British Turnpike Trusts: Hourglass Toll Auctions, Rebecca Riots, Rail Ruin

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The turnpike takes its name from a spiked log on a pivot, the turning pike, that soldiers swung aside to let their own troops pass. In 17th-century England parishes maintained roads with unpaid statute labor, a system that collapsed under heavy London traffic on routes like the Great North Road; by 1656 the parish of Radwell in Hertfordshire was petitioning the courts because its stretch was impassable. The Road Repair Act of 1663 allowed justices to erect a toll gate at Wadesmill, and the 1706 Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire act handed a road to an independent board of trustees, unpaid local gentry, clergy and merchants who profited indirectly from better access to markets.

Trusts set tolls by vehicle and animal, borrowed against future revenue and leased collection to toll farmers. Engineers such as John Loudon McAdam and Thomas Telford rebuilt routes, and Parliament mandated milestones, wide wheels and driving on the left. In Wales resentment exploded in the Rebecca Riots from 1839, when farmers in women's clothing destroyed gates and toll houses until the South Wales trusts were abolished. Railways then emptied the roads of long-distance traffic, the Local Government Act of 1888 handed main roads to county councils, and celebrating towns auctioned off the gates.

• Tolls were leased at auction, with the lease going to the last bid made before an hourglass ran out.
• The number of trusts grew from about 150 in 1750 to over a thousand in the 1830s, covering some 30,000 miles and nearly 8,000 gates.
• Telford cut the London to Holyhead mail coach from 45 hours to 27, and by 1843 London to Exeter took 17 hours.
• The Rebecca rioters took their name from Genesis 24:60, which blesses those who possess the gate of their enemies.
• The Warrington and Lower Irlam trust's toll income fell from 1,680 pounds in 1829 to 332 pounds in 1834 after the railway opened.