First Cobb & Co. coach service runs to Otago goldfields

In its first venture from Dunedin to Gabriels Gully, Cobb & Co. reduced the time for the trip from two days to nine hours.

Cobb & Co. was founded in Melbourne in 1854 by a group of Americans, among them Freeman Cobb. In 1861 its proprietor, Charles Cole, arrived in Dunedin with a luxury American Concord coach, five wagons, a buggy, more than 50 horses, and a reputation for speed and reliability. One week later, the first ‘Cobb & Co Telegraphic Line of Coaches’ service began a new era in New Zealand coaching.

New Zealand was crying out for a public transport network. Though not the first coach service in the colony, Cobb & Co. quickly became the biggest. Within a few years it had connected many of New Zealand’s main centres; the ‘Cobb’ name was also widely adopted by independent operators who had no link with the original company.

Coach travel was not for the faint-hearted. At the very least, passengers had to endure a queasy rocking motion and a tendency to violent swaying. Male passengers were expected to get out and walk up steep slopes. On rare occasions passengers drowned in swollen rivers or were killed by being thrown off on steep hillsides.

By 1880 railways had reached many areas, especially in the South Island. Speed, safety and comfort – and the fact that you could read on a train – won out, and coach travel gradually declined. Cobb & Co. ran its last stagecoach service in 1923. Small horsedrawn taxi services continued for a while at railway stations, until these too were upstaged by modern motor transport.

The Cobb & Co. coaches gathered dust for many years before they were recognised as heritage items and displayed in transport museums around the country.

These days, when New Zealanders hear the term ‘Cobb & Co.’ they think of a chain of family restaurants established in 1970 by Lion Breweries. Cobb & Co., with its links to New Zealand’s transport heritage, provided the perfect brand name. In 2015 there are eight Cobb & Co. restaurants, most of them in provincial cities.

Image: Cobb & Co. coach (Anthony Flude)