The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

Shortly after his appointment the attention of the department was directed to a weakness in administrative control which had already resulted in considerable financial loss. The Postmasters-General had always experienced considerable difficulty in collecting the postage on bye and cross road letters.[156] Since these letters did not reach London, no check was possible to ascertain whether the postmaster transmitted to headquarters the full amount of the postage collected on them. The difficulty had been met before 1711 by farming a large number of the country post offices.[157] In 1711 the leases under which the farmers had held office were cancelled and all the posts in the kingdom came again under the direct oversight of the Postmasters-General. The old farmers were made managers, with an allowance of 10 per cent from the net proceeds of the posts under their control, and the deputy postmasters were again paid directly by the state. The Government had refused o appoint surveyors when the act of 1711 was drafted and for a time these managers acted in that capacity.[158] The experiment was not a success and the Postmasters-General were at their wits' end to know what to do to save the revenue which was being diverted to the pockets of the country postmasters.

The country was happily spared any new device on their part, for in 1721 a man came forward with a proposal to take all the losses upon himself or rather to prevent them entirely. This was Ralph Allen, whose name is worth remembering, not as a reformer but as a good business man who came to the rescue of the postal revenue at a rather critical time. He was the son of an innkeeper at St. Blazey. At an early age we find him living with his grandmother, the postmistress of St. Columb. He came under the notice of one of the surveyors there on account of the neatness with which he kept the accounts for his grandmother. When he was old enough, he was appointed to a position in the Post Office at Bath and in time was made postmaster there. Tradition has it that during the insurrection of 1715 he informed the authorities that a wagon load of arms was on its way from the West for the use of the rebels and that this led to his preferment.[159] He offered to farm the cross and bye posts throughout the kingdom. The net product from these posts amounted to £4000 in 1719. Allen offered to pay half as much again and meet all expenses. The offer was accepted, and in 1721 he was given the lease of the cross and bye posts for a period of seven years. The rent was fixed at £6000 a year in accordance with the agreement. For the first quarter, the receipts exceeded expectations, but later the postmasters began to relapse into their old ways. In addition, the contract was rather hard on Allen, as £300 of the £4000 nominally received by the Post Office was for letters not delivered and hence not paid for. After the third year, matters began to improve and the receipts increased greatly. The contract was renewed for terms of seven years, until Allen's death in 1769, and the rent was increased at each renewal.[160]

How did he succeed when so many others had failed? In the first place he introduced the use of post bills and every postmaster had to distinguish on these bills the bye letters from all others. The voucher, which he also introduced, seems to have been only an acknowledgment of the amount to be collected by each postmaster. Besides this, Allen had a most intimate knowledge of the various post towns in the kingdom, of their importance and of the number of letters which might naturally be expected to pass between them. He based his conclusions upon quite obvious considerations. Between any two towns of much the same importance he expected about the same correspondence, that it would not vary much, and that the letters received and despatched would pretty well equal each other.[161]

When Allen's contract was renewed in 1741 it was proposed that he should be obliged to settle and support at his own charge posts six days a week instead of the former tri-weekly posts between London, Cambridge, Lynn, Norwich, and Yarmouth and from London to Bath, Bristol, Gloucester, and intermediate towns. This was not done at once, but during the next few years this proposition was put into effect.[162] In 1734, in addition to his cross and bye post letters, Allen undertook to pay for the improvements which he had made in the conveyance of country letters.[163] He pointed out at the same time that there was some opposition between the two parts of his contract, since country and cross post letters interfered more or less with each other.[164]

Allen died in 1769, being worth, according to current report, £500,000. Lewins says that he made £12,000 a year from his farm. Probably both statements are exaggerated, but it is certain that he accumulated a respectable fortune while managing the bye and cross posts.[165]

There had been a considerable increase in the staff of the General Office and many improvements introduced since 1711. At the head of the office were two Commissioners called Postmasters-General, each with a salary of £2000, assisted by a Secretary and four clerks. There were in addition a Receiver-General, an Accountant-General, a Solicitor, a Resident-Surveyor, and two inspectors of missent letters. In addition to the Penny Post carriers, who were employed also by the General Post, there were a Court Messenger and a carrier for the House of Commons. At the General Office, letters were taxed and sorted by the "Clerks of the Road" and their assistants and by seventeen sorters. The window-man and alphabet-keeper received the money on prepaid letters and posted lists of those for whom letters had arrived. Undertaxed letters from the country were re-taxed by the "Clerks of the Road." Besides the receiving-houses of the Penny Post where all letters might be posted, there were thirty receiving-houses for the General Post. Letters were conveyed from these to the central office by sixty-nine carriers.[166]

Letters were sent every night to the principal South and Midland towns of England. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, there were mails for all parts of England and Scotland and on Tuesday and Saturday for Ireland and Wales. On Monday and Thursday, letters were sent to France, Spain, and Italy, on Monday and Friday to Germany, Flanders, Sweden, and Denmark, and on Tuesday and Friday to Holland. Letters arrived in London every day from the South and Midland towns, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from all parts of England and Scotland, and on Monday and Friday from Ireland and Wales.[167] It will be seen from this that the improvements in postal communications, which had taken place since the beginning of the century, had been confined to the South and Midland towns of England and to foreign countries.

With the foregoing enlargement of postal facilities an old grievance on the part of the public began to assume an acute form. It had always been a debated question as to how far the postmasters were responsible for the delivery of letters. There was no general rule upon the question and the practice varied in different parts of England. Although the towns on the post roads were fairly well off as far as their letters were concerned, it was different with those places which were neither on the great roads nor on the bye-roads leading off from them. The mails for such places were left at the nearest post towns and were conveyed to their destination by carriers and messengers. Cotton and Frankland stated that in addition to collecting the regular postage, they demanded for this service an extra payment of 3d., 6d., and sometimes 12d. It was proposed in 1699 that the delivery should be made by persons appointed to collect as well as to deliver all letters and parcels. For this they were allowed to take one penny or whatever the people wished to give them.[168] In Sandwich the cross and bye post letters had always been delivered free, although a fee was charged for the London letters. The postmaster there decided to charge for all letters, and the inhabitants of Sandwich protested. The case was carried to the courts and the Post Office lost. Sandwich, however, was a place where there had been a free delivery of part of the letters at least. The Postmasters-General were very much disturbed at this decision and still more disturbed lest the courts might decide for free delivery in other post towns, which had always paid. They resolved to bring on a test case. The town of Hungerford in Berkshire was chosen, as it could be proved that the postmaster of that place had received a penny for each letter delivered since the beginning of the century. The case came before the Court of King's Bench, Lord Mansfield presiding, and the Post Office lost again. This case was decided in 1774, and the next year the "Liverpool Advertiser" records a complaint to the Postmasters-General that there was only one letter carrier in Liverpool. The reply was that only one carrier was maintained in any provincial town and that Liverpool could expect no better treatment.[169]