opening the outback to travellers and new settlers.
With the advent of motor vehicles, Cobb & Co services faded away, ending the romance of horse-drawn travel. That historic final journey is commemorated on the Royal Australian Mint’s new $1 collector coin featuring a coach approaching an outback waystation.
Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners.
The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th century, when it was carried by many stagecoaches carrying passengers and mail to various Australian goldfields, and later to many regional and remote areas of the Australian outback. The same name was used in New Zealand and Freeman Cobb used it in South Africa.
Although the Queensland branch of the company made an effort to transition to automobiles in the early 20th century, high overhead costs and the growth of alternative transport options for mail, including rail and air, saw the final demise of Cobb & Co. The last Australian Cobb & Co stagecoach ran in Queensland in August 1924.
Cobb & Co has become an established part of Australian folklore commemorated in art, literature and on screen. Today the name is used by a number of Australian bus operators.
Establishment:
The original Cobb & Co was established in Melbourne in 1853 at the height of the excitement created by the Victorian goldrushes by four newly arrived Americans – Freeman Cobb, John Murray Peck, James Swanton and John B. Lamber.
At first they traded as the "American Telegraph Line of Coaches," a name that emphasized speed and progressiveness.
With financial support from another newly arrived US businessman George Train, they arranged the importation of several US-built wagons and Concord stagecoaches.
By early 1854, Cobb & Co operated a daily service to Forest Creek and Bendigo and, soon afterwards, expanded the service to Geelong, as well as other goldfields such as Ballarat.
Cobb & Co's horses were changed at stages every 10–15 miles along a stagecoach "line" often at inns or hotels that could also cater for the needs of drivers and passengers.
Within a few years, Cobb & Co had established a reputation for efficiency, speed and reliability, although they had not won any of the lucrative mail contracts. Their imported Concord stagecoaches used thorough-brace technology, on which thick straps of leather suspended the body of the vehicle, providing passengers with greater comfort on the rough country roads when compared to coaches with traditional steel-springs.
Under James Rutherford:
In May 1856, the four partners sold out.
Cobb and Lamber returned to the US while Swanton continued in coaching for a few more years.
John Peck stayed in Melbourne, eventually establishing a stock and station agency. Passing through the hands of a number of owners, Cobb & Co rose to greater prominence after 1861 when it was bought by a consortium of partners led by another North American, James Rutherford, who like Cobb had arrived during the gold rush.
Rutherford's partners included Alexander William Robertson, John Wagner, Walter Russell Hall, William Franklin Whitney and Walter Bradley. Rutherford re-organised and extended the Victorian services and won a monopoly on major mail contracts. By 1870 most of Victoria was serviced by a network of coach routes.
In 1860, Cobb & Co introduced its massive "Leviathan" coach on the Geelong-Ballarat service.
Built in Ballarat by Morgan's coach works, "Leviathan" could accommodate up to sixty passengers and was drawn by a team of eight horses. The interior was fitted with five benches, and included a ladies' compartment in the front. There were a further seven benches on the roof.
Expansion into NSW and Queensland:
In June 1862, Rutherford oversaw the extension of the business into New South Wales following news of the Lambing Flat gold rush. Rutherford moved ten coaches from Bendigo to Bathurst with great publicity to announce and establish Cobb & Co's presence. Bathurst became the headquarters of a new syndicate led by Rutherford and four others.
Rutherford had intended to spend 6 months in Bathurst, but stayed on to the end of his days, becoming one of the city's leading citizens. Rutherford established a Cobb & Co buggy and coachworks in Bathurst, and the firm also began to invest in properties — the first being "Buckiinguy" station near Nyngan, New South Wales. On the road, Cobb & Co began buying out or forcing out many New South Wales competitors.
Cobb & Co Coach, Kallangur, Queensland, unknown date:
In 1865 Cobb & Co again expanded, this time into Queensland. The first Cobb & Co service in Queensland was between Ipswich and Brisbane. In 1868, a service between Brisbane and Gympie commenced, running twice a week.
Services soon expanded into all parts of Queensland and otherwise isolated communities were able to maintain regular contact with the rest of the world.
In 1881 the business was transferred to a limited liability company with a capital of £50,000.
The largest transport enterprise in Queensland it ran some 3000 horses a total of around 10,000 miles a week. A large coachworks was established at Charleville in 1886. It turned out a variety of vehicles including over 120 coaches.
In 1871, the formal links between the Victorian Cobb & Co (taken over by Robertson and Wagner) and Rutherford's New South Wales and Queensland operation were finally dissolved, although harmonious relations continued.
In Victoria coaches carrying the name "Cobb & Co" were operated by four local coaching firms running particular routes by mutual agreement and cooperation. In time, successive operators of the various Victorian stagecoach lines would continue to use the trading name Cobb & Co.
Beyond Eastern Australia:
In the separate colony of South Australia an independent Cobb & Co Limited took over the South Australian mail and coach business of William Rounsevell in 1866 after several years of ruinous competition. Its ownership was held by four interests of a quarter each.
One quarter by Canadians, Peleg Whitford Jackson & Jasper Bingham Meggs; one quarter by Fuller, Hill & Co; one quarter by Joseph Darwent and one quarter by Rounsevell's son Ben Rounsevell. This business was taken over by John Hill and Company and years later was merged into Graves, Hill & Co.
Such was the renown of Cobb & Co that the name was also used on coaches operating beyond Australia. Charles Cole, and Henry and Charles Hoyt, who had operated coaches in Victoria, started businesses using the same name in New Zealand in 1863 and, very briefly, in Japan in 1868.
Carrying cash and gold, coaches were famously a regular target of bushrangers.
Everingham notes that Cobb & Co's expansion into New South Wales coincided with an increase in the number of armed hold-ups by bushrangers. At least nine coaches were attacked in the Bathurst district in the seven months after the company established itself there.
Cobb & Co's operations across Australia were eventually superseded by the expansion of railway networks, the arrival of cheap, reliable automobiles and the emergence of air mail.
In 1920, the Charleville coachworks closed and by 1921, Cobb & Co in Queensland had lost most of its mail contracts running out of Charleville.
Only one Concord or "Jack" coach of the type imported from the United States by Cobb & Co in the 1850s and 1860s survives.
In addition to reproductions, a number of original Cobb & Co stagecoaches still exist in varying states of preservation. Often repainted in the 20th century, the provenance of some is now difficult to determine.
These include:
- An imported "Concord" coach built by Abbot-Downing Company of New Hampshire. Imported by F.B. Clapp and Co, c1869 and used in the Ballarat area. It is preserved in original condition and held by Museum Victoria.
- Another stagecoach, possibly built in Geelong, Victoria c1880, is held by Museum Victoria. It is believed to have been the last mail coach to operate commercially in Victoria — in 1916.
- Two stagecoaches, numbered 48 and 100, built in Charleville, Queensland in the late 19th century, are in the National Carriage Collection at the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba.
- Another stagecoach built in Charleville, Queensland, c1890 is preserved at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
- An Australian-built stagecoach, possibly also built at the Cobb & Co factory in Charleville in the late 19th century, is in the collection of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Often described as the "Nowlands Coach," it was owned and operated by Nowlands Line of Coaches in the Liverpool Plains district.
- An Australian built stagecoach is in the Western Australian Museum at Kalgoorlie.
- A locally built stagecoach is on public display in the main street of Hay, New South Wales.
- A stagecoach built in Bathurst is on display in the Visitor Information Centre, Bathurst, New South Wales.
- A stagecoach is on display at the Cambridge Downs Heritage Display Centre, Richmond, Queensland.
The Coin:
The specifications of this coin are:
Coin Year: 2024, Denomination: $1 (One Dollar); Diameter: 25.00 mm; Coin Quality: Uncirculated; Weight/Mass: 9.000 grams; Mintage: 37500 pieces.
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