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

by H. G. Swift

Finding the leaders of the Postmen’s Union could not be persuaded to return to the slower but surer methods of constitutional propaganda, Clery left that body with the intention of devoting himself exclusively to the work of his own organisation.

By the assertion of the right of public meeting and demonstration it was thought to force the Postmaster-General to his knees. But it was not to be. If it was thought that what had been done by Booth in the case of the famous Cannon Street Hotel and Exeter Hall meetings might again be done by means of an outside professional agitator, they were mistaken. True, the earlier public demonstrations were in defiance of official rules and prohibitions; but these were demonstrations of a united postal service, of a movement to which scores of the public men of the day had given their countenance; and Booth and his followers adopted such a means as the only alternative to holding cooped-up meetings on the official premises. That was in 1873, and this was in 1890. Circumstances and conditions had considerably altered since that period, and the right of free public meeting was already for all workable purposes an accomplished fact.

Instead of continuing as it started, with the purpose of securing those material benefits to which postmen were entitled, the Postmen’s Union very imprudently demanded that their grievances should be laid before the Postmaster-General by Mr. Mahon, their secretary, personally. As they ought to have anticipated, this request was refused or ignored; and it was then that they determined to publicly assert their right to open-air demonstration. Their meeting-place was again Clerkenwell Green. From there they fired their shell into St Martin’s-le-Grand. The response was prompt, and a number of men who had made themselves conspicuous, or whose names were secretly reported, were suspended, and had to be maintained by the funds. The postmen’s leader sought to open negotiations with St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and wrote to the Postmaster-General that the men who had attended the prohibited meeting would apologise on conditions. The conditions that Mr. Mahon wished to impose were that all restriction on the right of public meeting should be withdrawn; that the suspended men should be reinstated after tendering their apology; that the Postmaster-General should immediately obtain the sanction of the Treasury to increase the pay of both established and unestablished postmen, and that the permanently-employed auxiliary staff should be placed on the establishment. Mr. Raikes replied, but refused to recognise Mr. Mahon as the postmen’s representative.

It was decided to further assert the right of public meeting, and a monster Hyde Park demonstration was organised for Sunday, June 19. The postmen in mufti turned up in considerable numbers with their friends; Mr. Mahon and some others made some strong utterances. An official note-taker, attending by official instruction, was recognised and rather roughly handled. In consequence of this meeting, and the disturbance that ensued, another thirteen men were next day suspended from duty.

But the agitation still continued to progress, the men being supported in their academic demand for a free public platform by a section of the public press and a few public men. The leader of the Postmen’s Union now thought that he was in a position to dictate terms to the Postmaster-General, and repeated the demands of the men in an ultimatum despatched one afternoon by special messenger. The inclusion of the request that the Postmen’s Union and its secretary should be officially recognised, induced Mr. Raikes to ignore it entirely. No reply being forthcoming the same day, a meeting was held in the evening at the Holborn Town Hall, Mr. Conybeare and Mr. Cunningham-Graham giving their support. Nothing, however, was decided on, as meanwhile a rumour had been disseminated that the suspended men were to be reinstated without loss of pay. The next day, July 8, was thought by the authorities to be a critical one, as it was rumoured that the men had separated from the Town Hall meeting with the understanding that if additional hands appeared for duty at any of the offices in the morning, the Union men were not only themselves to turn out, but to turn out the new men also. This information had been hastily conveyed to the authorities by a confidential reporter the same night. Preparations for an emergency were made accordingly, but the day proved uneventful beyond a few protests against the introduction of strangers at some of the outlying offices. The City men, however, exhibited a somewhat stronger feeling against the emergency men. There were excited gatherings in the kitchens, and on one or two occasions the officials found it difficult to persuade the men to return to the sorting-offices. No reply being forthcoming from the Postmaster-General to decide the point immediately in dispute, a few of the men demanded that he should be sent for. On one of these occasions three or four of the sorters, carried away by the excitement of the moment, very mistakenly, it was alleged, promised the postmen the support of their class. This reaching the ears of the officials, they were immediately suspended from duty; and of those suspended four ultimately were dismissed. Two of the sorters so dismissed, who had made themselves prominent in agitation, Stevens and Baylis, on leaving the service prospered fairly well; Stevens emigrated and became a Canadian farmer, and Baylis a local celebrity and a hard-working parish reformer in the south-east quarter of London.

The Controller, to avoid a more serious disturbance, withdrew the emergency men for the time. The postal authorities, nevertheless, felt that they were trembling on the brink of war, and while strong bodies of men drawn from all classes outside were posted out of sight wherever they might be required in the event of a sudden open rupture, almost equally large bodies of police were in readiness to afford them protection if need be.

The first engagement of the ill-advised and ill-planned campaign was begun at Mount Pleasant Parcel Depot on the morning of July 9. There the Union men made an onslaught on the new-comers, and after a short sharp struggle turned them out of the place. It was but a momentary victory, however, for which they were to pay dearly by the suspension and dismissal of a large number during the next few hours. The news of the outburst at Mount Pleasant heightened the excitement among the men at the Chief Office, and the discovery that a number of relief men had been drafted in intensified the feeling. A telegram was sent by the postmen to Mr. Raikes, stating their intention to suspend work until the interlopers were dismissed. They were, however, persuaded to proceed with their duties pending a reply. No reply being forthcoming, the demand for the dismissal of the objectionable relief men and the withdrawal of the police was repeated by means of several deputations to the Controller, but the demand was not acceded to.

Meanwhile, as it was generally understood that the executive of the Postmen’s Union contemplated the madness of a strike, Clery and the Fawcett Association did all that was possible to bring their fellow-servants to a better understanding. Clery had called together about 150 of the postmen, and suggested that the Postmen’s Union should definitely abandon the strike policy which they had tacitly adopted in favour of some means of arbitration afterwards to be settled on, and a formal proposition embodying this suggestion was duly seconded, recommending that the executive should consider it. Clery’s motive in putting forward this idea was twofold: one, and the principal one, being an earnest desire to save the postmen from pursuing such a suicidal course as they contemplated; and the other to disabuse their minds that the letter-sorters intended to join with them. It had been circulated among them that Clery’s followers were falling away; that both Clery and Williams had failed to prevent the sorters from joining with them in large numbers. To more effectually dispose of such misstatements, a meeting of the sorters was on July 9th hurriedly called in the Foreign Branch, General Post-Office, and over a thousand men being present, a resolution was passed expressing sympathy with the just demands of the postmen, but entirely repudiating and deprecating their strike policy. A deputation of postmen were invited to be present, and they left to attend a meeting of the Postmen’s Union held at ten o’clock at Clerkenwell Green the same evening. Yet the same misstatement was persisted in, and the newspapers the next morning announced that Mr. Mahon informed his audience that, at a meeting of the sorting force held in the General Post-Office that evening, a resolution pledging those present to join with the postmen was unanimously carried.

At this Clerkenwell Green meeting, which had been called in order to decide their next step, a huge but mixed crowd of postmen and onlookers assembled to listen to the fiery denunciation of the Postmaster-General by Mr. Mahon. The gauntlet was at last thrown down, and it was decided that they were to refuse to go out on delivery the following morning until they learnt that the “blacklegs” had been dispensed with.

Needless to say, the authorities were kept well informed of every utterance and every movement of Mr. Mahon, and almost as quickly as if he had himself telephoned his uttered intention to St. Martin’s-le-Grand, the Postmaster-General and his advisers knew the decision come to by the men by the dictation of their leader. Accordingly the higher officials spent the whole night and early morning in deciding on their plan of action. At three o’clock in the morning, the Permanent Secretary and some other officials presented themselves at the Mount Pleasant Parcel Depot, and as the men hurried in to sign the attendance books, called them up, and dismissed nearly a hundred of those who had made themselves prominent in the previous day’s disturbance. By this sharp and decisive measure it was hoped that the postmen of the Chief Office would be deterred from taking the step they had the previous evening decided on, for it was felt that the attitude of the London postmen generally would be largely decided by those at St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Arrangements for meeting the emergency were made accordingly. The impressive moment arrived for their appearing on duty in the early hours of the 10th only a short time after the coup at Mount Pleasant. The majority of the men on their way to work had learnt by various means, from night policemen and from some of the dismissed men themselves, what had occurred. Those who had not already learnt of the summary dismissals at Mount Pleasant an hour or so before were now informed by an official notice confronting them at the entrance. This notice informed them that similar suspension or dismissal would follow in the case of men at other offices who, either by refusal to obey orders or the molestation of those employed under direction of the Postmaster-General, impeded the public service. The men who, it seems, had been expected by Mr. Mahon to act automatically in accordance with the decision arrived at, having no one near them to inspire them, or to strengthen them in their wavering, and confronted on the one hand by the official proclamation, and on the other by a strong detachment of City police, one by one, silently and sheepishly, went in and took up their various duties. Besides the strong detachment of City police prepared to deal with them summarily at the first sign of disorder, there were the relief men ready to take their places. They themselves felt like a regiment of irregulars without a leader, and there was no General Mahon present to give them the word of command. And perhaps it was as well for the general himself and all concerned. The head officials, who were unseen watching from a distance the entrance of the half-hearted and demoralised men, drew a sigh of relief, for they felt the real and graver danger was over.