George Gilbert – Regency Coachman

George Gilbert – family background – marriage to Sarah Lepine – George Gilbert as coachman and life in Brighton – After the railway.

George Augustus Gilbert came from a family of coachmasters and innkeepers. He was born in 1803, son of Thomas Gilbert, the landlord of first the Bell Inn and then freeholder of the Black Bull, High Holborn. This area was the ‘Victoria Coach Station’ of Regency London, where the galleried coaching inns provided rest and sustenance for the many travellers who hurtled into London on ever faster coaches. The inns needed extensive stabling facilities and repair shops for the coaches. The Gilbert family of Thomas and his three sons were all employed in various aspects of the business. William Henry Gilbert, the eldest brother, was proprietor of Blossoms Inn, Laurence Lane, Cheapside, from whence he ran a pair-horse mail ‘The Brighton’, and 19 other coaches, some of which traveled to Manchester and Birmingham.

Thomas Gilbert died in September 1827. After his widow had been provided for, the residual estate was to be shared by his seven children. The will noted that George had already received £61 of his inheritance. At this time, or soon after, George was driving the Dover Express Coach and on 13 Dec 1828 , he married Sarah Lepine of St Dunstan’s Canterbury. The Dover Express stopped off at Canterbury, at an inn called ‘The City of London’ run by a William Lepine, who may have been Sarah’s father.^[i]Pigot & Co: London and Provincial Directory1828-9

By late 1829, George and Sarah Gilbert were living in Brighton, running the Golden Cross Hotel (now known to us as ‘The Marlborough’). George, at least some of the time, appears to have assumed the alias of ‘Robert Ellis’, probably in an attempt to avoid creditors. In October 1829, ^[ii]The Morning Advertiser 28^th October 1829 ‘Mr and Mrs Ellis’ of The Golden Cross Hotel suffered an accident when returning from Shoreham, when their horse bolted and collided with a gentleman’s carriage. George and Sarah were ‘cast from their vehicle’ and ‘confined to bed with their injuries’.

A similar mishap befell them in January 1833. ^[iii]The Sussex Advertiser 14 January 1833 The Sussex Advertiser reported:

‘ Mr and Mrs Ellis, landlord of the Golden Cross, were returning from Rottingdean in a gig. The horse started, it is supposed at a hare crossing the road, and Mr Ellis endeavouring to stop the animal, the reins unfortunately broke, and by the sudden jerk, he was thrown onto the road and run over by the wheel. Mrs Ellis kept her seat and with admirable presence of mind contrived by standing on the step of the vehicle, collected the broken reins and stopped the horse.’

Sarah collected up her badly injured husband and took him back to Rottingdean. It would appear from these mishaps that George, as a coachman accustomed to the highly competitive nature of stagecoach driving, was inclined to recklessness. Luckily Sarah appeared to have been capable enough with horses to be able to rescue him!

Despite these injurious mishaps, George Gilbert continued his life as a coachman. In the Summer of 1833, the couple left The Golden Cross, and following the bankruptcy of Thomas Scarnell, George became proprietor of The Sea House Hotel, a large and fashionable establishment on the Brighton seafront.

However, it appears that George could not make the Sea House pay, and his tenure lasted only eight months.

George next became part-proprietor of ‘The Age’, famous London to Brighton stagecoach in partnership with Thomas Chennell and Richard Mellis. He also drove ‘The Royal Sovereign’ from Windsor to Brighton.

In September 1841, George sadly advertised the following for sale^[iv]The Morning Advertiser 25 September 1841:

‘ Ten good useful active horses and two sets of 4-horse harness, nearly new, the property of George Gilbert have been working one of the railway coaches from Haywards Heath to Brighton, sold in consequence of the completion of the contract with The Brighton Railway Company’.

George had been running the original ‘rail replacement service’, necessary before the line from Haywards Heath to Brighton, the final stretch of the London and South Coast Railway, was completed in 1841. His next employment was as driver of the coach from London To Bromley, Kent, and Gilbert and Sarah moved from Brighton to live at Bromley Common. However, competition from the railway continued to drive coachmen out of business, and in August, 1843, George, now bankrupt, was in the debtors’ prison for London and Middlesex.^[v]London Gazette 25 August 1843

Fortunately, Sarah Gilbert became a beneficiary of the will of Ann Hunter of Brighton, alias Mother H of Covent Garden. Sarah was granted an income of £20 a year for four years, and apparently an additional £10 a year from the sale of Ann’s houses at 5 Southover Street and 30/31 Hanover Street, Brighton. Sarah’s niece, Emma Crippen also benefited. In addition, Sarah was invited to select items of jewellery after certain specific items were distributed, and Ann Jacobs had made her selection.

By 1851, George and Sarah were living in Lambeth, and gave their occupation as ‘agent’ and tobacconist’. George also worked as ‘coach builder’ and ‘printer and compositor’.

If it were not for the will of Ann Hunter in 1852, George and Sarah Gilbert would have surely been forgotten. They are reminders of the age of the stagecoach, when there were upwards of 17 coaches a day from London to Brighton, and the struggles the proprietors faced when Brighton became accessible to all who could travel on the London and South Coast Railway.

You might also like to read:

The Brighton Road: The classic highway to the South by Charles C Harper. London: C Palmer, 1922.

Stagecoach and Mail in Days of Yore. 2 Vols. by Charles C Harper. Chapman and Hall, 1903.