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

by H. G. Swift

“If,” said he in his blunt fashion, “you who are agitating for better hours and a better wage can find time to go ‘gallavanting’ about with weapons of destruction in your hands, you have no reason to ask my assistance.”

It was scarcely a fair statement of the position; but he was not to be moved further, and kept his word.

That, however, was a loss not to be sustained till later.

Not long after the great public meeting, and probably resulting from it to some extent, there was a slight revision in the scales of pay of the London town letter-carriers. But it was a very niggardly affair, and the entire benefit secured amounted to about £52 in a period of fifteen years, or a rise of one shilling and fourpence per week, no regular addition being made to the maximum or minimum, while even this small benefit was confined to a small class of about four hundred men only. This, in the circumstances, could not be accepted as a complete settlement of all their various claims. It was not only quite inadequate to meet the needs of the class it was intended to satisfy, but entirely ignored the claims of the suburban, auxiliary, and country letter-carriers, and also those of the sorters, assistants, and porters, many of whom stood in even greater need of an increase of salary than the limited number who received this slight benefit. This small unsatisfactory scheme was rendered all the more unsatisfactory by its giving to the inspectors a really substantial increase amounting to 8 per cent. on their minimum, 25 per cent. on the annual increment, and 20 per cent. on the maximum. The inspectors who thus mostly benefited were already regarded as comparatively a well-paid class, besides which they as a body had contributed neither funds nor sympathy to the agitation which had secured these benefits for them. What was intended as a sop was only another fresh cause for dissatisfaction; and in any case it was deemed necessary to prosecute the agitation with renewed vigour.

Thereupon Booth and his associates, with a view of strengthening the Society and definitely proclaiming their character as trades unionists pure and simple, got the Postal Union affiliated to the London Trades Council. They hoped thereby to secure the co-operation of the various trade societies, should at any time it be deemed necessary or expedient to call for that assistance which they themselves were prepared to render to others.

Again, some little time after this great public demonstration, the leader of the agitation, Booth, found himself suspended from duty by order of the Controller. It was not that impending dismissal had any terrors for him, but he was determined to avoid if possible the humiliation of it. With his usual readiness he decided to take the bull by the horns in his own fashion. He conceived the idea that unless some such step as he contemplated were taken at once, his dismissal, which he knew had been recommended, would this time be certain. He hurried off to the printers who usually did such work for the movement in those days, but was told the men could not be prevailed on to work after the usual time. Booth said he had a job which would engage them all night, and being told that it was quite impossible, asked to see the men in a body. He came, he saw, he conquered, and the men agreed to stop the night through for the production of a cartoon which had been roughly sketched out. It took three hours to prepare the lithograph-stone, three draughtsmen being simultaneously engaged on parts of the sketch. During the night and early morning four or five thousand copies were printed off, and by ten o’clock they were being sold like hot cakes in St. Martin’s-le-Grand and all over the City. To ensure their sale and circulation they were virtually given away to the street-hawkers, who retailed them at a penny apiece. The first batch was soon exhausted, and before the day was over as many thousands more were sold. The pictorial lampoon had little of artistic merit to recommend it; it was fearfully and wonderfully made; the drawing was vile even for caricature; but the letterpress, the scriptural quotations wittily applied, and the illustrations together, told. The broadsheet contained four or five separate illustrations having reference to the recent great procession of postal employés to Cannon Street Hotel, “in defiance of official threats”; the question of Sunday labour, hit off by the figure of a portly bishop offering a tract on Sunday observance to an overladen postman; the recent postal petition to Parliament, and cognate matters. Booth, suspended from duty, was represented by a figure on a gibbet, intended as the mental vision in the mind of the official who had ordered it; while disposed about in odd corners of the cartoon was a “spy-glass,” “the bullet,” “ye sack,” labelled “Post-Office persuaders.” It did not bear criticism, but as the work of a single night it was interesting; and, what was more, it had some of the effect intended. The suspended leader was restored to duty the day following.

What had now come to be known as the Postal Petition to Parliament was from that moment never lost sight of by its promoters and their followers. Booth and his little staff of lieutenants worked night and day and every hour that their official duties spared to them to keep the petition before the members of the House of Commons. One result of their persistent efforts in this direction was that they had soon quite a respectable number of Parliamentary friends who promised to support the motion for inquiry when it came to be raised on the estimates. And petitioners were not content merely with verbal promises of support, for where possible they obtained an autograph letter embodying the promise, which letters were put on record in the Postman, the organ of the movement. Booth during this time was untiringly ubiquitous. He was everywhere, and his hand was in everything, from getting out circulars to lobbying M.P.’s. He undertook the duties of the orderly as well as those of the captain.

Among the petty annoyances to which Booth had been subjected by his zealous superiors was his being made to finish up his evening duty at the furthest possible point from his home, his last delivery of letters being by the Angel, Islington, he living at Brixton. But he now succeeded in getting on a walk by which he had to deliver the Temple, where eminent counsel and the élite of the legal profession most do congregate. He did this with a motive, knowing that he might make friends among those who could command influence. He soon found an opportunity of making himself known to every legal M.P. who had chambers in this vicinity, while those who were prospective candidates for Parliamentary honours no less escaped his attention. In addition to making friends for the movement by this means, Booth and his lieutenants—Hawkins, the secretary; Haley, a fellow-sorter, and virtually second in command; and others, interviewed eminent divines of every denomination on the sore question of compulsory Sunday labour in the Post-Office.

Such were the number of promises of support they received from M.P.’s, and such were their importunities, that at last it was resolved to hold another conference in the tea-room of the House of Commons to discuss the petition and decide on some action if possible.

Earl Percy took the chair, and among those present who had pronounced favourably on the postal claims were Mr. Mundella, Mr. W. H. Smith, and Mr. Roger Eykyn. A deputation of the aggrieved postal employés had been invited to urge the points of the petition for a Select Committee of the House, and these points provided arguments for better pay and improved prospects of promotion, and the abolition of the hated compulsory Sunday labour.