The Post Office of India and Its Story

by Geoffrey Clarke

The Sepoy Mutiny began at Meerut on the 10th May, 1857. From the 18th May, 1857, onwards telegrams and letters were received at the Director-General's headquarters in Calcutta from the postmasters at Allahabad, Benares, Umballa and other stations, reporting the stoppage of mail communication with places which had fallen into the hands of the mutineers. News was also thus given of the destruction of post offices and plunder of mails at Sitapore, Indore, Hirapore, Cawnpore, Shahazadpore, Daryabad, Saugor, Segombe, Hamirpur, Jaunpor, Azimgarh and many more places. On the 15th May, 1857, the Postmaster-General, North-Western Provinces, gave instructions to his postmasters to collect waggons and bullocks for the conveyance of troops. On the 21st May the Postmaster, Agra, reported to the Director-General that Dr. Clark, who had been specially vested with the authority of Postmaster-General in a portion of the North-Western Provinces, was safe and well at Muttra, and was trying to open mail communication. On the 26th May, 1857, the Postmaster, Benares, applied to the Director-General for authority to supply horses for conveyance of troops. Mr. H. B. Riddell, Director-General at the time, was fully alive to the situation and set a brilliant example to all ranks. He addressed the following letter to the Government of India from his camp at Sherghotty on the 30th May, 1857:—

"I have the honour to report that arrangements have been made or are in train which will, I trust, enable the Bullock Train establishment to convey daily without interruption one hundred men from Raneegunge to Benares. There will be fifty-six pairs of Bullocks at each stage between Sherghotty and Benares.

"The Bullocks procurable are of the smallest and most miserable description.... A workshop will be established at Dehree and, as the road over the sand of the Soane will be broken up in a day or two, the men of each detachment will be conveyed over in country carts, fresh waggons being ready on the other side. I shall probably have to stay to-morrow and make some arrangements at the Soane, but will, after doing so, move on to Benares and arrange for the despatch of troops from Benares to Allahabad. If the Commissariat bullocks are stationed along the line and they have any covered carts, large detachments can be sent every two or three days, but I will telegraph what can be done when I reach Benares. In the meantime Commissariat Gun bullocks should be stationed along the line."

The Director-General's efforts were ably seconded by Mr. C. K. Dove, Postmaster-General, and Mr. Garrett, Deputy Postmaster-General of Bengal, both of whom did all in their power to ensure the prompt despatch of troops up country, calling in the aid of the local magistrates to secure the best cattle and the services of the Engineering Department to facilitate the passage of carts over unbridged rivers along the Grand Trunk Road.

On the 2nd July, 1857, it was arranged to place the whole of the Bullock Train establishment north of Benares at the disposal of the military authorities. The transfer was made at the instance of General Havelock, who had just assumed command of the troops at Allahabad. He decided to use the Bullock Train entirely for the transport of stores and ammunition to the front and, when the rains had broken and the rivers became navigable, to convey troops by river steamers, a far more convenient and expeditious means than road conveyance. When it was necessary to use the roads, elephants were provided by the Commissary-General at Calcutta and by local zemindars (landholders).

On the 29th July, 1857, the Government of India published a notification authorizing the Chief Covenanted Civil or Military officer at every station throughout India where there was a post office under a Deputy Postmaster and no resident Postmaster had been specially appointed, to assume the office of Postmaster or to assign the office to some other Covenanted Civil or Military Officer at the station, reporting the arrangement in each instance for the information of the Postmaster-General of the Presidency. The Deputy Postmaster was to perform duties connected with the post office under the orders of the Postmaster so appointed. The functions of Inspecting Postmasters remained unaffected by this order, and post offices at places where there was no covenanted Civil or Military Officer were left in charge of the Deputy Postmasters. These orders were necessitated by the interruption of mail communication between many post offices and their head-quarters and the difficulty of control being exercised by Postmasters-General who were not always in a position to issue prompt instructions to their subordinates in matters of importance or emergency. At the same time no general power of censorship over correspondence was granted to officers, nor was anything done to diminish public confidence in the Government mail service.

Reports regarding the plunder of mails continued to come in from places as far removed as Kolhapur in the Southern Mahratta country and Bahraich in the United Provinces. Mails between Bengal and the United Provinces on one side and the Punjab on the other had to be diverted via Bombay, the Commissioner of Sind taking the responsibility for their safe despatch through Hyderabad (Sind). Many of the reports from postmasters referred to fresh outbreaks, and the movements of mutineers who did not hesitate to remove dak horses from relay stations on the mail routes whenever they had the chance. The information contained in these letters was duly passed on to the military authorities.

In connection with the correspondence for the army in the field, post offices were organized to accompany the movable columns under General Havelock, the Malwa Field Force and later the divisions commanded by General Outram and other distinguished leaders. During the campaign soldiers' letters were exempt from forward postage.

The large tract of country known as the North-Western Provinces and Oudh was the focus of the disturbance of 1857, and the strain put upon the postal officials in those provinces was greater than in other affected parts of the country. Most of the post offices and mail lines had to be closed at the beginning of the outbreak and were reopened one by one, as order was gradually restored by the British forces. A most interesting narrative of the interruption in the mail arrangements in the North-Western Provinces and Punjab subsequent to the outbreak at Meerut and Delhi on the 10th and 11th May, 1857, was supplied by Mr. Paton, Postmaster-General, and will be found in Appendix G.