TOUR OF THE MUSEUM Part 9 The Mail Coach Guard

The Mail Coach Guard was the only Post Office employee on board the coach and wore an official uniform of scarlet coat with gold braid and blue facings. Guards used their 3ft. long horn, a yard of tin, to warn other road users to keep out of their way and to single to toll-keepers to let the coach through. It was also used to order a fresh team of horses while a furlong away from the staging stop so that when they arrived a change of horses was ready and waiting.
The regular mail was carried in a box the key for which can be seen attached to the leather bag carried around the guards neck which would have held the more important mail.
It was the responsibility of the guard to ensure that the mail got through and in order to protect the mail, the coach and its inhabitant, the guard was heavily armed with a blunderbuss and a pair of pistols.
In order to deliver the mail it was necessary of many occasions, when the coach was caught in snow drifts, to unhitch a pair of horses and proceed of horseback.

The coat seen here in the museum is adapted from an old frock style hunting coat and gives an insight into the traditional dress of the Mail Coach Guards.