Land Carriage Rates 1806

The document below from April 1806 shows the magistrates of Wrexham setting maximum Land Carriage rates.

Before the advent of Parcel Post services by the Post Office in 1883, parcels went by common carrier (and then increasingly by rail after the advent of a pervasive railway network in the 1840s).  The costs of these carriers were regulated to some degree.

Statutory maximum "land carriage" rates in England and Wales were set by local Justices of the Peace (magistrates).  Under a system originally established by the Highways Act of Parliament in 1691 ("An Act for the better repairing and amending the Highways and for settling the Rates of Carriage of Goods", 3 William & Mary, c. 12), magistrates were legally required and empowered to meet annually at their local Easter Quarter Sessions to assess, rate, and fix the prices of all commercial land freight entering their jurisdictions.

 

Parliament initially gave magistrates this power to prevent common wagoners and carriers from getting together to artificially drive up freight costs to the detriment of trade.  Once the magistrates determined the maximum allowable rates, the figures were sent to the mayors and chief officers of every local market town, where they were hung up in a public place for merchants to see.  Any carrier caught charging above the magistrates' set rate faced a steep fine of £5 per offence [about £1000 in today's money].

 

Archived records show that magistrates actively used their powers during economic crises, like the early 1800s which was one of those periods of crisis. Due to bad harvests and the Napoleonic Wars, the price of horse feed rose significantly.  Small scale commercial hauliers simply could not afford to move goods at old rates and threatened to completely halt operations.  In response, local magistrates (such as those in Yorkshire) stepped in to raise the legal rate ceilings so carriers could survive the inflation without breaking the law.

 

While magistrates set the legal maximum price ceiling, individual merchants and transport firms like Pickfords were free to negotiate lower market rates based on competition, the weight of the goods, and whether the journey took place in the summer or winter (when bad roads doubled transport difficulties).

 

The magistrates' legal authority to set these carriage rates was eventually repealed by Parliament in 1831, as the rise of canals and early railways shifted the transport economy away from horse-and-wagon monopolies.

                                Fares and Costs of Stage Coaches, 1750-1836  [Dorian Gerhold]