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

by Herbert Joyce

But we are anticipating. In 1767 the statute-book received an addition which, though differing widely both in intention and effect from the Franking Act and the Postage Act, cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed. This was an Act for the better paving, lighting, and regulating the streets of London, a first step in fact towards converting the London of Hogarth into the London of to-day. The mere preamble[58] of the Act brings home to us, hardly less vividly than Hogarth's pencil, the intolerable inconveniences under which our forefathers were content to live; but what concerns us at the present moment is that one section provided not only that the names of the streets should be put up but that the houses should be numbered. This numbering of houses quickly spread, and, although unnoticed by the Post Office at the time, was destined very materially to assist its future operations. As a consequence, too, and at no long interval, arose a new industry, namely the compilation of Directories—a thing that was impossible before—and hence the Post Office derived still further assistance.

About this time considerable improvements took place both in the Scotch and Irish posts. Between London and Edinburgh communication had been only thrice a week. In 1765 it was increased in frequency to five days a week, and posts on six days a week were at the same time established between Edinburgh and the chief towns of Scotland. The result was an immediate increase of revenue which much more than covered the increase of expense. Two or three years later the course of post between London and Dublin came under review. By virtue of an arrangement, which the fact of the communication being only thrice a week goes but a short way to explain, letters from England to Ireland were kept lying two whole days in the London Office and, similarly, letters from Ireland to England were kept lying two whole days in the Dublin Office. The packet which was due in Dublin on Saturday night rarely arrived before Sunday, and, unless it did so, the letters from England for the interior of Ireland did not leave Dublin until Wednesday morning. Nor was this all. The number of packets was extremely limited, and, owing to their constant employment by Government as express boats, it frequently happened that two and sometimes three and even four mails were sent by the same packet. In 1767 this was altered. Additional packet boats were placed on the station, and the post between London and Dublin and between Dublin and Belfast in one direction and Cork in another was increased in frequency from three to six days a week.

Between London and the chief provincial towns in England Allen had, as we have seen, established posts six days a week instead of three; but it was not until 1769, or nearly five years after Allen's death, that within the metropolis arrangements were made to correspond. Meanwhile the offices for the receipt of general post letters were kept open and the bellmen went about ringing their bells on only three nights of the week, namely Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and on the other three nights, except at the General Post Office, letters could not be posted gratuitously. On the nights of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a receiver if called upon to take in letters was entitled to charge a fee of 1d. apiece, and this fee he retained as his own perquisite. Beginning with 1769 the receiving offices were kept open and the bellmen rang their bells on every night of the week, Sundays excepted.

An event or rather a series of events now took place, the result of which was largely to alter the character of the Post Office and to extend its usefulness. Recent legislation had done little for the public convenience. It had indeed provided that Penny Post Offices might be established out of London, and advantage had been taken of the provision in one single instance. In Dublin a Penny Post Office had been opened on the 10th of October 1773, or seventy years after the Countess of Thanet desired to open one and was refused permission at the last moment. But in other respects legislation had accomplished little beyond promoting the very abuses it was designed to prevent, and impairing the utility of Dockwra's post. Litigation was now to have its turn; and it is interesting to note the result.

The machinery for the dispersion of letters remained much as it had been since the first establishment of the Post Office. In London, in Edinburgh, and in Dublin there was, as there is now, a body of men whose duty it was to deliver from house to house; but with these three exceptions there was not, 120 years ago, a single town in the kingdom which could boast of its own letter-carrier. The postmaster was the sole Post Office agent in the place; it was he who delivered the letters if they were delivered at all; and for this service he was left to charge pretty much as he pleased. The public had grown tired of this state of things and strenuous efforts were now made to alter it.

The crusade began in the little town of Sandwich in Kent. It had been the practice of the postmaster there, at some former time, to deliver free the letters arriving by the bye and cross posts, and on the delivery of the London letters to charge a fee as his own perquisite. In 1772 a fee was being charged on the delivery of all letters. This charge the inhabitants now determined to contest. The case came on for trial in the Court of King's Bench and was decided against the postmaster, the Court being of opinion that wherever the usage had been to deliver free, there the usage should be adhered to. The postmasters-general were very uneasy. Out of the 440 post towns of the kingdom there were known to be not less than seventy-six which were in the same case as Sandwich and to which the decision of the Court must apply, towns where letters had at one time been delivered free and where they were so no longer; and not a day passed without bringing fresh and unexpected additions to the list. At Birmingham and at Ipswich, for instance, where a charge was now being made for delivery, old inhabitants could remember how forty or fifty years before letters had been delivered free. Was the Crown to be at the expense of letter-carriers at all of these towns, or were the postmasters, who were already complaining of the inadequacy of their remuneration, to forego their perquisites and make a house-to-house delivery as part of their duty?

The question was still under consideration when the town of Ipswich commenced an action. The point raised in this case was whether on the delivery of letters addressed to the inhabitants of the town the postmaster could legally demand any sum over and above the postage, and, if so, whether in the event of the demand being refused he could oblige the inhabitants to fetch their letters. Again the decision, this time by the Court of Common Pleas, was in favour of the public and against the Post Office. The postmasters-general were more than uneasy now. No sooner had the decision in the Ipswich case become known than town after town where letters had never yet been delivered free demanded a free delivery and threatened the postmasters-general with actions in the event of their demand being refused. Bath and Gloucester did more than threaten. They, like Ipswich, proceeded to trial; and again, for the third and fourth time, the decision was against the Post Office.

Thurlow was at this time Attorney-General. He held a strong opinion that in order to comply with the statute it was enough to deliver letters at the Post Office of the town to which they were addressed, and that there was no obligation to deliver them at the houses of the inhabitants. Still clinging to the belief that the decisions of the Courts must have proceeded more or less on the usage of delivery, he now determined to try the question in the case of a town where the usage had been for no delivery to be made without payment. The town of Hungerford in Berkshire was selected for the purpose. There, it could be proved, ever since the beginning of the century, letters had not been delivered except on payment of a fee of 1d. apiece.

The case came on before the Court of King's Bench in Michaelmas term 1774. Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, was the first to deliver judgment. He was surprised, he said, the several Acts being so ambiguous and the usage so contradictory, that the Post Office had not applied to Parliament to explain the matter. That was the view of the Court when, in the other cases, it avoided the general question. He never liked to avoid general questions, for to decide them tended to prevent further litigation; but an important question of this kind, arising out of Acts that had "not yet spoke," and, whichever way it might be decided, involving more or less inconvenience, was essentially one for Parliament. And in the Bath case there were grounds on which the general question could, without impropriety, be avoided. There the postmaster when delivering a letter had demanded a certain sum as a duty. Now, a duty it certainly was not. If on the delivery of a letter Parliament had intended to impose a duty, it would have fixed the amount and made it part of the Post Office revenue; and not have left every postmaster free to fix what amount he pleased or might prevail upon people to give. And what a monstrous inconvenience it would be if every one had to go to the Post Office to fetch his own letters! How could the Court have laid down such a proposition as that? The thing was impossible. And it must be remembered that there could be no middlemen—men between the inhabitants and the postmaster—who for gain could set up an office to distribute the letters, because by law the postmaster could not deliver them except to the persons to whom they were addressed. These were the considerations which in the Bath ease induced him to avoid the general question, and he had been glad to feel able to do so, never doubting that the postmasters-general would apply to Parliament for a determination; but this, unfortunately, they had not done. Then there was the Gloucester case. He remembered it well. There the question was not whether there should be a free delivery, for at Gloucester letters had always been delivered free, but whether certain houses should fall within the limits of that delivery. All that the Court then decided was that in the case of these houses, forming as they unquestionably did a part of what was known as the town of Gloucester, the Post Office could not depart from its own practice. But the present case was different. Here the contention was that in the town of Hungerford there was not a single house at which the Post Office was required to deliver letters without being paid for it. Practically, no doubt, it was the Bath case over again; but the Court could not well avoid the general question a second time. The Post Office, in effect, sought to impose a duty; and this, he said it emphatically, the Post Office had not the power to do without the authority of Parliament, which authority had not been given. His mind was perfectly clear that within the limits of a post-town the Post Office was bound to deliver free; but how far these limits should extend was a question upon which he did not feel called upon to express an opinion.

The other judges were equally emphatic. The Post Office had urged in support of its contention that it sometimes happened—as, for instance, at Hartford Bridge—-that the stage or post-house was a single house with no other houses near. There, at all events, as soon as it had deposited the letters at the post house, the Post Office had discharged its duty. And if there, it was asked, why not elsewhere? If, said Mr. Justice Aston, the post house was a single house with no other houses near, the question did not arise; but, in the case, of towns, surely it would not be contended that each individual inhabitant was to resort to the post house every day in order to inquire whether there was a letter for him or not. To demand this penny within the limits of a post town, said Mr. Justice Willes, was contrary to the whole tenor and spirit of the Acts of Parliament; and where the post town was a small one like Hungerford, the demand was far more unreasonable than it would be in the case of London and Westminster. Yet in London and Westminster letters were delivered free. He should pay more regard to the usage of the city of London than to that of fifty such towns as Hungerford. Mr. Justice Ashurst was of opinion that even to usage too much importance might be attached. If it were really the case that at Hungerford, ever since the passing of the Act of Anne, a man living next door to the Post Office had had to pay over and above the postage 1d. for every letter he received, this in his opinion was a bad usage, an usage for which the Act afforded no justification, and the sooner it was laid aside the better.