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

by Herbert Joyce

When such strictness was observed in other matters, one can only wonder at the liberties which were allowed to be taken with newspapers, and it appears all the more strange because the very act which in the case of newspapers was countenanced and encouraged was in the case of letters a highly penal offence. Was it not for forging a single frank, the frank of Sir William Garrow, that the clerical impostor, Halloran, was in 1818 sentenced to seven years' transportation? The plain truth would seem to be that vested interests were so deeply involved in the matter of newspapers that there was on the part of the Post Office the utmost indisposition to make them the subject of legislative enactment; and yet, without some concessions to the news-vendors, it would have been impossible to resist the pressure which would have been brought to bear. This, we doubt not, is the true explanation; and it will account for much that is otherwise dark and obscure. It will explain why that which was regarded as a heinous offence in the case of letters was sanctioned and encouraged in the case of newspapers; why, enormously as the circulation of newspapers within the United Kingdom increased during the first quarter of the present century, we look in vain for any legislative enactment regulating the conditions under which, except when sent or received by members of Parliament, they might pass through the post; and why in 1825, when at length they had conceded to them the right to pass free, the concession was enacted in an indirect and circuitous manner.

So far, therefore, as inland newspapers were concerned, the practical effect of the statute which now passed was little more than to make law correspond with usage. During many years newspapers had been passing through the post, as they were to pass for the future, free. The only difference was that, in order to secure exemption, it was no longer necessary to go through the farce of either writing or printing the name of some member of Parliament on the outside of the cover. The clerks of the roads were unaffected by the statute. The advantage which these officers had at one time derived from their franking privilege had already been lost to them through the action of the Post Office in evading the law; and we can well believe that even so they considered themselves fortunate in being permitted to escape with their newspaper-business. This business, long after they had begun to compete with the news-vendors on equal terms, was of large dimensions. During the year 1829, out of 11,862,706 newspapers despatched from London into the country, 1,207,794 or more than one-tenth of the whole number were despatched by the clerks of the roads.

But it was not only in respect to newspapers that the House of Commons began about this time to manifest in the proceedings of the Post Office an interest such as it had never taken before. Committee after Committee was appointed to report upon the communications of the country, upon roads, mail-coaches, and steam packets; but without any definite result. Obviously the House was not satisfied with things as they were, and yet did not well see how to improve them. Only one man appears to have had a clear perception of what he wanted, and to have been possessed of the requisite ability to carry his object. This was Sir Henry Parnell, chairman of the Select Committee on the Holyhead Road, a Committee the title of which only inadequately denotes either its scope or importance. Parnell, presuming on the authority which this position gave him, and convinced no doubt of the feasibility of his scheme of improvement, adopted towards the Post Office an air of superiority which was peculiarly galling to Freeling, who for the first time in his life found himself dictated to in respect to matters in which he had hitherto been regarded as supreme. The effect of this Committee was not only to keep the Post Office busily employed in the preparation of returns but to put it on the defensive.

Another inquiry which was going on contemporaneously contributed to the same result. Early in the reign of George the Fourth a Commission had been appointed to inquire into the state of the revenue, and this Commission, which began with the Post Office in 1823, did not report the result of its labours until 1829. Meanwhile the Post Office, which was practically on its trial, put forward as few proposals as possible; and even from those that were put forward the Treasury withheld assent on the pretext that the Commission had not yet reported. Hence followed the somewhat curious result that the very period during which the House of Commons began to manifest an interest in the Post Office was on the part of the Post Office itself a period of more than ordinary inaction.

And yet the period in question, though not remarkable for Post Office progress, is by no means an uninteresting one if only because within its limits the old and the new are brought together in striking contrast. In 1818 the express office in the Haymarket is closed, an office which had been established in 1797 for the purpose of facilitating the receipt and despatch of Government expresses. In 1821 gas, or oil-gas as it was then called, is introduced into the Post Office, and at once asserts its superiority over oil in point not only of illuminating power but of cheapness as well. In 1822 the Post Office, by virtue of a warrant under the royal sign-manual, is cleared of its irrecoverable debts. These have been accumulating during a period of 137 years—since 1685, when the Post Office was first taken out of farm, and now amount to £62,141.

About the same time Thomas Gray, writing from Brussels, advocates the introduction of steam engines on iron railways and predicts that, once established, they will absorb the carrying trade of the kingdom and displace mail-coaches. In 1823 Brunel, who has already achieved distinction, offers his services in the construction of a steam engine which shall prove as efficient and as safe at sea as when employed on land. The brilliant engineer receives no encouragement, and Gray receives not even the courtesy of an answer. In the same year passes away at Tunbridge Wells, James Sprange, the courtly old postmaster, who up to the date of his last illness might be seen pacing the Pantiles scrupulously dressed in the costume of the reign of George the Second, even to the long ruffles. In 1825 Glasgow is pleading, and pleading in vain, for a Post Office which shall not be kept at a shop. In 1828 the Roman Catholic peers are once more protesting against the outrage which precludes them, on the score of their religion, from exercising the privilege of franking. In 1829 Waghorn is vainly striving to induce the Post Office to co-operate in facilitating communication with the East.

The inferiority of sailing vessels to vessels propelled by steam has now been conclusively established, and steam packets are being placed on every station. Not the Holyhead Road alone but all the great roads of the kingdom have passed under Telford's hands and are beginning to assume the condition in which we see them to-day. And all this while postage remains at the ridiculously high level at which it was fixed in 1812. To Windsor the charge on a single letter is still 6d., to Birmingham 9d., and to Liverpool 11d. Letters are still held up to a strong light to see whether they contain an enclosure or not, and are to be charged as single or as double. The first general delivery in St. James' Square is not begun before twelve o'clock in the day or finished much before one. Offices for the receipt of general post letters are still kept separate and distinct from those for the receipt of letters for the twopenny post. By the twopenny post the postage is not necessarily 2d., but, according as it is a twopenny post letter, a general post letter, or a foreign letter, may be 3d., 2d., or nothing. On a letter for abroad the fee for registration is still one guinea.[95] An additional penny is still charged upon every letter that crosses the Conway or the Menai Bridge. Two hundred and seventy-five post towns still remain without a free delivery, and—what proves a constant source of contention between the Post Office and the inhabitants—even in those towns in which the letters are delivered free, the limits of the free delivery are not defined.

Twenty years before, the office in Gerrard Street, the headquarters of the twopenny post in Westminster, had been enlarged. Of this office, which ranked next in importance to the General Post Office in Lombard Street, the postmasters-general wrote in 1809—not, surely, without a touch of exaggeration: "The sorting office, where fourteen persons are generally employed at a time and nearly one-half of which is occupied by tables, is only seventeen feet long by thirteen wide"; and, again, "The letter-carriers' office, in which fifty persons are employed at a time and one-fourth of which is occupied by tables, is but eighteen feet by sixteen." Such were the conditions under which, until lately, the Post Office servants had been accustomed to work; and now on a site rich in historical associations is rapidly approaching completion a stately edifice which not only provides ample and even lavish accommodation for the present, but will, it is confidently predicted, suffice for all time.

The new Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand was opened on the 23rd of September 1829. Little more than sixty years have since elapsed, and the building has been shorn of its chief attraction, the central hall, and has otherwise been so altered internally that even the accomplished architect, were he to revisit us, would probably fail to recognise his own handiwork. Of the old Post Office in Lombard Street, with its courts and its alleys and its interesting associations, not a fragment remains. Part of the site was retained for Post Office purposes, and is now occupied by what is known as the Lombard Street Branch Office; part was thrown into the street then forming, and to be called after the King, King William Street; and the remainder was sold, and has long been covered with banks and counting-houses.

It were much to be wished, if only for his own reputation and peace of mind, that Freeling had now retired. Full of years, recently created a baronet, of ample means, and enjoying the confidence of the Government as probably civil servant had never enjoyed it before, he could not have selected a better moment for relinquishing the duties of his arduous post. But a man who has been accustomed to exercise power is seldom willing to give it up. And in Freeling's case we suspect there was an additional reason. Of the large income which he derived from the Post Office, exceeding £4000 a year, considerably more than two-thirds was compensation for the loss of the franking privilege; and this compensation, according to a well-understood rule, was not to count for pension. As the fees which had been received for the exercise of the privilege must have ceased on retirement, so the compensation was to cease also.