By Sophie Weaver

Cobb and Co. was established in 1854 by a group of immigrant Americans. They began in Ballarat at the goldfields with every intention of transporting only people and gold to and from the goldfields.

They started as the first form of public transport in Victoria and then spread over the whole of Australia.

Their first passenger service was between Forest Creek (now Castlemaine) to Melbourne and Ballarat.

Cobb and Co. was established by Freeman Cobb, John Murray Peck, James A Lamber, and James Scanlon.

Soon after in1856, the company got bankrupt and was sold to Thomas Davies for 16,000 pounds. Four years later the company changed hands again by a consortium headed by James Rutherford, William Franklin Whitney, and Alexander William Robertson ( others in initial line up included Walter Russell Hall, John Wagner, B Robertson, Colin Robertson, and Charles Pollock). James Rutherford became general manager and he and Whitney became the driving forces behind Cobb & Co.’s success.

In 1862 Cobb & Co.’s headquarters were transferred to Bathurst, a provincial town in New South Wales. Cobb & co. didn't waste any time establishing their new services and factories. Within a week Cobb & Co were operating a regular passenger service to Forbes. Quickly, James Rutherford had established changing stations that the stage coaches stopped at every ten or so miles (about 20 km).The kept feed and water there for the horses before the next coach came and they were put back on again and other horses replaced them.

Before long Cobb & co. had bought out most of it’s rival companies. The company was soon granted mail and gold escort contracts.

Cobb & Co. soon had either branches or franchises all around the world in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa.

Cobb & Co. ran tracks that extended longer than any other of those in the world. It’s coaches travelled 44,800 km in a week and 6000 of 30,000 horses were harnessed each day. They reached almost every where in Australia. Cobb & Co.’s coaches were adapted from American design to manage the terrain of Australia.

The Bathurst factory gradually went broke as new transport vehicles came onto the roads and Cobb & Co. was being outnumbered by trains, and other vehicles. When it closed in 1889 it had an impressive 85 men on it’s payroll. Throughout the 1890’s most of the branches throughout Australia and Cobb & Co. transferred all of it’s branches to the Charleville site. The Charleville site continued to operate until it’s last attempt in 1920 when it was desperately outnumbered by other vehicles and finally shut it’s gates, shortly following, was it’s last run four years later from Surat to Yuleba on 14 of August 1924.

Cobb & Co. started in Ballarat with every intention of servicing the Victorian goldfields and transporting gold to the workers and their families. They became richer and gradually expanded over Victoria, then over Australia, soon as they gathered more money and became even more wealthy they came over to and expanded their good doings over Japan , New Zealand and even South America.

When Cobb & Co. started, they affected the goldminers, the public and pretty much anyone if they were rich enough to pay! It effected these people in a good way because they had a faster way to transport themselves and they also were a way to get mail and parcels to family and friends in a quicker way than having to walk.

It would have affected the gold diggers because they could have sent their gold home to their families so no-one else could take it at the goldfields.

It would have affected the public because it would have a faster, more effective way of transport.

Cobb and Co. would have effected the way people’s mail got around, because you would probably get your mail in about 5 days instead of around a week.

I think that a positive was, people, mail, goods, gold from goldfields and the diggers at Ballarat, so that they could get to different places around the goldfields quicker than walking.

I think that a weakness might have been that they charged a lot of money, and lots of people who were a little bit poor could not afford it. Only the richer people were lucky enough to have a ride.

The price was about 40 shillings!!!

It revolutionised the way and the start of the most important chapter of transport in Australia’s history. It was the first form of transport in Victoria other than walking.

http://www.cobbandco.net.au/html/king.htmlDate of Access: 23 of May 2008A Brief History Of Cobb & Co.

http://www.cobbandco.net.au/html/king.html

Sophie Weaver

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