Mail Coach

[Stuart0742]

See Post 99 in Murders

Mailcoach Mr Eyre mentioned as publican, dated 1865

[Edmund]

On 25th March 1823 William Fairbanks III, surveyor, transferred two plots of building land to Samuel Eyre on an 800 year lease, one of 387 yards faced onto West street, the other was on Fitzwilliam street. The land was where his father, William Fairbank II, built Westhill Hall, in 1786, at the head of Lee's Close, Broomhall Lane, leasing the surrounding land from the Duke of Norfolk in 1798.

see Fairbanks map:  The West Hill estate

On 5th October 1827 Samuel Eyre announced that he intended opening his new house at West Hill, Glossop Road for the purpose of an Inn and Public House on the following Thursday. He had applied for a licence in September 1826. The Inn was to be named the Royal Mail Inn. He confirmed that he would not be selling any Liquor on the Sabbath "unless it be to a Stranger in the Land, or a way-faring Man that turneth aside to tarry for a Night" From the outset the house was also referred to as the Mail Coach Inn.

On Wednesday 16th August 1837 an inquest on Samuel Eyre, 57, was held in his own public house. He had left home the previous Monday afternoon for his joinery works at Leicester street and was found unconscious lying on the shop floor an hour and a half later. He was taken home in a coach but died the following morning - apoplexy was deemed to be the cause. He was buried at Ecclesall All Saints. His wife Esther was running the pub at both the 1841 and 1851 census' but died in March 1855.

Samuel and Esther's son Thomas took over the running of the inn, until his death aged 52 on 13th April 1864. His brother William Eyre then seems to have inherited the pub, in June 1864 taking back the licence which had been held by Richard Johnson and Henry Turner. William attempted unsuccessfully to sell the property in late 1864. William was still the landlord in August 1865, when the Aaron Allison murder took place there, which probably put a stop to any sale of the property for a while. In June 1868 he again put the premises up for sale, and again in August 1875. William died on 17th January 1884 at 8 Hanover Square aged 69, and was buried at Ecclesall All Saints.