The History of the Post Office, from Its Establishment Down to 1836

by Herbert Joyce

But to any one of less modest and retiring disposition the severest trial would have been the manner in which the postmasters-general took credit to themselves for improvements which were exclusively his own. It was always "our" surveyors who had been instructed to do this, that, and the other, without the slightest acknowledgment that the instruction had come from Allen, and that it was he who supplied the money to pay and the wit to direct them. Only when the cost of some new arrangement had to be stated to the Treasury did his name appear, and then it was put prominently forward. "Your Lordships," the postmasters-general would write, with a confidence which must have possessed all the pleasure of a new sensation, "will of course approve our proposals. It is true that the cost they involve is considerable, but the whole of this will fall upon Mr. Allen, the farmer." But so placid was Allen's temper that these petty annoyances, irritating as they might have been to some men, passed unheeded.

As a qualification for the task he had undertaken, hardly less important than placidity of temper was the possession of ample means and his unaccountability to others for their disposal. With no one to please but himself, he enjoyed facilities in dealing with postmasters which the Post Office, under the most favourable circumstances, could never hope to possess. To one he would give what he called a complimentary salary; to another he would give, over and above his salary, a certain proportion of the postage; and a third would receive a substantial increase, not for what he had done or was doing, but for what he might do in the future. All, in short, who could control the actions of others Allen bound to himself by a community of interest.

But it was the extent of his local knowledge that constituted Allen's chief qualification for the task he had set himself to perform. This knowledge, acquired probably during the struggle to introduce his plan, may appear almost marvellous. There was hardly a town in England, and certainly no town of importance, with the trade and manufactures of which, and even with the character and disposition of its postmaster, he was not acquainted. At the present day it is the district surveyor who in Post Office matters affecting the provinces takes the initiative. In Allen's time the initiative came from Bath. In a single letter he would treat of some thirty or forty towns, and not only prescribe the order in which they were to be taken and the roads by which they were to be reached, but give the minutest instructions as to what was to be said and done on arrival there. In respect to only one town, a town without a Post Office, does Allen appear to have been uninformed, and that was Stowmarket. "When in that neighbourhood," he wrote to one of his surveyors, as though half ashamed of his own ignorance, "go over to Stowmarket and ascertain and let me know the distance of that town from Ipswich and from Eye, and also the nature and extent of its trade."

Lest we should be thought to exaggerate the difficulties with which Allen had to contend, Allen himself shall be our witness. The postmasters were strictly enjoined to stamp the bye and cross-post letters. This was their first duty, for without stamping no check was possible. "I need not tell you," Allen writes to one of his surveyors, "the mischief which has already attended the omission of this necessary part of their duty, nor the difficulty which I have hitherto met with to get this order observed; but when they find that their neglect will for the future hurt themselves, this evil will be stopped."

Hardly less difficult did he find it to make the postmasters send in their vouchers with even decent regularity. We will give a few instances out of many. Of Bodmin and St. Columb he writes, "Both these deputies are exceeding backward in transmitting their vouchers. Order them strictly to send them hither for the future within a week after every quarter." Richmond, Yorkshire, "instead of sending me his vouchers at the end of every month sends them considerably over the quarter and then in so great disorder as to be of little use to me in fixing my cheque account." Gosport, again, "persistently neglects to send his vouchers, without which, as you know, it is not in my power to state an exact account nor to fix the cheques which are necessary to prevent abuses." Grantham is little better, and as for Wolverhampton, Allen writing in April says, "He has sent me no vouchers since last Michaelmas, and by this obstinacy destroys my cheque and puts my affairs into great disorder."

The dead and missent letters were a source of continual trouble. How to dispose of dead letters and how to get back into their proper channel letters that had been missent were questions which not seldom perplexed even Allen himself. But it is not of this particular difficulty that we propose now to speak. Our present concern is with these two classes of letters only so far as they affected the relations between Allen and the postmasters. According to his instructions a postmaster who should find himself in possession of a dead or missent letter was to send it to Bath in order that allowance might be made for the postage with which, otherwise, he would stand charged. Hence arose various attempts at imposition, attempts to palm off, as though they were dead or missent, letters which were neither the one nor the other. But let Allen again speak for himself. "From Lancaster," he writes, "go through Kendal and Penrith to Carlisle, where I believe you will meet with a very great abuse. 'Tis thus: His dead letters for a good while since much exceed what can be rationally accounted for at that stage, and upon enquiry the greatest number of those letters appear to be sham letters all written by one hand and sent from different parts of the kingdom, which plainly shews it to be only a blameable contrivance by some people in that office to expect money from me for bits of paper never sent by the post but made by themselves. Some instances you will receive with these instructions. Be sure to suppress this dangerous abuse. Cause me a redress for the injury I have received and leave with Mr. Pattison a copy of my letter relating to stamps, which is the only method I can think of for an effectual cure of this evil."

The method to which Allen here refers afterwards became a rule of the office. It was to the effect that no allowance would be made in respect to any dead or missent letters which should not bear on their covers the name of the office whence the postmaster by whom the allowance was claimed had received them. If at that office they had been stamped, that was enough; but if they had been forwarded unstamped—and the stamping was as often omitted as not—the postmaster who received the letters was to write the name upon them. Allen's first experience of the working of this rule was a little singular. Mrs. Wainwright, the old postmistress of Ferrybridge, had sent up for allowance a number of unstamped letters without shewing whence she had received them. Allen returned the letters, explaining that as such information had not been given no allowance could be made. If Mrs. Wainwright felt any impatience at what she no doubt regarded as new-fangled ways, no evidence of it was allowed to appear. She simply sent the letters back with the name of the office whence they had reached her neatly written upon each. To Allen's dismay, the letters had all been opened and the information obtained from the inside.

The new rule, though good as far as it went, proved insufficient to check imposition; and Allen felt constrained to add an additional safeguard. For the future no postmaster was to have his claim allowed unless he should verify it on oath. This obligation brought its own troubles. By one the oath was omitted, by another it was objected to on conscientious grounds, a third would treat it as of small account, and all this meant additional work for Allen. "This officer," he writes of the postmaster of Salisbury, "constantly makes large deductions for missent letters" and on other grounds "without sending me the particulars of his demand or the office oath to the truth of his claim." The postmaster of Newark had conscientious scruples and objected to the oath in any form. "You have already," writes Allen, "been fully acquainted how tender I am in this respect; but if he still refuses to claim his demand for allowances by an oath framed in any shape, 'tis directly necessary to appoint an officer in that place who will obey their Honours' commands, for if his obstinacy should be suffered the rest of the kingdom who have readily complyed may raise new objections." No such scruples afflicted the postmaster of Stone in Staffordshire. Until lately "the errors made to my injury considerably exceeded those made to the hurt of that deputy"; but now "the articles to my hurt are dwindled to a trifle and the others much augmented, which causes Mr. Barbor to make constant and large claims on me for the difference. Only lately I received from him a statement of his demands on this head, with an oath at the bottom of it that the several articles to his prejudice were all true. But if it be the case, as I have always understood, that he never concerns himself with the bye-letters but leaves this business to his uncle, pray enquire of him how he came to send me such an oath."

The postmasters had been allowed to receive their correspondence free of postage; but Allen soon found that the privilege was being abused. The covers addressed to them would contain letters not for themselves alone but also for their neighbours in trade. Indeed the neighbours' letters would predominate, and, ordinarily, the address was a mere subterfuge. To check this abuse Allen established a rule that when addressed to postmasters none but single letters—letters without enclosures, were to pass free, and that all others were to be charged with full postage. The postage, however, was to be afterwards remitted in the case of any postmaster who should make oath that the letters in respect to which he claimed remission were on his private business. Here again Allen's belief in the efficacy of an oath was rudely shaken. The number and magnitude of the claims made upon him from Lancaster had arrested his attention, and he had laid them aside to be examined at leisure. Meanwhile the explanation came in a curious manner. He received a circular from a man of the name of Bracken asking him to subscribe towards the publication of a book relating to the treatment of horses.[46] This circular, as announced in the document itself, was being issued to all the postmasters in the kingdom; and it was in his capacity of postmaster of Bath that Allen received it. It further announced that answers should be sent under cover to the postmistress of Lancaster, the reason given being that they would thus escape postage.

Other malpractices were less easy of detection. All the claims, before they were passed, came under Allen's personal inspection; and to determine whether these were fraudulent or not needed no special aptitude. But whether at some distant part of the country two or more postmasters were in collusion, or whether without collusion they were bringing to account less postage than they collected, were questions the solution of which demanded qualifications of a different order. As the result of reflection or observation, or more probably of both combined, Allen laid down for his own guidance certain propositions as simple as they were no doubt sound. Of these one was that the correspondence passing between two given places, far from being liable to violent fluctuations, might be relied on to maintain a nearly uniform level. It is certain that in our own days, when locomotion is easy and the movements of large parts of the population are influenced by the weather and other considerations, the principle which this proposition embodies would not hold good; but in the earlier half of the eighteenth century Allen regarded it, and probably not without reason, as a safe guide. When, therefore, the correspondence passing between two places during a certain period had once been ascertained, he adopted this as a standard, and any variation of the amount immediately excited his suspicions. "At Christchurch and Ringwood," he writes, "fully inform yourself why the letters which formerly were sent between those places and Salisbury are now almost entirely sunk." At York, during the quarter ending Midsummer 1734, the postage on bye-letters amounted to £165, as against £176 during the corresponding quarter of the previous year. This he affirms must proceed, not from "deadness in trade," but from "some mismanagement in the office." Between Appleby and Brough the letters passing in December were fifteen, whereas in the two preceding months they had been only three. "Let me know at once," he writes, "the cause of the difference."