page_title: Cobb & Co
section_title: Preserved coaches
hierarchical_section_title: Cobb & Co / Preserved coaches
caption_attribution_description: English: A stagecoach at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
context_page_description: Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. 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 same name was used in New Zealand and Freeman Cobb used it in 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 commemorated in art, literature and on screen. Today the name is used by a number of Australian bus operators.
context_section_description: Only one Concord or "Jack" coach of the type imported from the United States by Cobb & Co in the 1850s and 1860s survives. According to Deborah Tranter, while Australian built stagecoaches utilized the thorough-brace technology found on the Concord coach, they were generally smaller, lighter, straighter in line and had less room for passengers than the US coaches. Coaches built at the Charleville coachworks were generally designed for either 8 or 14 passengers. 
  In addition to reproductions, a number of original Cobb & Co stagecoaches still exist in varying states of preservation. Often repainted in the twentieth century, the provenance of some is now difficult to determine.
  These include
  An imported "Concord" coach built by Abbot-Downing Company of New Hampshire. Imported by F.B. Clapp and Co, c1869 and used in the Ballarat area. It is preserved in original condition and held by Museum Victoria
  Another stagecoach, possibly built in Geelong, Victoria c1880, is held by Museum Victoria. It is believed to have been the last mail coach to operate commercially in Victoria - in 1916.
  Two stagecoaches, numbered 48 and 100, built in Charleville, Queensland in the late nineteenth century, are in the National Carriage Collection at the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba.
  Another stagecoach built in Charleville, Queensland, c1890 is preserved at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
  An Australian built stagecoach, possibly also built at the Cobb & Co factory in Charleville in the late nineteenth century, is in the collection of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. Often described as the "Nowlands Coach," it was owned and operated by Nowlands Line of Coaches in the Liverpool Plains district.
  An Australian built stagecoach is in the Western Australian Museum at Kalgoorlie.
  A locally built stagecoach is on public display in the main street of Hay, New South Wales
  A stagecoach built in Bathurst is on display in the Visitor Information Centre, Bathurst, New South Wales.
caption: A replica concord coach at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat
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