**On the banks of Lake Achen, Austria, in September 1890: Bertha and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in Emanuel Schmid’s horse-drawn carriage.** Deutsches Röntgen-Museum & Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Emmanuel Schmid: coachman to the social elite during the Belle Époque

Coachman Emmanuel Schmid from Graubünden regularly drove his famous passenger Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen around the Alps in the late 19th century.

Peter Egloff

The folklorist Peter Egloff is a publicist in Zurich.

Website: Werke von Peter Egloff beim Limmat Verlag

Emmanuel Schmid’s little book of fares from 1879 could not be more inconspicuous: barely the size of a hand, a nondescript greyish-brown colour, with battered leather spine, scuffed corners and greasy pages. But a quick flick through, and it turns out to provide a veritable insight into the Belle Époque. Besides price lists for the various journeys within the canton of Graubünden and to neighbouring destinations, the little book also contains 80 plain pages with handwritten endorsements of coachman Emmanuel Schmid from the Surselva region:

**“An entirely trustworthy driver”…“recommended to anyone wishing to go to the mountains”: travelling with Emmanuel Schmid from Thusis to Bolzano and from Merano to St. Moritz.** Peter Egloff / Montagne-de-Courtelary private archive

From around 1880 until the outbreak of the First World War, Emmanuel Schmid imported wines from the Italian Valtellina region in the winter. In the summer, however, he swapped the heavy cargo sledges for an elegant horse-drawn carriage and worked as a coachman for hire on the mountain roads and passes of Switzerland, Italy and Austria. And his little book of fares and endorsements gives us a glimpse into the European and American social elite of the time: there’s a baroness here, a baron there, and then, a few pages later, a passenger from London who impresses with his perfect German, or another from Frankfurt am Main who notably adds an elegant English summary to his German praise of Emmanuel Schmid. In the 19th century, the leisure class of Europe and the United States discovered the charms of the Alpine region and went mad for snow-covered peaks, whooshing waterfalls and wild, untouched nature. This can also be seen as an early reaction to the environmental casualties of industrialisation as the crisp mountain air blocked out the smoking factory chimneys and polluted river valleys. The upper classes would therefore leave behind the boulevards, cafés and salons of the big cities – albeit temporarily, and to begin with mainly in the summer months – and make their way to the Alps, now styled the ‘playground of Europe’, to stay at hotels in the popular destinations. In the beginning, this type of summer retreat was the preserve of a very narrow section of society. In the second half of the 19th century, however, the number of tourists grew rapidly, although there was still no such thing as legal holiday entitlement. From 1858, Chur was connected to the north by a rail link. The important mountain passes in Graubünden were opened up to transport in rapid succession, and while the Swiss Post’s mail coaches disappeared from the Swiss Plateau when the expansion of the railways took off, they experienced a heyday in the Swiss Alps.

**Julierpost stagecoach in Savognin, circa 1903** ETH Library Zurich

On all the major routes there were regular staging posts, where the spent horses were replaced with fresh animals that had been fed and watered. This allowed journey times to be significantly shortened. But the mail coaches also ran in the dark and, depending on the seat, the view was very limited. Passengers were also forced to travel cheek by jowl with any Tom, Dick or Harry, which was not to everyone’s taste. Those with deep pockets – members of a very select upper class – who were seeking an exclusive mountain experience could afford to travel in style with a private coachman. And that meant: slowly.

**Inside a stagecoach. Interior of the Gotthard stagecoach from 1850, which stands in front of the National Museum Zurich.** Swiss National Museum
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**Gotthard stagecoach from 1850 standing in front of the National Museum Zurich.** Swiss National Museum
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Travelling this way meant hiring a coachman with his own vehicle and horses. Private coachmen were prevented by the Swiss postal service from swapping their horses en route, giving the state-run mail coach service a competitive edge in terms of speed and therefore journey time. With a private coachman, the speed and distance covered in a day depended on the horses. This contemplative, luxurious and exclusive form of non-motorised transport was how Emmanuel Schmid made a living in the summer months.

**Unaffordable for ordinary folk: the prices charged by a Graubünden coachman in 1879.** Peter Egloff / Montagne-de-Courtelary private archive

Between 1880 and 1906 there are 91 entries in Schmid’s book of fares and endorsements, in which passengers praise the coachman, carriage and horses in consistently complimentary terms with varying levels of detail. But the price lists clearly show that this form of transportation was unaffordable for the vast majority of people at the time. For example, in 1879, the journey from Chur to St. Moritz via the Albula Pass for up to four people in a two-horse carriage cost CHF 130, plus a 10% tip. On top of this, there was an overnight stay, which was necessary as the journey could not be completed in one day without switching the horses, unlike with a mail coach. By way of comparison, the daily wage of a cantonal roadmender was between CHF 2.10 and CHF 3. And even the director of the Graubünden Cantonal Chancellery would have had to fork out more than half a month’s salary for this one-and-a-half-day journey. This was therefore a very lucrative business for Emmanuel Schmid. But it wasn’t without its own problems, least of all in Graubünden. Word quickly spread throughout the whole Alpine region about the deep pockets of the international visitors. Competition for this well-heeled clientèle was stiff, and the practices employed crude. The government in Bern soon recognised the need to legislate and enacted the first stagecoach regulations for the Bernese Oberland in 1856. This was about guaranteeing the safety and security of passengers, protecting them from harassment and fraud, and safeguarding the region’s good reputation as a tourist destination. The governments of other mountain cantons with tourist traffic followed suit and introduced their own sets of rules for stagecoaches.

**Stopover: the Hotel Löwe & Post in Mulegns, on the road leading to the Julier Pass, circa 1900.** Swiss National Museum

Nothing of the sort in Graubünden though, the canton with its sacrosanct communal autonomy, where all efforts to regulate private stagecoaches and to protect travellers from the meddlesome intrusiveness of coachmen, from fraud and from being conned, fizzled out. Even the private stagecoach association in Graubünden complained of “grievances” and considered there to be a pressing need for cantonal regulations. To no avail – the regulation of coach driving remained the responsibility of individual districts and communes in the canton. For example, Art.6 of the ‘General coach driver regulations for the Upper Engadine district’ of 1890 ruled that: “Coachmen shall affect a polite and decorous manner at all times and must in particular be vigilant against drunkenness.” In light of this, the purpose and usefulness of the recommendations in Emmanuel Schmid’s little book become immediately apparent. Schmid’s little book reveals the breakdown of nationalities of his documented clientèle: Germany 45, United Kingdom 25, France 10, Holland 4, United States 3, Denmark 1. With 9 entries, Berlin is the most common place of origin mentioned. Only three entries are written by Swiss passengers, including one by Leopold Iklé, one of the most famous textile barons in St. Gallen at the time.

Left-hand side: “Emanuel Schmid drove me and my family from Chur to Biasca, and I would like to express my complete satisfaction with the carriage and horses, Mr Schmid’s talent as a coachman, and his courteous and friendly manner. Biasca 31 Aug [18]82, Leopold Iklé from St. Gallen”. — Left-hand side: “Emanuel Schmid drove me and my family from Chur to Biasca, and I would like to express my complete satisfaction with the carriage and horses, Mr Schmid’s talent as a coachman, and his courteous and friendly manner. Biasca 31 Aug [18]82, L[eopold] Iklé from St. Gallen”. Peter Egloff / Montagne-de-Courtelary private archive

If we look more closely at those 91 entries, we might discover all sorts of celebrities from that period. But Schmid’s most loyal passenger was undoubtedly his most famous: a certain Professor Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, winner of the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901.

**Left-hand side: In clear and neat handwriting, high praise from the future Nobel laureate.** Peter Egloff / Montagne-de-Courtelary private archive

Röntgen, a professor of physics at the University of Würzburg, discovered x-rays in the night of 8 November 1895. This not only revolutionised medical diagnostics, but also led to the discovery of radioactivity shortly afterwards by Henri Becquerel and Marie and Pierre Curie, which fundamentally transformed physics as a science and our view of the world.

**Photo of the Röntgens, 1890 in Finstermünz, Austria: in the coach sits Professor Röntgen’s wife, Bertha Röntgen-Ludwig, and in the driving seat, coachman Emmanuel Schmid.** Deutsches Röntgen-Museum & Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Between 1873 and 1913, the Röntgens holidayed in Pontresina for a few weeks nearly every year. And even years after the opening of the Albula railway line to the Engadine in 1903, they continued to travel to Pontresina from Chur, and sometimes also from Lucerne, Lenzerheide, Flims and other places with their trusted coachman, Emmanuel Schmid. But the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 threw international tourism deep into crisis and brought an abrupt end to Schmid’s stagecoach business and his trading in Valtellina wine. After that, he stuck to tending to his farm in Surrein-Sumvitg. Schmid died in 1924. The following year, the electorate in Graubünden voted in favour of lifting the cantonal motorcar ban, which it had doggedly defended in nine previous votes.

**Graubünden was the last canton to allow motorised vehicles on its roads. Referendum leaflet supporting ban on automobiles, 1927.** Wikimedia / Rätisches Museum Chur

More of: Modern Age 20th / 21st century Economy Tourism Transportation

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