Cobb & Co
Chinese passengers leaving for the diggings by Cobb & Co. coach, Castlemaine, Victoria. State Library of Victoria, Picture Collection.
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| Private | |
| Genre | Transport |
| Founded | 1853 |
| Founder |
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| Defunct | 1927 |
Cobb & Co was the name of a successful coaching company in Australia, established in 1853. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th century, when it was carried by many stagecoaches carrying passengers and mail to various Australian goldfields, and later to many regional and remote areas of the Australian outback. The company name was also used in New Zealand and South Africa.
Although the Queensland branch of the company made an effort to transition to automobiles in the early twentieth century, high overhead costs and the growth of alternative transport options for mail, including rail and air, saw the final demise of Cobb & Co. The last Australian Cobb & Co stagecoach ran in Queensland in August 1924.
Cobb & Co has become an established part of Australian folklore, and the company has been commemorated in art, literature and on screen. Today the name is used by a number of Australian bus operators.
The original company was established in Melbourne in 1853 at the height of the excitement created by the Victorian goldrushes, by four newly arrived North Americans - Freeman Cobb, John Murray Peck, James Swanton and John B. Lamber. Initially the company traded as the "American Telegraph Line of Coaches," a name that emphasized speed and progressiveness. With financial support from another newly arrived US businessman George Train, they arranged the importation of several US-built wagons and Concord coaches. By early 1854, the Company operated a daily service to Forest Creek and Bendigo, and soon afterwards, expanding the service to Geelong and Ballarat other goldfields.
In common with many operatives, Cobb & Co's horses were changed every 10–15 miles along a stagecoach "line", often at inns or hotels that could also cater for the needs of drivers and passengers. As Historian Susan Priestley notes, "Coach lines did not attempt to compete with... railways. Instead, as rail lines extended, coaches were transferred to feeder routes and were timetabled to link in with trains."
Within a few years, Cobb & Co had established a reputation for efficiency, speed and reliability, although they had not won any of the lucrative mail contracts. Their imported coaches used thorough-brace technology whereby thick straps of leather provided suspension to the body of the vehicle, thus providing the passenger with considerable comfort on the rough roads to the goldfields, by comparison to coaches with traditional steel-springs.
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