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

by Herbert Joyce

In 1805, for the third time within eight years, the Post Office was called upon to make a further contribution to the Exchequer; and again Freeling devoted himself to the congenial task of revising and increasing the postage rates. Unwilling to destroy the symmetry of his own handiwork, he simply suggested that to the rates as prescribed by the Act of 1801 should be added—1d. for a single letter, 2d. for a double letter, 3d. for a treble letter, and 4d. for a letter weighing as much as one ounce. The suggestion was adopted, and after the 12th of March, the date on which the new Act was passed, the postage on a single letter was—from London to Brighton, 7d. instead of 6d.; from London to Liverpool, 10d. instead of 9d.; and from London to Edinburgh, 1s. 1d. instead of 1s.

But this was by no means all. In London, as we have seen, the penny post had, four years before, been converted into a twopenny post; and now the twopenny post, in respect to letters for places beyond the general post limits, was converted into a threepenny one. Thus, Abingdon Street, Westminster, was within the limits of the general post delivery, but Millbank was beyond them. Accordingly, a letter for Millbank, even though posted no farther off than Charing Cross, was to be charged 3d., while the charge on a letter to Abingdon Street remained at 2d. as before.

The Act of 1805 introduced a still further complication. Letters from the country addressed to any part of London that was outside the limits of the general post were to be consigned to the twopenny post, and, in addition to all other postage, to be charged with the sum of 2d. Thus, of two letters of the same weight delivered at the same time and by the same person, one, originating in the country, would have to pay 2d., and the other, originating in London, would have to pay 3d.

To record, therefore, that in 1805 the postage on a single letter—as, for instance, between London and Plymouth—was 10d., although in one sense correct, would give an imperfect idea of the real state of the case. Plymouth was one of the towns which possessed village or convention posts. Suppose a letter from one of the villages to which these posts extended to have been addressed to Knightsbridge or any other part of London situated outside the general post boundary. The postage would have been not 10d. but 10d. + 2d. + whatever might have been agreed upon for the village accommodation.

But more than this. There were certain towns through which, though lying off the direct road, the mail-coaches passed for a consideration. Such towns were Hinckley in Leicestershire, Atherstone in Warwickshire, and Tamworth in Staffordshire. Here, in consideration of the accommodation afforded by the mail-coach passing through, the inhabitants undertook to pay in addition to all other postage 1d. on each letter. A day came when they sought to be relieved from this impost. Vain aspiration! Had they not agreed for a penny a letter? And, for any relief that the Post Office would give, a penny a letter they should pay to the end of time.

It may safely be affirmed that at the present day no increase of postage would produce a corresponding increase of revenue. Such, unhappily, was not the case at the beginning of the century. People did not then write unless they had something to say which could not be left unsaid without loss or inconvenience. Trade, moreover, was rapidly expanding, and, as a consequence of the war, the ports were closed. Thus, correspondence was driven inland; and upon inland correspondence, unlike correspondence with foreign parts, the Government received the whole of the postage. But be the cause what it might, it must be owned that, in respect to the returns which they brought to the Exchequer, the three increases of postage made in 1797, 1801, and 1805 answered expectation. This, though not a justification, is perhaps their best excuse. In 1796, the year before the first of the three increases was made, the net Post Office revenue was £479,000; in 1806, the year after the last of them, it was £1,066,000. The same result is apparent in the case of what, for distinction's sake, we will still call the London penny post, although the London penny post had become a twopenny and threepenny one. In 1796 the net revenue derived from this source was £8000; in 1806 it was £41,000.

Among those who about this time criticised the doings of the Post Office was William Cobbett. Cobbett was regarded by Freeling as a base calumniator with whom no terms were to be kept; and yet on a dispassionate retrospect it is impossible to deny that on the whole his criticisms were just, and that such of them as appeared in print[79] were expressed in not intemperate language. At the present time far stronger language is used every day under far less provocation. Of Cobbett's numerous subjects of complaint we will mention only two—the so-called "early delivery" of letters and the treatment of foreign newspapers; and these have been selected because they serve to illustrate, better perhaps than any others, the practice of the Post Office eighty or ninety years ago. The latter of the two subjects serves also to explain much that would otherwise be inexplicable.

The "early delivery"—a species of accommodation confined to London—was not what its name would seem to imply, because no letters were even begun to be delivered before nine o'clock in the morning. It was really a preferential delivery, a delivery restricted to those who chose to pay for it. For a fee or, as the Post Office preferred to call it, a subscription of 5s. a quarter or £1 a year, any one residing within certain limits, including the whole of the city and extending westward as far as Hamilton Place, could get his letters in advance of the general delivery. It was managed thus. At nine o'clock or a little after the letter-carriers started from Lombard Street; and those for the remoter districts, in addition to their own letters, took letters for the districts through which they passed in proceeding to their own and, without waiting for the postage, dropped them at the houses of subscribers. The postage was collected in the course of the week by the regular letter-carrier of the district.

Against this preferential delivery, a delivery purchased by individuals at the expense of the general public, Cobbett very justly inveighed. Freeling, on the other hand, defended it as a priceless boon to merchants and traders who desired to receive their letters before the appointed hour. He omitted to explain, however, why a boon which could be bought by some could not be given gratuitously to all. It is a curious fact that this early delivery, essentially unfair as it was, continued to exist for more than thirty years after the period of which we are now writing. As late as 1835 and 1836 it was still in vogue, and not only the merchants and traders of London but the denizens of the squares were largely availing themselves of it. But it was chiefly in the city that the practice flourished. Thus, on the morning of the 9th of May 1828, out of a total of 637 letters for the Lombard Street district no less than 570 were "delivered early."

The second of Cobbett's complaints, or rather the second which we propose to notice, had reference to the treatment of foreign newspapers. What this treatment was at the beginning of the present century may appear hardly credible to us who live at the end of it. Except at the letter rate of postage, no newspapers could either enter or leave the kingdom unless they were franked;[80] and the power of franking them was restricted to Post Office servants. This power was as old as the Post Office itself; and so was the practice of exercising it for a consideration. What was new was an arrangement or understanding between Freeling and Arthur Stanhope, the head of the foreign department, by virtue of which Stanhope in conjunction with his subordinates franked newspapers for the Continent, and Freeling franked those for America and the British possessions abroad.