Type | Private |
---|---|
Genre | Transport |
Founded | 1853 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
Founder(s) | Freeman Cobb John Murray Peck James Scanlon James A. Lamber |
Cobb and Co is the name of a transportation company in Australia. It was prominent in the late 19th century when it operated stagecoaches to many areas in the outback and at one point in several other countries, as well.
The name stands for "Cobb & company," although the full stop after "Co" is often omitted. Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister, was once a manager of Cobb and Co.[1]
Initially trading as The American Telegraph Line of Coaches the company was established in 1853 by four Americans (Freeman Cobb, John Murray Peck, James Swanton and James A. Lamber),[2][3] but only rose to prominence when bought by James Rutherford and a consortium of nine other partners in 1861. 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 although winning a monopoly on major mail contracts, he found the advancing railways fast making Cobb & Co's Victorian routes redundant.
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Coaches played an important part in Australia's transport and communication history. The first services began in 1854 between Melbourne and Bendigo.[4] In 1861 Rutherford proposed extending the business into New South Wales, but his partners opposed the plan. They reversed the decision following news of the Lambing Flat (Young) gold rush. Rutherford moved ten coaches from the Castlemaine Depot in Victoria to Bathurst in 1862, and re-established his headquarters there. He transported passengers from the railway station at Penrith, all the way to the new goldfields. In 1865 on recommendations by Rutherford the company again expanded, this time to Queensland.[3]
The first Cobb and Co service in Queensland was between Ipswich and Brisbane in 1865. The coach stage stops were at Goodna and at the Oxley hotel. This service ended when the railway link was completed in 1875.[3][5] In 1871 Frederick Shaw joined the firm and established a large office, coach building factory and stables at Petrie Bight.[3] The company continued to expand it services, reaching North Queensland in the 1880s.[4] During this period services were expanded into south west Queensland as well. These coach services allowed for an otherwise isolated number of communities to maintain regular contact with the rest of the world.[6]
An 1880s Concord model coach in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, in Canberra, known as the Nowlandβs mail coach, was used to transport mail and passengers in northern New South Wales, Australia. [7] This coach is likely to have been made by the Cobb & Co coachworks either at their Charleville, Queensland or Bathurst, New South Wales, NSW factory. It was originally owned by the Nowland family and used on their network of mail and passenger services in the Liverpool Plains area in the 1880s.
This coach also has a rich connection to the silver screen, featuring in the 1920 silent film The Man from Kangaroo Australian films (1896β1919) and the 1957 production of Robbery Under Arms, Australian films (1896β1919) based on the Rolf Boldrewood novel of the same name.
The Man from Kangaroo was shot near the coach's original home around Gunnedah, and further south in Kangaroo Valley. The Man from Kangaroo is held in the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia collection. Robbery Under Arms was shot around Bourke in New South Wales and Wilpena Pound in South Australia.
In Robbery Under Arms the coach features in a hold-up scene. It is first glimpsed barrelling down an inland highway before being bailed up by the fictional bushranger Captain Starlight and his gang.
The Nowland's mail coach was acquired by the National Museum of Australia in 1980. It was purchased from the Royal Australian Historical Society with another coach, a wooden horse-drawn landau [8] known as the Ranken coach.
Cobb and Co's operations were eventually superseded by the development of the automobile and, in some areas, by railways. Not to mention the vast amount of debt that the company had taken on due to overexpansion into industries like wool.[9] The company went into receivership in 1911 after Rutherford's death. Their last horse-drawn coach service ran in 1924.[3]
Today the Dyson Group of Companies owns the Cobb and Co coach company, which Dyson acquired when it purchased the Nixon Group in 2000. The company name has been resurrected in recent years by various operators and horse drawn coaches still operate at various locations throughout Australia.[10]