Chats on Postage Stamps

by Frederick John Melville

It is not until the fifteenth century that we find posts in operation on a more public scale, the first being a horse-post plying between the Tyrol and Italy, set up by Roger of Thurn and Taxis in 1460. From that modest beginning sprang the vast monopoly of the Counts of Thurn and Taxis, which dominated the posts of the Continent during five centuries, remaining into the early period of the postage-stamp system. By 1500, Franz von Taxis was Postmaster-General of Austria, the Low Countries, Spain, Burgundy, and Italy. In 1516 he connected up Brussels and Vienna, and his successor Leonard provided a link between Vienna and Nuremberg. In 1595, Leonard von Taxis was the Grand Postmaster of the Holy Roman Empire, and he established a post from the Netherlands to Italy by way of Trèves, Spire, Wurtemburg, Augsburg, and Tyrol. In the next century, Eugenius Alexander subscribes himself in a postal document as "Count of Thurn, Valsassina, Tassis and the Holy Empire, Chamberlain of His Majesty the Roman Emperor, Hereditary Postmaster-General of the Realm." The postal dominion of this princely house flourished until the wars of the French Revolution, from which period the power of the Counts began to dwindle. Some of the German States withdrew from their arrangements with the house of Thurn and Taxis, and others purchased their freedom and set up postal establishments of their own. By the middle of the nineteenth century Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, Baden, Brunswick, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Holstein, Oldenburg, Lauenburg, Luxemburg and Saxony had independent posts, but the Thurn and Taxis administration still controlled an area of 25,000 square miles (with 3,750,000 inhabitants), under the direction of a head office at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. In 1851, however, Wurtemburg, at a cost of over £100,000, bought its freedom from the monopolists; and sixteen years later (1867) Prussia paved the way for the completion of the consolidation of the German Empire by purchasing for three million thalers (approximately £450,000) the last remaining rights of the house of Thurn and Taxis in the postal affairs of Germany.

In England the royal Nuncii et Cursores were the forerunners of the King's Messengers of to-day, and were exclusively employed upon State affairs and for the correspondence of the Sovereign and of the Court. At what period the people were admitted to the privilege of the posts is obscure. The first Master of the Posts of whom we know was one Brian Tuke, Esq., afterwards Sir Brian Tuke, who is best remembered in Holbein's several portraits of him, and as the author of the preface to Thynne's "Chaucer." He was at one period secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, and it is in a letter (1533) to his successor in that office, Thomas Cromwell, that we find the one clue to the state of the posts at that time:

"By your letters of the twelfth of this moneth, I perceyve that there is grete defaulte in conveyance of letters, and of special men ordeyned to be sent in post; and that the Kinges pleasure is, that postes be better appointed, and laide in al places most expedient; with commaundement to al townshippes in al places, on payn of lyfe, to be in suche redynes, and to make suche provision of horses, at al tymes, as no tract or losse of tyme be had in that behalf."

In the sixteenth century, there were regular carriers licensed to take passengers, goods, and letters, and of these the most remarkable was Tobias Hobson, who was an innkeeper at Cambridge. His memory is perpetuated in the common expression of "Hobson's choice." The innkeeper kept a stable of forty good cattle, but made it a rule that any who came to hire a horse was obliged to take the one nearest the stable door, "so that every customer was alike well served, according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice." Milton, in one of his two punning epitaphs on Hobson, refers to his position as letter-carrier:—

"His letters are deliver'd all and gone;
Only remains this superscription."

From 1609, the Posts of Great Britain have been under the monopoly of the Crown, and at that time they were carried on at a loss. As the posts did not carry the correspondence of the public, there was no likelihood of their being made self-supporting until the facilities they offered were of utility to the people. The general admission of the public to these facilities dates from 1635, under the Postmastership of Thomas Witherings, and two years later was set up the "Letter Office of England." The cheapest rate under Withering's management was 2d. for a "single letter" (that is, one sheet of paper) conveyed a distance not exceeding 80 miles. If the letter weighed an ounce, the charge was 6d. A single letter to Scotland cost 8d. and to Ireland 9d.

For a number of years prior to 1667, the posts were farmed to various individuals, and during the Commonwealth, Parliament passed an Act settling the postage of the three kingdoms, which "pretended Act" was practically re-enacted at the Restoration. The profits on the Post Office were settled by Charles II. upon his son, the Duke of York, afterwards James II., and the latter took care upon his accession to the throne to secure the continuance of his enjoyment of its revenues.

Private enterprise was responsible for putting a good deal of pressure on the Post Office in the early days. In 1659, a penny post was first proposed by one John Hill and certain other "Undertakers," but the most notable instance was the success that attended the efforts of William Dockwra in establishing the London Penny Post in 1680. By this penny post, Londoners had for three years an excellent and frequent service of postal collections and deliveries of their letters and parcels within the City and suburbs. The Government post had one office in London—the General Letter Office—up to 1680. Consequently, persons who had letters to send by post had either to take them, or procure messengers to take them, to the office in Lombard Street. Dockwra established between four and five hundred receiving offices for letters, and a good part of the business he did was in transmitting letters to and from the General Letter Office in Lombard Street.

The penny post made many friends, but also a few enemies. Of the few there was one of powerful influence, the Duke of York, who envied the prospective income to be derived from a popular post; there were others who were unscrupulous in their attacks, led by the notorious Titus Oates, who pretended to expose the whole of Dockwra's plan as "a farther branch of the Popish plot," and the porters of London, who, fearing to lose many of their chances of employment, vented their spleen in the manner of vulgar rioters.