A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day

by H. G. Swift

CHAPTER VII

ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING—PUBLIC AND PARLIAMENTARY FRIENDS—CONFERENCE OF M.P.’S—THE ORGANS OF THE MOVEMENT—MEETING AT EXETER HALL—A MONSTER PETITION TO PARLIAMENT—ELUDING THE LAW OF CONSPIRACY.

But it was not Booth’s way to take a defeat so tamely. Almost immediately the organisation was re-formed on a more definite basis than ever, with a new high-sounding title of the “United General Post-Office and Telegraph Service Benefit Society.” Rules were made and collections were started; Booth was appointed chairman, and a dismissed agitator, named Hawkins, was engaged as secretary. After the official rebuff the men felt it unsafe to join openly, but they none the less joined secretly, and cheerfully responded to the calls upon their purse. Booth animated the whole movement; and it is probable that but for him the department would have seen it crumble to pieces, yet they probably saw that his dismissal just then would only have strengthened his arm against them. The authorities, however, went so far as to suspend him from duty on some trivial pretext; and Booth was not slow to turn the fact to his advantage. He immediately set about organising a public meeting to be held at the Cannon Street Hotel, 16th July 1873. The objects of this meeting were twofold: it was to strengthen the hands of the members of Parliament who were supporting the postal petition, and it provided a means of protesting against the leader’s unjust suspension. But mainly it was intended as a hint to the Government, and as a parade of strength to show that their Parliamentary friends were well supported by a following in the postal service. A few days previous to the date of the meeting a conference had taken place in the tea-room of the House of Commons, attended by nearly every member pledged to their support, from whom the statement of grievances, made by Booth and several others, received a very attentive hearing. Among the members of Parliament who had interested themselves in the postal case were Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr. A. J. Mundella, Mr. Roger Eykyn, Mr. J. Locke, and several other influential members. And it was to give support to their friends in the House that this first Cannon Street Hotel meeting was called.

On the Post-Office vote being taken on Monday, 28th July, the claims of the aggrieved postal employés were strongly urged upon the attention of the Government by each of those members who had attended the tea-room conference, and the advocacy of Mr. W. H. Smith, Mr. Mundella, and others was particularly able. The reply of the Government was, however, unfavourable, or at least unsatisfactory.

The antagonism towards their claims, as voiced in the House by the Postmaster-General and other members of the Government on that occasion, caused Booth to decide on another public meeting. This meeting of protest against the decision of the Government was called also in Cannon Street Hotel, on Tuesday, 5th August, and was to be presided over by Sir John Bennett. The forthcoming meeting was officially “proclaimed,” and the men were warned against attending such public demonstrations; but it was looked forward to with enthusiasm. Elaborate preparations were made for the forthcoming meeting, and almost all the funds in hand were used to ensure its success. Five brass bands were engaged, and the procession of district men then off duty, marshalled by Booth, was to start from Finsbury Square so as to reach St. Martin’s-le-Grand a minute or so before eight o’clock, the hour when the staff at the General Post-Office would cease work. The district contingents turned out strong at the place of meeting, and by a quarter to eight the procession of postmen in uniform, followed by an enormous crowd of sightseers, moved in the direction of Cannon Street by way of St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The five brass bands blared out some stirring marching tunes, and the procession was animated with all the enthusiasm of men anxious of defying authority. On reaching the General Post-Office they were quickly joined by the letter-sorters, letter-carriers, and others, and their numbers now swollen to a big battalion, they marched to Cannon Street Hotel as if to capture a fortress, the bands meanwhile keeping them in step with “The Postman’s Knock” and “Rule, Britannia.”

The huge hall of the Cannon Street Hotel was filled to overflowing within five minutes of the arrival of the procession; and the utmost enthusiasm took possession of them. Sir John Bennett, who had already distinguished himself as a friend of the postal workers, was punctually in the chair. Sir John, with his snowy ringlets, his gold spectacles, his velveteen jacket and Hessian boots, and his fresh, clean-shaven, almost boyish features, which so belied his years, was a familiar public character, and the postal employés felt that in securing him for chairman they were favoured. Among those supporting the platform were Henry Broadhurst—not yet M.P., but only a working stonemason; George Potter, who then owned and edited the Beehive newspaper; and Charles Bradlaugh, not yet either so notorious or so distinguished as he afterwards became.

The speeches were stirring, and the keynote of almost every speaker was that as postal employés enjoyed the right of every citizen to petition Parliament, they had no need to fear the petty restrictions of red-tape; and this inalienable right should be their sheet anchor and their hope. At the same time the authorities were violently denounced for so meanly visiting their resentment on the leader Booth by suspending him without any assigned cause; and, as may be surmised, the most capital was made out of the incident, the action of the authorities being ascribed to his having dared to exercise his right as a free-born Englishman; in which, on the whole, the speakers were probably not far wrong. Mr. M. C. Torrens, M.P., and other well-known friends of the movement graced the platform, and formed the necessary firing party. All the speaking from the platform was done by the public friends and sympathisers; the postal employés themselves significantly remaining dumb. They had not yet the right of free speech, though they had asserted the liberty of holding a public meeting in this fashion; that was to be tested later on. The public press noticed the meeting at some length; and it acted as a splendid advertisement for the postal claims. The next day Booth was ordered back to the Chief Office, not, however, to receive his sentence of dismissal as was surmised, but to be restored to duty without suffering the loss of pay usual in such circumstances.

For the purpose of discussing ways and means of raising funds to keep the fire going and sustaining the enthusiasm of the men, there were also one or two meetings held at a little hall known as the Albion Hall, conveniently situated in London Wall, near to the General Post-Office. Mr. George Potter took the chair, and Sir John Bennett, of Cheapside fame, ably supported.

Sir John Bennett had proved himself one of the staunchest and most industrious of their numerous public friends at this period. He had an especial liking for the postmen, and any one of them in uniform could purchase a three-guinea watch at his shop at something like thirty-five per cent. discount. But they were doomed to lose him in a somewhat peculiar manner. The postal volunteer corps, the then 49th Middlesex, had been formed on the occasion of the Fenian scare of 1868; and during a recurrence of a similar alarm from the same causes, a number of the postmen and others joined the corps in a body. Sir John Bennett was peculiar in his views of postal patriotism, and dropped the postmen and their agitation from that moment.