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

by Herbert Joyce

Thus matters stood in 1795, when Barlow proposed a further reform. The inspector of the "bye, dead, and missent letters," as they were called, had neglected his duties. These letters were not sent to London until they had lain for three months in the country offices, and after their arrival he had suffered a still longer period to elapse before proceeding to dispose of them. Barlow now proposed that these letters also should be placed under his control, and the proposal being approved, the dead letter office began to assume the shape in which, though under another name, we know it to-day. To the general practice one exception was made. On the first opening of penny post offices in country towns many letters could not be delivered on account of their imperfect addresses. The novelty and cheapness of the post, it may well be believed, induced persons to use it who possessed little skill in writing, and no knowledge of the mode in which superscriptions should be prepared. It was a duty imposed on the surveyor who was engaged in establishing the post to open these letters and return them to the writers on the spot.

Another office was established about this time, an office for dealing with the American and West Indian letters. The merchants had recently complained that these letters were continually missent, letters for one of the West India Islands being sent to another, and letters for places served from Halifax being sent to Quebec and vice versâ. The truth is that until lately some profit had been derived from the sorting of these letters; and the most experienced officers, who knew the circulation abroad almost as well as they knew the circulation at home, had been glad to sort them. The comptroller of the inland department—for, curiously enough, it was there and not in the foreign department that the letters were dealt with—had received one guinea a night and the clerks 5s. a night for dealing with them; but these unauthorised additions to salaries had now been stopped, and the West Indian and American mails were left to be sorted, just as any other mails were sorted, by seniors and juniors in common.

It was impossible that mistakes should not occur. To assist in the disposal of inland mails there were what were called circulation lists, lists shewing to what towns letters for particular places were to be sent; but in the case of the American and West Indian mails there were no such aids to inexperience, and the letters were to a large extent sent haphazard. Freeling now altered this. He procured from abroad circulation lists corrected to the latest date. Four experienced officers were selected, who were made specially responsible for the West Indian and American correspondence; they were to devote to it two hours a night over and above their ordinary hours; and for this extra attendance they were each to receive a special allowance of £30 a year.

Freeling's last safeguard is interesting as shewing what may be done with a limited correspondence. Two books were to be kept, of which one was to be reserved for Government letters. In this book were to be entered the date on which each individual letter was posted, the date on which it was forwarded to Falmouth, and the name of the packet by which it was despatched. The second book was, in Freeling's own words, "to contain observations of different kinds to enable the clerks the better to satisfy the merchants applying for information" respecting the letters they had posted. It would perhaps be hardly an exaggeration to say that between England on the one hand and America and the West Indies on the other there are at the present time more sackfuls of letters passing than there were single letters one hundred years ago.

About the same time, but a little later, an important change took place in the treatment of letters arriving from the East Indies in the ships of the East India Company. These letters came to the India House in boxes addressed to the directors, and so escaped all but the inland postage. Some of them indeed did not pay even that, for if addressed to persons in or near London they were delivered by the Company's servants, who charged and retained as their own perquisite a fee varying from 2s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. on each letter. The practice was of old date, as old probably as the East India Company itself, and was held to be not illegal. It is true that a vessel was forbidden under a penalty of £20 to break bulk or to make entry into port until all letters brought by the master or his company should be delivered to some agent of the postmasters-general; but both the captain and the directors were held to be exempt from liability under this provision, the captain because he was presumably ignorant of what the boxes contained, and the directors because the penalty attached to the captain and not to them.

The legality of the practice not being contested, nothing remained but to make overtures to the directors; and, on this being done, they readily consented that for the future all letters arriving by their ships, except such as were for themselves and their friends, should be forthwith sent to the Post Office to be dealt with as ship letters. The public derived no little advantage from the change. The postage from India was actually less than what the company's servants had been accustomed to exact as fees; and the letters were now delivered at once, whereas the company's servants would seldom deliver them under three or four days after their arrival at the India House, and sometimes not for a whole month.

Contemporaneously with the Act of Parliament regulating the penny post was passed another establishing a post to the Channel Islands. This was essentially a war post, a post which, except for the war between England and France, might have been postponed far into the present century. Hitherto letters for the Channel Islands had been charged with postage only as far as Southampton, and from Southampton they had been carried to their destination by private boat. Again and again had the Post Office been urged by those who wanted employment for their vessels to establish a line of packets to the islands; but to all such overtures the postmasters-general turned a deaf ear. Boats were passing to and fro regularly four or five times a week, and the owners of these boats were ready and glad to carry the letters for the ship-letter postage of 1d. a letter. Why then, it was asked, should the Post Office be at the expense of maintaining a line of packets which, unless it were put on a footing out of all proportion to the importance of the service, would give absolutely less accommodation than that which existed already?

Thus matters stood when war broke out and all communication with the islands was stopped. Even now the postmasters-general had grave doubts as to the propriety of establishing a line of packets. It was true that the correspondence with the Channel Islands was considerable. During the year 1792 the number of letters on which ship-letter postage had been paid was 21,570, namely, 20,070 at Southampton and 1500 at Dartmouth and other ports on the south coast—making, on the assumption that the letters were as many in the opposite direction, a total correspondence for the year of about 43,000 letters.

And yet there were serious considerations on the other side. Unless an Act of Parliament were passed providing a packet rate of postage between the mainland and the islands, the Post Office would have no exclusive right of carrying the letters, and the moment the war ceased the packets might be deserted in favour of the private boats. If, on the other hand, such an Act were passed, popular as the measure might be while the war lasted, it could not fail to be unpopular as soon as the war ceased. Private boats would then be an illegal means of conveyance, and correspondence would be restricted to the packets, however few these might be in number, and however wide the intervals between the despatches.

Another expedient remained, but this was one which had been tried during the last war, and the postmasters-general were not prepared to repeat it. The Express packet, Captain Sampson, belonging to the Dover station, had been temporarily detached to Southampton to keep communication with the Channel Islands open. As some set-off against the cost, the Post Office had counted upon saving the ship-letter pence; but here again the want of an authorised packet postage made itself felt. Sampson, though in receipt of a salary and at no expense for the boat he commanded, claimed and received the ship-letter pence, the postmasters-general regarding themselves apparently as legally incompetent to resist the demand. Without denying that a line of packets might be necessary for purposes of State, the postmasters-general now declined to promote one on Post Office grounds. Of the necessities of the State they were not the judges, and, if the State required the adoption of such a measure, it was for others to take the initiative.