Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform

by Eleanor C. Hill Smyth

It was during this visit to Paris that my father became acquainted with M. Piron, Sous Directeur des Postes aux Lettres, a man whose memory should not be suffered to perish, since it was mainly through his exertions that the postal reform was adopted in France. For several years during the latter part of Louis Philippe's reign, M. Piron strove so persistently to promote the cause of cheap postage that he actually injured his prospects of rising in the Service, as the innovation was strenuously opposed both by the monarch and by the Postmaster-General, M. Dubost, the “French Maberly.” Therefore, while the “citizen king” remained on the throne the Government gave little or no encouragement to the proposed reform. But M. Piron, too much in earnest to put personal advancement above his country's welfare, went on manfully fighting for cheap postage. He it was who made the accidental discovery among the archives of the French Post Office of documents which showed that a M. de Valayer had, nearly two hundred years before, established in Paris a private (penny?) post—of which further mention will be made in the next chapter. Neither Charles Knight, who first suggested the impressed stamp, nor Rowland Hill, who first suggested the adhesive stamp, had heard of M. de Valayer or of his private post; and even in France they had been forgotten, and might have remained so but for M. Piron's discovery. One is reminded of the re-invention of the mariner's compass and of many other new-old things.

Nine years after my father's official visit to Paris, that is, with the advent of the Revolution of 1848, the reforming spirit in France had stronger sway; and M. Piron's efforts were at last crowned with success. The uniform rate proposed by him (20 centimes) was adopted, and the stamp issued was the well-known black head of Liberty. In order to keep pace with the public demand, the first sheets were printed in such a hurry that some of the heads—the dies to produce which were then detached from one another—were turned upside down. M. Piron sent my father one of the earliest sheets with apologies for the reversals. These are now almost unobtainable, and are therefore much prized by philatelists.

During this visit to Paris, or at a later one, my father also made the acquaintance of M. Grasset, M. St Priest, and other leading post officials; and, among non-official and very interesting people, M. Horace Say, son to the famous Jean Baptiste Say, and father to the late M. Léon Say, three generations of illustrious Frenchmen.

Although travelling in France—or, indeed, in England or any other country—was in 1839 very different from what it has become in these luxurious days, for railways were established later in France than they were here, my mother had accompanied her husband. One day the pair set off in a calèche to visit some old friends who lived in a rather distant part of the country. Darkness came on, and ere long all trace of the road was lost. At last the wretched little vehicle broke down in a field; and the driver, detaching the horse, rode off to try to discover their whereabouts. The process was a slow one; and the travellers were left alone for what seemed to be many hours. Near the field was a wood in which wolves had been seen that day, and there was good reason to dread a visit from them. When at last the driver, having found the right road, reappeared, attached the horse to the calèche, and pushed on again, he drove his party by mistake to the back-door of their friends' house. It was now late at night, and the family, who had retired to rest, and were waked by the driver's loud knocking, mistook the belated travellers for robbers, and refused to unbar the door. It was only after a long parley that the wearied visitors were admitted, to receive, of course, the warmest welcome. The master of the house had been the hero of an unusually romantic story. As a young officer in the French army, he was captured at the time of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, and carried to England, there to remain some years as a prisoner of war. While on parole he made many friends in this country, where he occupied part of his time by the study of English law, in which he became a proficient. During his novitiate he became acquainted with a young lady unto whom he was not long in losing his heart. As he came to know her and her widowed mother better, a suspicion crossed his mind that the daughter was being kept out of a handsome property, rightly hers, by a fraudulent relative. Examination of the case strengthened suspicion into conviction, and he undertook to champion her cause, his knowledge of English law coming in as a powerful weapon to his hand. On conclusion of the trial, he and some of those who had acted with him set off for the lady's home as fast as horses, post-boys, and money could take them. “They are scattering guineas!” exclaimed a bystander. “They have won the case!” It was so, and something more than the case, for the gallant young Frenchman was rewarded for his prowess by receiving in marriage the hand of the girl for whom he had accomplished so much. When the war was over, M. Chevalier returned to France together with his wife and her mother.

Heartily as Mr Baring approved of the new system, he still distrusted the principle of prepayment. In this opinion he was, as we have seen, not singular. By many people it was still pronounced “un-English” to prepay letters. But my father was so confident of the wisdom of the step that Mr Baring ultimately gave way, stipulating only that the responsibility should rest, not on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but on the author of the reform. The condition was unhesitatingly accepted.

To ensure use of the stamps, Mr Baring, later, proposed that it should be made illegal to prepay postage other than by their means; but Rowland Hill, hating compulsion, and feeling confident of their ultimate acceptability, maintained that it would be better if at first the two modes of payment, money and stamps, contended for public favour on equal terms, and succeeded in convincing Mr Baring of the soundness of that view.

The question of the stamps was therefore one of the first to require my father's attention on his return from Paris; and he found much to occupy him in dealing with the many suggestions contained in the letters sent in by the public, and in the vast number of designs accompanying them. As the succeeding chapter will show, the subject, in one form or another, took up much of his time for a little over twelve months.

Early in December, at his suggestion, the tentative postal rate of 1d. for London, and 4d. for the rest of the kingdom was introduced, all tiresome extras such as the penny on each letter for using the Menai and Conway bridges, the halfpenny for crossing the Scottish border, etc., being abolished. This experiment was made to allow the postal staff to become familiarised with the new system, as a vast increase of letters, necessarily productive of some temporary confusion, was looked for on the advent of the uniform penny rate. Under the old system 4d. had been the lowest charge beyond the radius of the “twopenny post”; therefore, even the preliminary reduction was a relief. But although three years earlier a lowering of the existing rates to a minimum of 6d. or 8d. would have been eagerly welcomed, the public were now looking forward to yet lower charges; and the prospect of paying 4d. was viewed with great dissatisfaction. People began to suspect that the concession would go no further, that the Government intended to “cheat the public,” and my father was accused of having “betrayed his own cause.” Thus easily is a scare manufactured.

The result of the first day of this preliminary measure was awaited with some anxiety. The increase of the fourpenny letters was about 50, and of the penny letters nearly 150 per cent., the unpaid letters being about as numerous as usual, prepayment being not yet made compulsory. This state of things my father considered “satisfactory”; Mr Baring “very much so.” The next day the numbers fell off, and this gave the enemies of postal reform a delightful, and by no means neglected, opportunity of writing to its author letters of the “I told you so!” description.

The 10th of January 1840, when the uniform penny rate came into operation, was a busy day at the post offices of the country. Many people made a point of celebrating the occasion by writing to their friends, and not a few—some of the writers being entire strangers—addressed letters of thanks to the reformer.[130] One of these was from Miss Martineau, who had worked ably and well for the reform; and another from the veteran authoress, Miss Edgeworth, whom, some twenty years earlier, Rowland Hill had visited in her interesting ancestral home.[131]