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Cobb & Co.'s fares and time table
Title : Cobb & Co.'s fares and time table Cobb & Co.'s fares and time table
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Source : Adelaide almanack town and country directory, and guide to South Australia ..., 1867, p. 122A
Date of creation : 1867
Format : Magazine
Contributor : State Library catalogue
Catalogue record
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Description :

Cobb & Co.'s fares and time table for South Australian Lines of royal mail coaches and conveyances, showing distances, fares and time tables for the southern, eastern and north-eastern lines.


In mid-1853 Americans Freeman Cobb and George Mowton, employees of Adams & Co. coach transport firm, arrived in Melbourne to establish a company branch to provide carrying services to the Victorian gold fields. Instead they created a partnership with several other 20 year olds with similar work experience to form Cobb & Co., importing coaches and drivers. In January 1854 a passenger service commenced between Melbourne and Bendigo. The staging system, with changing stations to provide fresh horses on a regular basis, made the coach journey as efficient as possible.

In following years, the routes for the coaches were extended to other colonies: New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. In 1854 William Rounsevell had established a mail-contracting and coaching service in Adelaide, which grew to become the leading coaching line in South Australia. Cobb & Co. bought the business in 1867 and continued services to many locations throughout the colony. John Hill, whose father had earlier established Henry Hill & Co carrying services, bought this Cobb & Co. branch in 1871, and prior to World War I a company amalgamation with H. Graves formed Graves, Hill & Co.

The opening of railway lines competed with coach services, which opened further routes - particularly into more remote inland areas. The last Cobb & Co. journey in Australia was made in south-west Queensland in 1924.

Subjects
Related names :

Cobb and Co

Coverage year : 1867
Period : 1852-1883
Further reading :
Austin, KA. The lights of Cobb and Co.: the story of the frontier coaches, 1854-1924, Adelaide: Rigby, 1967

Tranter, Deborah. Cobb & Co.: coaching in Queensland, South Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1990

Internet links :

Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Search: Cobb, Freeman

Cobb & Co Heritage Trail from Bathurst to Bourke

National Museum of Australia See: Play: Learn & play: The Cobb & Co coach

Queensland Museum: Cobb & Co Museum

State Library of SA South Australiana database Hill & Company


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