The post office and its story

by Edward Bennett

This extract is extremely interesting, not only for the picture which it gives us of Falmouth a hundred years ago, but because it bears out the experience of most travellers from the Continent at the present day. The more leisurely ways of Spain in particular are as sharply contrasted at the present time with those of England as they evidently were in 1808.

There was considerable progress made in the building of sailing ships during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A ship performing the Packet Service in 1693 was described as one of “eighty-five tons and fourteen guns, with powder and shot and firearms, and all other munitions of war.” The sailors were not extravagantly paid for their services, but there were many recognised and unrecognised ways of improving their income. One of the recognised ways was the permission to take prizes if such fell in their way. There are in existence curious records showing also that the sailors received donations and pensions for wounds obtained in action. With that passion for precision and organisation which has always characterised the Post Office, a financial value was attached to almost every part of the human body. “Each arm or leg amputated above the elbow or knee is £8 per annum; below the knee is 20 nobles. Loss of the sight of one eye is £4, of the pupil of the eye £5; of the sight of both eyes £12, of the pupils of both eyes £14; and according to these rules we consider also how much the hurt affects the body, and make the allowances accordingly.” And we find that Edward James had a donation of £5 because a musket shot had grazed on the tibia of his left leg, and Thomas Williams had £12 because a Granada shell had stuck fast in his left foot. Such were some of the inducements and special increments offered to men to join the Post Office Packet Service.

With the peace which followed Waterloo the fighting times of the Packet Service came to an end, and in a few years the introduction of steam navigation began a completely new order of things. The Post Office gave up her packets, Falmouth was given up as a mail station, and the era of mail contracts began; and if we measure distance by time instead of mileage, the shrinkage of the world became more marked year by year. It is interesting to trace this in the story of what is now called the Atlantic Ferry. The first vessel to cross the Atlantic by steam was the Savannah in 1819, but she was partly under sail, and she took thirty-five days to make the passage. The Royal William crossed under steam in 1831; but she took forty days over the voyage. Up to that date, therefore, steam power was scarcely a rival to the sailing vessel. Indeed there were cases in which sailing vessels had crossed the Atlantic under favourable conditions in less than fourteen days. In 1838, however, a great advance was made. First the Sirius and then the Great Western in that year made record passages, the one in eighteen and a half days, the other in thirteen and a half days. The latter vessel made passages for several years, and her average per voyage was fifteen days and a half.

Then in 1840 came the contract with the Cunard Company to carry the mails for the British Government, and the history of that company has been a continuous breaking of records and of improvement in services. The names of the huge vessels belonging to this company which have successively lowered the Atlantic record are familiar to most of us, and they belong in a special way to the story of the Post Office. There was the Britannia in 1840, which began with a voyage of fourteen days, and the China in 1862 and the Batavia in 1870 reduced this record considerably. Then followed in 1881 the Servia, the first of the modern type of vessel; in 1884 the Umbria and Etruria with speeds of 19 knots an hour; in 1893 the Campania and Lucania with 22 knots; and in 1895 the Lusitania and Mauretania with 25 knots. The record has now been reduced to considerably under five days. The present contract is for a weekly service to the United States via Liverpool and New York. The British Post Office only pays its contractors for the weight of mails actually carried, and reserves the right to send specially addressed letters by foreign ships: most famous among these are the vessels of the Hamburg-American line, which have at different times held the Atlantic record.

The White Star line has also since 1877 been regularly employed by contract to carry the mails between Liverpool and New York, and the Teutonic and the Majestic, completed in 1889 and 1890, were the first merchant ships constructed with a view to their use as auxiliaries to the British navy.

The idea of the Travelling Post Office is especially suited to overseas mails, and on these liners sea post offices are established, where the mails are sorted in transit and made ready for delivery at the completion of the voyage. The sorters are at work during the whole of the voyage; as many as 250 bags are often opened, and the number in an exceptional mail has often reached 700. The sorters are required to wear uniform, and are regarded as officers subject to the discipline of the ship, but they take their meals in the first class saloon. They have two or three days in New York before the return voyage: it is a popular branch of the service, and there is considerable eagerness to join it, in spite of the fact that the Transatlantic mails are sometimes extraordinarily heavy.

I can only deal with the chief steamship companies which contract with the British Government for the carriage of the mails. And chief among these is the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, which, during almost the whole of its career, has acted as the agent of the Government in the conveyance of mails to the East. Until 1835 all our mails for India were carried round the Cape of Good Hope, and the approximate time occupied was four months. In that year a change was made, and the mail was sent via Egypt. The first contract with the P. & O. Company dates from 1837, and this was an arrangement for a monthly service between Falmouth and Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, and Gibraltar. The company obtained a charter of incorporation in 1840, and one of the conditions was that steam communication with India should be established within two years. This condition was fulfilled, and the Hindustan was despatched to India, via the Cape of Good Hope, on the 26th September 1842. But the advantages of the route across the Isthmus of Suez, even before the opening of the Canal, were sufficiently obvious to the directors of the company, and they practically organised what came to be known as the Overland Route. But the man who first established a service along this route was an officer of the East India Company named Lieutenant Waghorn. He deserves honourable mention in any account of the service to India. He believed in this route, and worked hard to make it practicable in face of innumerable obstacles. He was a man of indomitable energy and of extraordinary stature. There is a story told of his visit to a country fair with a friend. He endeavoured to enter one of the shows and was refused admission twice. The friend sought an interview with the proprietor. The only reply was, “I pray you, sir, take that gentleman away. The fact is he is two inches taller than my giant.”

Waghorn lived long enough to see the Peninsular and Oriental Company establish a regular service across the isthmus. This meant an uncomfortable passage by canal boat and steamer to Cairo, then by a two-wheeled omnibus for ninety miles across the desert of Suez. For many years camels carried the mails from Cairo to Suez, where the P. & O. steamers again resumed charge. The first mail service to Australia via the Isthmus of Suez was opened in 1852. In 1859 a railway was made across the isthmus, and this considerably simplified the journey. Then in 1869 the Suez Canal was opened, but owing to difficulties raised by the British Government it was not until many years after that the mails were permitted to pass through the Canal. Since 1888 the direct sea mail service between England and India, China, and the Australian colonies has been continuous.

The mails leaving London on Friday nights are despatched from Brindisi in specially designed twin screw vessels, which arrive at Port Said about ninety-six hours after the mails have been despatched from London. On this service the Osiris and Iris are employed, and there is the curious fact concerning them that they are the only vessels in the mercantile marine which cross the sea with mails and passengers only. At Port Said the mails are transferred to the big liner which has come from London via the Straits of Gibraltar. The service is weekly to Bombay, to Shanghai and Australia fortnightly, but since 1888 a contract with the Orient Company for a fortnightly service to Australia has given that colony a weekly mail.

The Union Castle Line to Madeira and the Cape provides the mail service to South Africa, and ships like the Edinburgh Castle and the Balmoral Castle, which sail from Southampton, make very swift passages.