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

by Herbert Joyce

Between Todd and Palmer, indeed, there was little in common. Palmer, in everything he undertook, was intensely in earnest. Todd, on the contrary, could with difficulty get up even an appearance of earnestness about anything which did not concern himself. Even of his duty Todd took a view which must have been absolutely repugnant to Palmer. Lloyds's coffee-house was supplied by the Post Office with the arrivals and sailings of British ships, and it paid for the information no less than £200 a year. One-half of this amount went into Todd's own pocket; and yet, according to him, the giving of the information was a concession, an indulgence. "The merchants," he would write, "are indulged with ship news." To the Mayor of Shrewsbury, who had asked on behalf of the inhabitants for an earlier post, he deliberately wrote, "The arrival of the mail a few hours sooner or later can be of no great consequence." Not many years before, a despatch sent by express from Lord North to the Duke of Newcastle had been lost. Even to the minister Todd was not ashamed to write, "I dare to say there is no roguery in the case, but [that the letter has been] lost and trampled under foot in the dirty roads." Between a man who could take this view of his duty and Palmer, who was burning to perfect his plan, there could be little sympathy; but there was certainly no active antagonism. That, as Palmer extended his plan, doubts as to its merits arose at headquarters is perfectly true; but they were honest doubts, doubts which might excusably be entertained and which, if entertained, the Post Office was bound to express. Palmer, who regarded every one who was not for him as being against him, construed the expression of a doubt into an act of hostility.

Let us see what some of these doubts were, and whence they originated. In London, before the introduction of Palmer's plan, it had been the practice to wait for the arrival of all the mails before any one of them was delivered, so that in the event of a single mail being behind time, no delivery at all might take place until three or four o'clock in the afternoon or even later. Palmer, of course, altered this. But now his interest in the Bristol coach led him to an opposite extreme. The Bristol mail was delivered the moment it arrived; and all other mails, by how little soever they might be later, were kept waiting. Again, before 1784 the post was frequently diverted from the high road in order that adjacent villages might be served. On the Bath road, for instance, although on this road there were fewer diversions than on any other in the kingdom, the post left the turnpike road between Hungerford and Marlborough in order to go through Ramsbury. Under the new arrangement it would have defeated Palmer's object to leave the direct track, if indeed the state of the roads would have admitted of it; and as the coaches could not go to the villages, the villages had to send to the coaches. Not in these cases alone was there, at first, a very general failure to effect a junction. Along every road on which a mail-coach was started the bye and cross posts were deranged and thrown into confusion; and, as a consequence, the Post Office was swamped with complaints from those whose letters had been delayed.

Had this been all, it would have been little more than might be expected in the course of transition from one system to another; but other causes of dissatisfaction arose. The Act of Parliament regulated the rates of postage according to stages—2d. in the case of a single letter, for one stage, 3d. for two stages, and beyond two stages and not exceeding eighty miles 4d.; but what was meant by the term stage the Act nowhere defined. Virtually it was in the power of one man, by the simple expedient of reducing the length of the stages and so increasing their number, to raise the rate of postage between any two towns in the kingdom that were not more than a certain number of miles apart. And this is exactly what Palmer did. From Rochester to Dartford, for instance, had been one stage. The single stage was replaced by two stages; and the postage, which had been 2d., became 3d. From Newbury to Devizes had been two stages. The two stages were increased to three; and the postage was raised from 3d. to 4d. And so it was throughout the kingdom. Well might the postmasters-general write, as they wrote under date the 7th of December 1785, "We are now at a loss in many instances how to rate letters and what to call by the name of a stage."

But not even the increase of postage which resulted from shortening the stages gave so much offence as the earlier closing of the Post Office in Lombard Street. The Post Office had from the earliest times been kept open to at least twelve o'clock at night, and probably a little later. It now closed at seven o'clock in the evening, so as to admit of the mails starting at eight o'clock. Palmer had foreseen that objections might be raised to the change; but he was little prepared for the storm of indignation that followed. The first merchants in London, some of them bearing names still honoured in the city,—Thellusson, Lubbock and Bosanquet, Herries, Quentin Dick and Hoare,—protested in writing and afterwards waited on the postmasters-general in a body to support their protest. The leather-dealers followed suit, a body representing more than sixty firms. Some held that the Post Office should be kept open till nine o'clock, and others till ten or even eleven o'clock; but all were of opinion that seven was too early an hour to close. At a meeting held at the London Tavern, and presided over by one of the sheriffs, resolutions were passed, copies of which were afterwards presented to Pitt in person, not only condemning the early hour of closing but calling for the adoption of measures with a view "to remove the inconveniences which had hitherto been experienced from the establishment of mail-coaches." No wonder if the postmasters-general doubted the merits of a plan which exposed them to these complaints.

Nor was it only from without that troubles came. The letter-carriers were grumbling and more than grumbling; and not without reason. For more than seventy years they had been ringing bells in the streets after the receiving houses were shut—until 1769 on the three nights of the week called grand post nights, and since that date on the bye-nights as well—receiving as their own perquisite 1d. on each letter they collected. Hence the men had made a comfortable addition to their wages of 12s. a week; and now, owing to the closing of the Post Office at seven, the emoluments derived from this source were rapidly dwindling and promised soon to disappear altogether.

Between Carteret and Tankerville differences now arose which, in view of subsequent events, it is impossible to pass unnoticed. On the break-up of the Shelburne administration in 1783, when Tankerville left the Post Office and Carteret remained, the two postmasters-general had parted with mutual expressions of regard and goodwill. A questionable transaction in which Carteret had been concerned, a transaction partaking of the nature of a corrupt bargain, had indeed come under Tankerville's notice; but he willingly attributed it to the malign influence exercised by his predecessor, Lord le Despencer. This favourable construction his later experience had induced him to modify. One case in particular which occurred soon after his return to the Post Office had aroused the most painful suspicions. On Monday the 2nd of August 1784, the same day as that on which the first mail-coach started, the Post Office of Ireland was separated from the Post Office of England. Into the reasons of this separation, being as they were political, we do not propose to enter. Suffice it to say that the Government of Ireland took advantage of the occasion to displace Armit, the secretary to the Irish Post Office, and to reappoint John Lees, who had been secretary from 1774 to 1781, when he was promoted to the War Office. On his reappointment Lees wrote to the postmasters-general in London recapitulating the conditions on which he had been appointed ten years before, and stating that to those conditions, onerous as they were, he proposed in the main to adhere. He was indeed under no obligation in the matter, for he owed his reappointment to the Irish Government; but of this circumstance he had no desire to avail himself. Armit had taken over the conditions from Lees; and Lees would now resume them from Armit. Let us see what the conditions were. In 1774 Barham, the packet agent at Dover, being compelled by ill-health to retire, was succeeded by Walcot, the secretary to the Post Office in Ireland, and Walcot was succeeded by Lees, who was new to the service. Barham, though superannuated, was during his life to receive from Walcot the full salary and emoluments of the packet agency, and Walcot was during the same period to receive from Lees the full salary and emoluments of the secretaryship. Lees was meanwhile to receive from Walcot a small allowance for acting as secretary. Thus far there was nothing unusual in the arrangement. On the contrary, it was an arrangement which in those days was very commonly made. That which was unusual, and which nowhere appeared in the official records, was an undertaking into which Lees had entered to the effect that, after Barham's death, he would make to a fourth person during that person's life an annual payment of £350. This engagement Lees, when reappointed in 1784, expressed himself unwilling to renew. He was quite prepared to resume the payment to Walcot, reduced only to the same extent as by recent legislation the secretary's emoluments had been reduced; but the reversionary payment to the gentleman whom he would designate by the initials A. B. rested on different grounds. From this he must beg to be released.

Now, who was A. B.? This was the question which Tankerville asked; and asked in vain. He could obtain no information on the subject. Meanwhile Carteret, who was extremely displeased and disquieted at the disclosure, caused an expression of his severe displeasure to be conveyed to Lees that he should have presumed to make public a transaction which was obviously designed to be private. Lees replied that, as he would be unable to keep the engagement, he was bound in honour to state so; that he had made known nothing more than was absolutely necessary in order to obtain an acquittance, namely, that after Barham's death an annuity of £350 had been agreed to be paid to some one; but who this some one was had been, and would continue to be, a profound secret. In London it had been whispered, and more than whispered, that A. B. was Carteret himself. On this point Lees was emphatic. The transaction, he said, concerns no postmaster-general, either living or dead. "With Lord Carteret it has personally no more to do than with the King of France."

Tankerville, though profoundly dissatisfied, resolved to let the matter drop; and during the next eighteen months the feeling of distrust with which he regarded Carteret did not prevent the two postmasters-general from working together harmoniously. It was not until June 1786 that an open rupture occurred. Some furniture had been ordered for the housekeeper's apartments, and Tankerville, regarding it as of too luxurious a nature, refused to countersign the bill unless the secretary could produce a precedent for the expense. This Todd might have had some difficulty in doing, as no housekeeper had resided on the Post Office premises since the year 1740; but instead of offering an explanation to that effect he waited for the next Board meeting, and, having already procured Carteret's signature to the bill, put it before Tankerville without remark. Tankerville, who never signed a document without examining its contents, inquired whether this was not the housekeeper's bill to which he had taken exception, and, on being answered in the affirmative, told Todd that he had been guilty of a gross impropriety. Carteret, who had made no secret of his opinion that it was no part of a postmaster-general's duty to check tradesmen's accounts, took Todd's part; whereupon Tankerville, whose temper was always running away with him, observed that he would do no jobs, and that if a good understanding between himself and Carteret were only to be procured by such means he would rather that they should continue on their present terms.

The next business set down for discussion had a termination still more unfortunate. The office of comptroller of the bye and cross roads had become vacant, and Carteret, whose turn it was to appoint, had appointed Staunton, the postmaster of Isleworth. In addition to a salary of £500 a year, the appointment carried a residence in the Post Office building; and as the residence occupied by the late comptroller had by Pitt's desire been given to Palmer, Carteret proposed that Staunton should be recommended to the Treasury for an allowance of £100 a year as compensation. Tankerville, who had been in personal communication with Pitt and ascertained that he would object to an allowance for such a purpose, declined to join in the recommendation, explaining the reason. Carteret's remarks implied, or seemed to imply, a doubt whether Pitt had really been seen on the subject, as alleged. Tankerville again lost his temper. High words ensued, and the Board broke up, Carteret declaring that it was impossible they should continue to act as joint postmasters-general, and that he should at once wait upon Pitt and inform him to that effect.

Carteret was as good as his word. In three days from the date of the Board meeting at which the altercation had taken place he waited upon Pitt; and Pitt, after labouring in vain to effect a reconciliation, at length dismissed Tankerville. Tankerville, who had been in constant communication with the minister on the subject of the abuses at the Post Office, and had sedulously applied himself to their correction, was hardly less surprised than he was indignant; and restating the origin of the disagreement between himself and his colleague, he demanded to be informed in what respects he had been to blame. Pitt replied that he could not enter into the merits of the question; that all it concerned him to know was that Carteret was necessary to him in the House of Lords; and that, as Carteret had expressed himself unable to act any longer with Tankerville, it had become essential to make another arrangement.