Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

And when they could not, silence was endured.” (Crabbe.)

Horace Walpole says, “I have kept this letter some days in my writing box till I could meet with a stray member of parliament, for it is not worth making you pay for.”

“The franking of letters as an institution commenced as early as the year 1660, when it was resolved that members’ letters should come and go free, during the sitting of the House. When the Bill was sent up to the Lords, it was thrown out because the privilege was not extended to them. When, however, the omission was supplied, the Bill passed. The privilege in course of time was grossly abused. Members signed large packets of envelopes at once, and either sold them, or gave them to their friends. It was worth the while of a house of business, when letters cost sixpence apiece, to buy a thousand franks at fourpence apiece; sometimes servants got them from their masters and sold them. In the year 1715, franked letters representing £24,000 a year passed through the post. In 1763 the amount was actually £170,000. Supposing that each letter would have brought in sixpence to the post office, this means nearly 7,000,000 letters, so that every member of the two Houses would have signed an average of 7000 letters a year. It was then enacted that no letter should pass free unless the address, as well as the signature, was in the member’s handwriting. Lastly, it was ordered that all franks should be sealed and that they should be put into the post on the day of the date. Even with these precautions the amount of franks represented £84,000 a year. The privilege was finally abolished with the great reforms of 1841. It is needless to add that a system of wholesale forgery had sprung up long before.” “Members of Parliament sold their privileges of franking sometimes for £300 a year.” (Sir Walter Besant, London in the Eighteenth Century.)

In Joseph Brasbridge’s Fruits of Experience, it is mentioned that a large firm of drapers used to buy their franks from the poor relations of M.P.’s at forty-eight shilling the gross.

The abuse of franking was called in question at various dates, and reforms advised. In reply to questions asked in Parliament, it was stated that various clerks in Government offices used to frank to any amount—not only their own correspondence but that of others; probably receiving large sums of money for doing so. In fact it was known that some persons whose salaries were £300 or £400 a year had been making incomes of £1000 and £1200 by this means! The celebrated bookseller Lackington had friends in one of the offices, and sent his catalogues free all over the country. A majority of twelve decided for the Question in the House.

The reforms practically meant the abolition of franks so far as private persons were concerned, as Hannah More put it, Pitt had murdered scribbling; while speaking of a friend she writes: “She will generously tell me she has postage in her pocket, but we have been used to franks, and besides the post is bewitched and charges nobody knows what for letters; two shillings and ninepence, I think Mrs. L. says she paid for a letter.” And again, “The abolition of franks is quite a serious affliction to me, not that I shall ever regret paying the postage for my friends’ letters, but for fear it should restrain them from writing. It is a tax upon the free currency of affection and sentiment, and goes nearer my heart than the cruel decision against literary property did, for that was only taxing the manufacture, but this the raw material.”

These remarks were caused by the reforms of 1784.

But, as we have said, the whole system of franking was not abolished until 1841.

Of course there were no postmen to deliver letters as they do now. It was considered a great convenience to have a post-office at all, from which letters could be fetched. In 1787, Horace Walpole says there was no posthouse at Twickenham. The fetching of letters is one of the minor peeps we get into the times through the novels. In Emma, when Mr. Knightley meets Miss Fairfax he says—

“‘I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am sure you must have been wet. We scarcely got home in time. I hope you turned directly!’