Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform

by Eleanor C. Hill Smyth

At that time, and for many years after, there was at St Martin's-le-Grand a large centre hall open to the public, but, later, covered over and appropriated by the ever-growing Circulation Department. At one end of the hall was a window, which during part of the day always stood open to receive the different kinds of missives. These, as the hour for closing drew near, poured in with increasing volume, until at “six sharp,” when the reception of matter for the chief outgoing mail of the day ended, the window shut suddenly, sometimes with a letter or newspaper only half-way through.[132] On the afternoon of the 10th, six windows instead of one were opened; and a few minutes before post time a seventh was thrown up, at which the chief of the Circulation Department himself stood to help in the receipt of letters. The crowd was good-tempered, and evidently enjoyed the crush, though towards the last letters and accompanying pennies were thrown in anyhow, sometimes separating beyond hope of reunion; and though many people were unable to reach the windows before six o'clock struck. When the last stroke of the hour had rung out, and the lower sash of every window had come down with a rush like the guillotine, a great cheer went up for “penny postage and Rowland Hill,” and another for the Post Office staff who had worked so well.

So much enthusiasm was displayed by the public that the author of the new system fully expected to hear that 100,000 letters, or more than three times the number usually dispatched, had been posted. The actual total was about 112,000.

The reformer kept a constant watch on the returns of the number of inland letters passing through the post. The result was sometimes satisfactory, sometimes the reverse, especially when a return issued about two months after the establishment of the penny rate showed that the increase was rather less than two-and-three-quarters-fold. The average postage on the inland letters proved to be three halfpence; and the reformer calculated that at that rate a four-and-three-quarters-fold increase would be required to bring up the gross revenue to its former dimensions. Eleven years later his calculation was justified by the result; and in the thirteenth year of the reform the number of letters was exactly five times as many as during the last year of the old system.

Meanwhile, it was satisfactory to find that the reductions which had recently been made in the postage of foreign letters had led to a great increase of receipts, and that in no case had loss to the revenue followed.

One reason for the comparatively slow increase in the number of inland letters must be attributed to the persistent delay in carrying out my father's plan for extending rural distribution. In the minute he drew up, he says: “The amount of population thus seriously inconvenienced the Post Office has declared itself unable to estimate, but it is probable that in England and Wales alone it is not less than 4,000,000. The great extent of the deficiency [of postal facilities] is shown by the fact that, while these two divisions of the empire contain about 11,000 parishes, their total number of post offices of all descriptions is only about 2,000. In some places quasi post offices have been established by carriers and others, whose charges add to the cost of a letter, in some instances as much as sixpence. A penny for every mile from the post office is a customary demand.”[133]

Of the beneficent effects of cheap postage, gratifying accounts were meanwhile being reported; some told in conversation, or in letters from friends or strangers, some in the Press or elsewhere.

One immediate effect was an impetus to education, especially among the less affluent classes. When one poor person could send another of like condition a letter for a penny instead of many times that amount, it was worth the while of both to learn to read and write. Many people even past middle age tried to master the twin arts; and at evening classes, some of which were improvised for the purpose, two generations of a family would, not infrequently, be seen at work seated side by side on the same school bench. Other poor people, with whom letter-writing, for lack of opportunity to practise it, had become a half-forgotten handicraft, made laborious efforts to recover it. And thus old ties were knit afresh, as severed relatives and friends came into touch again. Surely, to hinder such reunion by “blocking” rural distribution and other important improvements was little, if at all, short of a crime.

Mr Brookes, a Birmingham home missionary, reported that the correspondence of the poorer classes had probably increased a hundredfold; and that adults as well as young people took readily to prepayment, and enjoyed affixing the adhesive Queen's head outside their letters.

Professor Henslow, then rector of Hitcham, Suffolk, wrote of the importance of the new system to those who cultivated science and needed to exchange ideas and documents. He also stated that before penny postage came in he had often acted as amanuensis to his poorer parishioners, but that they now aspired to play the part of scribe themselves.

The servant class, hitherto generally illiterate, also began to indite letters home; and a young footman of Mr Baring's one day told my father that he was learning to write in order to send letters to his mother, who lived in a remote part of the country; and added that he had many friends who were also learning. Indeed, one poor man, settled in the metropolis, proudly boasted that he was now able to receive daily bulletins of the condition of a sick parent living many miles away.