Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform

by Eleanor C. Hill Smyth

Early in his postal career, my father, by Lord Clanricarde's wish, went to Bristol to reorganise the Post Office there, the first of several similar missions to other towns. In nearly every case he found one condition of things prevailing: an office small, badly lighted, badly ventilated, and with defective sanitary arrangements; the delivery of letters irregular and unnecessarily late; the mail trains leaving the provincial towns at inconvenient hours; and other vexatious regulations, or lack of regulations. He found that by an annual expenditure of £125 Bristol's chief delivery of the day could be completed by nine in the morning instead of by noon. Although unable to carry out all the improvements needed, he effected a good deal, and on the termination of his visit received the thanks of the clerks and letter-carriers.[177]

In 1847 a thorough revision of the money order system was entrusted to him; and, thenceforth, that office came entirely under his control. Seventeen years later, Lord Clanricarde, in the Upper House, paid his former lieutenant, then about to retire, a handsome tribute of praise, saying, among other things, that, but for Mr Hill, the business of that office could hardly have been much longer carried on. No balance had been struck, and no one knew what assets were in hand. On passing under Mr Hill's management, the system was altered: four or five entries for each order were made instead of eleven; and official defalcation or fraud, once common, was now no more heard of.[178]

Lord Clanricarde placed the management of that office under my father's command in order that the latter should have a free hand; and it was settled that all returns to Parliament should be submitted to Rowland Hill before being sent to the Treasury, with leave to attack any that seemed unfair to penny postage. Previous to this act of friendliness and justice on the Postmaster-General's part, papers had generally been submitted to the permanent head of the office and even to officers of lower rank, but had been withheld from the reformer's observation.[179]

“Eternal vigilance” is said to be the necessary price to pay for the preservation of our liberties; and, half a century ago, a like vigilance had to be exercised whenever and wherever the interests of the postal reform were concerned.

The arrears in the Money Order Departments of the London and provincial offices were so serious that to clear them off would, it was declared, fully employ thirty-five men for four years. The Post Office had always maintained that the Money Order Department yielded a large profit; but a return sent to Parliament in 1848 showed that the expenditure of the year before the change of management exceeded the receipts by more than £10,000. In 1849 my father expressed “a confident expectation” that in the course of the year the Money Order Office would become self-supporting. By 1850 that hope was realised. By 1852 the office showed a profit of £11,664, thereby, in six years, converting the previous loss into a gain of more than £22,000;[180] and during the last year of Rowland Hill's life (1878-79) the profits were £39,000.

A reduction of size in the money order forms and letters of advice, and the abolition of duplicate advices effected a considerable saving in stationery alone; while the reduction of fees and the greater facilities for the transmission of money given by cheap postage raised the amount sent, in ten years only, twenty-fold. In 1839 about £313,000 passed through the post; and in 1864, the year of my father's resignation, £16,494,000. By 1879 the sum had risen to £27,000,000; and it has gone on steadily increasing.

Perhaps the following extract from Rowland Hill's journal is satisfactory, as showing improvement in account-keeping, etc. “July 8th, 1853.—A recent return to Parliament of the number and cost of prosecutions [for Post Office offences] from 1848 to 1852 inclusive, shows an enormous decrease—nearly, I think, in the ratio of three to one. This very satisfactory result is, I believe, mainly owing to the improved arrangements in the Money Order Office.”[181]

The new postal system, indeed, caused almost a revolution in official account-keeping. Under the old system the accounts of the provincial postmasters were usually from three to six months in arrear, and no vouchers were demanded for the proper disbursement of the money with which the postmasters were credited. In consequence of this dilatoriness, the officials themselves were often ignorant of the actual state of affairs, or were sometimes tempted to divert the public funds to their own pockets, while the revenue was further injured by the delay in remitting balances. Under the new system each postmaster rendered his account weekly, showing proper vouchers for receipts and payments and the money left in hand, to the smallest possible sum. This improvement was accompanied by lighter work to a smaller number of men, and a fair allowance of holiday to each of them.

When, in 1851, my father's attention was turned to the question of facilitating life insurance for the benefit of the staff, and especially of its humbler members, it was arranged with Sir George Cornwall Lewis,[182] at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, to aid in making up the requisite funds, the proceeds of unclaimed money orders, then averaging £1,100 a year, and all such money found in “dead” letters as could not be returned to their writers, should be used. Accumulations brought the fund up to about £12,000. In this manner “The Post Office Widows' and Orphans' Fund Society” was placed on a firm footing. A portion of the void order fund was also employed in rescuing from difficulties another society in the London office called “The Letter-Carriers' Burial Fund.”[183]