Sir Rowland Hill: The Story of a Great Reform

by Eleanor C. Hill Smyth

The measure affected several hundreds of different places and a very large percentage of the entire correspondence of the United Kingdom. Formerly there were to every office limits, sometimes narrow, sometimes wide, beyond which there was either no delivery, or one made only at additional charge, generally of a penny a letter: an arrangement which, in spite of my father's repeated efforts to amend it, outlived the introduction of the new postal system for more than fourteen years, and in the districts thus affected partially nullified its benefits. Not until this and other survivals of the older state of things were swept away could his plan be rightly said to be established.

London—whose then population formed one-tenth and its correspondence one-fourth of the United Kingdom—was also not neglected. It was divided into ten postal districts,[206] each of which was treated as a separate town with a local chief office in addition to its many minor offices. The two corps of letter-carriers—the general postmen and those who belonged to the old “twopenny post”—which till this time existed as distinct bodies of employees, were at last amalgamated; their “walks” were rearranged, and a new plan of sorting at the chief office was instituted, while the letters and other missives intended for the different districts, being sorted before they reached London, were no longer, as of old, sent to St Martin's-le-Grand, but were at once dispatched for distribution to the local chief office whose initials corresponded with those upon the covers. Door letter-boxes increased in number in the houses of the poorer as well as of the richer classes; and the use, in addition to the address, on the printed heading of a letter of the initials denoting the postal district from which it emanated, and on the envelope of that where it should be delivered—a use to which the public generally accustomed itself kindly—greatly facilitated and expedited communication within the 12 miles circuit, so that thenceforth it became possible to post a letter and receive its reply within the space of a few hours—a heartily appreciated boon in the days when the telephone was not. As a natural consequence, the number of district letters grew apace, and the congestion at St Martin's-le-Grand was perceptibly lessened. At the same time, the Board of Works to some extent amended the nomenclature of the streets and the numbering of houses. The most important delivery of the day, the first, was accelerated by two hours; in some of the suburbs by two and a half hours. That is, the morning's letters were distributed at nine o'clock instead of at half-past eleven. Since that time, and for many years now, the delivery has been made at or before eight o'clock. Nothing facilitated these earlier deliveries more than the sorting of letters en route; and the practice also enabled more frequent deliveries to be made. Improved communication with the colonies and foreign countries, through better treaties, was likewise effected; and each improvement was rendered easier by the rapid growth everywhere of railways and shipping companies, and the increased speed of trains and steamships.

In 1855 “the system of promotion by merit,” recommended by my father and endorsed with approval by the Civil Service Commissioners “was brought into full operation. In the three metropolitan offices, when a vacancy occurred application for appointment was open to all; the respective claims were carefully compared, and, without the admission of any other consideration whatever, the claim which was adjudged to be best carried the day. To keep our course free from disturbing influences, it was laid down that any intercession from without in favour of individual officers should act, if not injuriously, at least not beneficially, on the advancement of those concerned.” ... “By the transfer to the Post Office of appointment to all the higher postmasterships, opportunity for promotion was greatly enlarged, and posts formally bestowed for political services now became the rewards of approved merit. This change obviously involved great improvement in the quality of the persons thus entrusted with powers and duties of no small importance to the public. In the provincial offices a corresponding improvement was, in great measure, secured by delegating the power of appointing their subordinates, under certain restrictions, to the respective postmasters, who, being themselves responsible for the good working of their offices, were naturally led to such selection as would best conduce to that end. This delegation, so far as related to clerks, was made on the recommendation of the Civil Service Commissioners; and the trust being satisfactorily exercised, was subsequently extended to the appointment of letter-carriers also.” The measure worked well. “From the different departments of the metropolitan offices, and from the provincial surveyors the reports of its operation were almost uniformly satisfactory. Officers were found to take more personal interest in their duties, to do more work without augmentation of force, to make up in some degree by additional zeal for the increased yearly holiday that was granted them, and to discharge their duties with more cheerfulness and spirit, knowing that good service would bring eventual reward.”[207]

The new system of promotion by merit worked far better than that of the Commissioners' examinations for admission to the Civil Service. As regards the letter-carriers, it has always been found that the men best fitted for this duty were those whose previous life had inured them to bodily labour and endurance of all kinds of weather. The new educational requirements in many instances excluded these people, while giving easy admission to shopmen, clerks, servants, and others accustomed to indoor and even sedentary life, who were little fitted to perform a postman's rounds. The Duke of Argyll, then Postmaster-General, requested the Commissioners to adopt a somewhat lower standard of acquirement. At the same time he authorised the subjection of candidates for the office of letter-carriers to a stricter test as regards bodily strength, with the result that about one man in every four was rejected. By these means, and the greater attention paid to the laws of sanitation in offices and private dwellings, the health of the department gradually reached a high standard.

That the plan of confining admission to the service to candidates who have passed the Civil Service examinations is not without its drawbacks, is seen by the following extract from a Report by Mr Abbott, Secretary to the Post Office in Scotland. “Considering,” he says, “the different duties of the account, the secretary's and the sorting branches, I am inclined to believe that the examination should have more special reference to the vacancy the candidate is to fill than to his general knowledge on certain subjects proposed for all in the same class, more especially as regards persons nominated to the sorting office, where manual dexterity, quick sight, and physical activity are more valuable than mere educational requirements.”[208]

As may be surmised by the foregoing, Rowland Hill was one of the many clear-sighted men who declined to yield unquestioning approbation to the system of competitive examinations introduced by the Civil Service Commissioners; nor did longer acquaintance with it tend to modify his opinion on the subject. The scheme, he thought, “worked unsatisfactorily, the criteria not being the best, and the responsibility being so divided that no one is in effect answerable for an appointment made under it. The consequence of its adoption has been, in many instances, the rejection of men who gave promise of great usefulness, and the admission of others whose usefulness has proved very small.[209] If no way had been open to the public service but through competitive examination as now conducted, I cannot say what might have been my own chance of admission, since on the plan adopted, no amount of knowledge or power in other departments is regarded as making up for deficiency in certain prescribed subjects. Under such a system neither George Stephenson nor Brindley would have passed examination as an engineer, nor perhaps would Napoleon or Wellington have been admitted to any military command. The principle, if sound, must be equally applicable to manufacturing and commercial establishments, but I have heard of none that have adopted it. Indeed, a wealthy merchant lately declared (and I believe most of his brethren would agree with him) that if he had no clerks but such as were chosen for him by others, his name would soon be in the Gazette. I have always been of opinion that the more the appointments to the Post Office, and indeed to other departments, are regulated on the principles ordinarily ruling in establishments conducted by private individuals, the better it will be for the public service. The question to be decided between candidates should be, I think, simply which is best fitted for the duties to be performed; and the decision should be left to the person immediately answerable for the right performance of the duty.”[210]

While tranquillity reigned at St Martin's-le-Grand from, and long after, 1854, not only among the heads of departments, but generally throughout the office, and while reports from all quarters, metropolitan and provincial, bore testimony to efficient work accomplished and good conduct maintained, it was inevitable that in a body so numerous as was that of the lower grade employees some amount of discontent should arise. Promotion by merit, in whatever class, has few charms in the eyes of those who are deficient in the very quality which insures promotion, and who, perhaps for many years, have drawn steady payment for ordinary duty so performed as to become scarcely more than nominal. In every large community there are certain to be some “bad bargains” who, though practically useless as workers, have often abundant capacity for giving trouble, especially, maybe, in the way of fomenting a spirit of mutiny.[211]

At the Post Office this spirit manifested itself even while every care was being taken to ameliorate the condition of this multitudinous class of employees, and to rectify individual cases of hardship, and while, even during the time of insubordination, many respectable men outside the postal walls were showing their appreciation of the advantage of a letter-carrier's position over that of men of like class in other callings, by applying for appointment to that corps. Misrepresentation is a principal factor in stimulating disaffection, and, for reasons other than sympathy with the alleged victims of supposed tyrannical employers, is sometimes, though, happily, rarely, employed by those who, as non-officials, are sheltered by anonymity as well as by extraneity from participation in such punishment as may befall the better-known disaffected.