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Story: Mail and couriers

Mail coach

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Mail coach

The fastest way of carrying mail across country for most of the 19th century was by horse-drawn coach. This is the Kawakawa–Hokianga coach stage and stables in Northland, around 1883. The coach on the right is Knox and McCready’s mail coach, with Thomas Knox at the reins. In the middle are mail bags and a box labelled ‘NZ parcels post’.

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Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: PAColl-7581-63

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Tim Shoebridge, Mail and couriers – Mail in the steam era, 1850s–1890s, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/23046/mail-coach (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Tim Shoebridge, published 12 April 2010.