SCARCE PAMPHLET (FIRST PAGE) IN WHICH WILLIAM DOCKWRA ANNOUNCES THE PENNY POST OF 1680.
Proceedings were taken against Dockwra for infringement of the Crown's monopoly, and the case being carried, the London Penny Post was shortly afterwards re-established and carried on under authority for nearly a hundred and twenty years, until 1801, when the penny rate was doubled and the Penny Post became the Twopenny Post.
Charles Povey's "halfpenny carriage" (1708) was a poor copy of Dockwra's post, covering a smaller area at the lower fee of one halfpenny. Its originator was fined £100 in 1760, and the incident of this post is only remarkable in postal history for its having originated the use of the "bellman" for collecting letters in the streets.
The Edinburgh Penny Post, set up by the keeper of a coffee-shop in the hall of Parliament House, Peter Williamson, in 1768, was also stopped by the authorities as a private enterprise; but its promoter was given a pension of £25 a year and the post was carried on by the General Post Office. Just three years previously, local Penny Posts had been legalised by the Act of 5 George III., c. 25, provided they were set up where adjudged to be necessary by the Postmaster-General. Such penny posts increased rapidly towards the end of the eighteenth century, and just before Uniform Penny Postage was introduced there were more than two thousand of them in operation in different parts of the country. In spite of the increase in these local posts, however, the general postage was high, the tendency of the later changes in the rates being to increase rather than to lessen them.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, the rates were such that few but the rich could make frequent use of the luxury of postage, and these rates, coming close up to the period of the new régime of 1840, form an extraordinary series of contrasts. Here is an old post-office rate-book kept by the postmaster (or mistress) at Southampton in the 'thirties, which I like to show my friends when they sigh for the good old times. It is a printed list of the chief places to which letters could be sent, with columns to be filled in by the postal official after calculating distances and exercising simple arithmetic. In Great Britain the rates were for single letters:—
| From any post office in England or Wales to any placenot exceeding 15 miles from such office | 4d. | ||||
| Between | 15 | and | 20 | miles | 5d. |
| " | 20 | " | 30 | " | 6d. |
| " | 30 | " | 50 | " | 7d. |
| " | 50 | " | 80 | " | 8d. |
| " | 80 | " | 120 | " | 9d. |
| " | 120 | " | 170 | " | 10d. |
| " | 170 | " | 230 | " | 11d. |
| " | 230 | " | 300 | " | 12d. |
and one penny in addition on each single letter for every 100 miles beyond 300. These rates did not include "1d. in addition to be taken for penny postage" and in certain cases toll-fees.
A Post-Office in 1790.
By permission of the Proprietors of the City Press.