The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

In common with the members of other branches of the civil service the postal employees, prior to 1855, were political appointees. The appointment of a patronage secretary had relieved members of Parliament from the odium incurred as a result of this reprehensible method of manning the service, but it is doubtful whether any improvement in the personnel of the force actually resulted or was even anticipated. With the adoption between 1855 and 1870 of the principle that fitness should be tested by competitive examinations, the vast majority of the members of the postal establishment came under its influence. At the same time the postmasters of small rural communities, where the postal revenue was insignificant,[310] still continued to be nominated by the local member. In 1896 this power was abridged, but members still continued to exercise a limited right of recommendation. Finally in 1907 the Postmaster-General announced that, though due weight should continue to be given to the opinions of members in the case of the appointment of these rural postmasters, such recommendations should be based on personal knowledge and should carry no more weight than the opinion of any other competent person.[311]

No question which has arisen in the internal management of the Post Office has presented more difficult problems for solution than that of the condition of the postal employees with reference to hours of labour, promotion, and remuneration. The first complaints which attract our attention during the period under discussion came rather from outside the service as a protest against Sunday labour in the Post Office, but the fact that many of the postal servants were deprived of their holiday and often needlessly so deprived was a real grievance advanced by the employees themselves. It had been the policy of the Post Office for some time not to grant any application for the withdrawal of a Sunday post if there were any dissentients to the application. In 1850 all Sunday delivery was abolished for a time, but this hardly met the approval even of the strict Sabbatarians, and the rule was promulgated the same year that no post should be withdrawn or curtailed except upon the application of the receivers of six sevenths of the letters so affected. Of the rural posts in the United Kingdom at that time more than half did no work on Sunday and about half of the remainder had their walks curtailed, while in certain cases a substitute was provided on alternate Sundays. A committee reporting on the question in 1871 advised that it should be made easier to discontinue a Sunday delivery by requiring that a Sunday rural post should be taken off if the receivers of two thirds of the letters desired it, that no delivery in the country should be granted except upon the demand of the receivers of the same proportion of letters, and that the principle of providing substitutes on alternate Sundays should be more generally adopted. This report was favourably received and its recommendations adopted in the early seventies. In London and many of the provincial towns there is no ordinary Sunday delivery, and so little advantage is taken of the opportunity for express delivery on Sundays that there is presumably no strong demand for a regular Sunday delivery. Various measures advocated for the relief of the town carriers were also adopted.[312]

In 1858 an attempt was made by the Post Office employees, led by the letter carriers, to secure higher wages and to obtain a remedy for certain other grievances advanced by them. Sir George Bower asked for a select committee of enquiry in their behalf but this was refused by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He agreed, however, to the appointment of a committee composed of Post Office and Treasury officials, but their personnel was so repugnant to the employees that they refused to give evidence, and as a result of this and other difficulties four of their leaders were suspended. The protest on the part of the men was not entirely unproductive, for in the end the Postmaster-General granted them a slight increase in their wages. At the same time he referred to the following rates of wages in support of his contention that there was no good ground for dissatisfaction among the servants of the Post Office: for carriers, 19s. a week advancing to 23s.; for sorters of the first class, 25s. to 30s.; of the second class, 32s. to 38s.; and of the third class, 40s. to 50s. "Carriers also obtain Christmas boxes averaging, so it is said, £8 a year. In addition these wages are exclusive of uniform, of pension in old age, and of assistance for assurance."[313]

The first thorough-going attempts to remedy the grievances of the Post Office employees were made in 1881 and 1882 by Mr. Fawcett in his capacity as Postmaster-General. His scheme for improving the pay and position of the sorters, sorting clerks, telegraphists, postmen, lobby officers, and porters resulted in a mean annual cost to the Post Office of £320,000. In 1888, 1890, and 1891, under the supervision of Mr. Raikes, improvements were made in the condition of the chief clerks and other supervising officers, the sorting clerks and telegraphists in the provinces, the telegraphists, counter-men and sorters in London, and the sorters in Dublin and Edinburgh at an additional yearly expense of £281,000. While the representatives of the London postmen were in process of examination, some of them went out on strike. They were severely punished, some 450 men being dismissed in one morning, and a committee was appointed to enquire into the complaints of the London and provincial postmen.[314] In the same month that the strike took place Mr. Raikes announced increases in the pay of the postmen involving an additional yearly payment of £125,000. The revisions so announced from 1881 to 1894 have been estimated to involve an increased annual expenditure of nearly £748,000.[315]

A committee was appointed in 1895 to deal with the discontent which was only lessened, not silenced, by the efforts of Messrs. Fawcett and Raikes. This was composed of Lord Tweedmouth, Sir F. Mowatt, Mr. Spencer Walpole, and Mr. Llewellyn Smith, and the compromise which they proposed was known as the "Tweedmouth Settlement" which apparently gave little satisfaction at the time and less thereafter. It resulted in a higher average rate of payment, but dissatisfaction was felt because the pay for some services was less than before. The basis of the report was "the abolition of classification whereby each man was allowed to proceed by annual increments to the maximum pay of a combined class, subject only to an efficiency-bar which he may not pass without a certificate of good conduct and ability, together with the abolition of allowances for special services." Differences in pay according to the volume of business in particular localities were left untouched, and this was the cause of much complaint. Special inducements in the shape of double increments were offered to the staff on the postal and telegraph sides to learn each other's work in order to lighten the strain which might otherwise fall on a particular branch. Overtime, Sunday and bank-holiday pay were assimilated throughout the service, and efforts were made to reduce the hardship resulting from "split" work, so called from the fact that the working day of many of the men was divided by an interval when there was nothing to do. The higher officials were acquitted of favouritism in the matter of promotion and of "unfairness and undue severity in awarding punishments and in enforcing discipline." The general charges of overcrowding the post offices and leaving them in an unsanitary condition were also rejected. The changes proposed were all adopted at an immediate estimated cost of £139,000 a year and an ultimate cost, also estimated, of £275,000.[316] The Tweedmouth Commission in its turn was soon followed by a departmental committee, composed of the Duke of Norfolk, then Postmaster-General, and Mr. Hanbury, the Secretary of the Treasury, then acting as the representative of the Post Office in the House of Commons. The postal employees demanded that their grievances should be laid before a select committee composed of members of the House of Commons, and motions to that effect were introduced year after year only to meet the Government's disapproval. The most important demands of the men turned upon the questions of full civil rights, complete recognition of their unions, the employment of men who were not members of the civil service, and the old difficulty of wages and hours. So far as the question of full civil rights was concerned, the Post Office employees had been granted the franchise in 1874, but were required not to take an active part in aiding or opposing candidates for election, by serving on committees or otherwise making themselves unduly conspicuous in elections. The men demanded that these restrictions should be withdrawn. In the second place, the Postmaster-General refused to receive deputations from those employees not directly interested in the question at stake, refused to recognize officials who were not also employees of the Department, and exercised more or less control over the meetings of employees. Finally, in addition to the general demand for higher wages due to the higher cost of living, the telegraphists contended that they had been deceived by the promise of a maximum salary of £190 a year, whereas they actually received only £160. Mr. A. Chamberlain opposed the appointment of a select committee of members of the House of Commons because of the pressure likely to be brought upon them and because of their unfitness to decide upon the question at issue. He agreed, however, after consultation with various members of Parliament and the men themselves, that a committee of enquiry might reasonably be granted, composed of business men not in the Civil Service and not members of the House of Commons.[317]

In accordance with this promise the so-called "Bradford Committee" was appointed to report on "the scales of pay received by the undermentioned classes of established civil servants and whether, having regard to the conditions of their employment and to the rates current in other occupations, ... the remuneration is adequate." In the meantime Mr. Chamberlain retired, but his successor, Lord Stanley, asked that the enquiry be continued. The members of this committee, interpreting their instructions very loosely, extended their report to include their own recommendations as to changes in pay, and refrained entirely from making any comparison between the wages of postal servants and those in other employments, on the ground that such information was easily accessible from the statistics published by the Board of Trade. They added that it was difficult to make any comparison between a national and a private service, for payment according to results and dismissal at the will of the employer are inapplicable under the state. There was also a pension fund in the service, the present value of which it is difficult to estimate. In their own words, "It appears to us that the adequacy of the terms now obtaining may be tested by the numbers and character of those who offer, by the capacity they show on trial, and finally by their contentment." They agreed that there was no lack of suitable candidates and no complaints as to capacity, but there was widespread discontent. Finally the committee recommended the grading of the service as a whole, taking into consideration the differences in cost of living as between London and other cities and between these cities and smaller towns and an increase in pay of the man at an age to marry, irrespective of years of service. "They" (the above recommendations) "obviously do not concede all that has been asked for, but they go as far as we think justifiable in meeting the demands of the staff and we trust it will do much to promote that contentment which is so essential to hearty service."[318] From an examination of the evidence presented by the Committee and a comparison of present scales of pay in the Post Office with those current in other employments, the Postmaster-General concluded that there was no reason for increasing the maximum wages payable, but there seemed to be ground for modifying and improving the scales in some respects. The special increase at the age of twenty-five was granted. The maximum was increased in London and the larger towns on account of the higher cost of living and at the same time wages in the smaller towns were advanced. The postmen also, both in London and the provinces, were granted higher wages, and all payments to the members of the force were in the future to be made weekly. The additional cost entailed by these changes was estimated at £224,400 for 1905-06, the average in later years at £372,300.[319]

The Post Office employees who had asked for the appointment of a select committee were greatly dissatisfied with the personnel of the "Bradford Committee." This dissatisfaction on their part was increased by the fact that the recommendations of the committee were to a great extent disregarded by Lord Stanley on the ground that the members had not reported upon the question laid before them, but had instead proposed a complete reorganization of the whole of the service. He was willing to grant some increase in pay but there were certain recommendations of the committee which he refused to accept. He himself was of the opinion that the average wages of the employees were in excess of those of men doing similar work under competitive conditions, but the postmen objected to a comparison of their wages with those of employees in the open labour market on the ground "that there is no other employer who fixes his own prices or makes an annual profit of £4,000,000 sterling." Delegates representing over 42,000 members of various postal associations protested strongly against Lord Stanley's refusal to adopt the findings of the "Bradford Committee" in toto and the men prepared to take an active part against the Government in the approaching election. Appeals were sent out by the men from which Lord Stanley quoted as follows in the House: "Two thirds at least of one political party are in great fear of losing their seats. The swing of the pendulum is against them and any member who receives forty or fifty of such letters will under present circumstances have to consider very seriously whether on this question he can afford to go into the wrong lobby. This is taking advantage of the political situation."[320] The Postmaster-General's unpopularity with his employees was not diminished by his reference to these appeals as "nothing more or less than blackmail." He himself was of the opinion that there should be some organization outside of politics to which such questions should be referred.[321]

Shortly after the Liberals had come into power, a Post Office circular was issued granting to the secretaries of the branches of the various postal organizations the right to make representations to the Postmaster-General relating to the service and affecting the class of which the branch of an association was representative. In matters solely affecting an individual the appeal had to come from the individual himself. This was followed by a full recognition of the postal unions by the new Postmaster-General, Mr. Buxton, with the rights of combination and representation through the representatives of different classes. These conclusions were commented upon most favourably at the annual meeting of the "Postmen's Federation."[322] The representatives present were glad to see that "the old martinet system was fast breaking down." [323] But the greatest triumph of the men was to follow in the appointment of a select committee composed of members of the House of Commons with full powers to investigate the conditions of employment of the postal employees and make such recommendations, based upon their investigation, as might seem suitable. Nine members were appointed for this purpose, two of their number being members of the Labour Party, and Mr. Hobhouse was chosen as chairman. Their report is very voluminous and treats minutely all the questions concerning which the postal employees had expressed so much dissatisfaction. The most important of these are connected with the civil rights of the men, their wages, hours of labour, and the conditions of their employment. The demand for full civil rights was supported by four members on the ground that the position of the postal employees is not in many respects "comparable to that of the Civil Service as a whole," but the point was lost for the men by the vote of the chairman. Some departments asked for a reduction in the age of voluntary retirement from sixty to fifty and of compulsory retirement from sixty-five to sixty, but these changes were not recommended by the committee. The question of extending part of their pensions to the widows and children of deceased employees was referred to a plebiscite of the employees themselves. So far as incapacitated officials were concerned, it was pointed out that the "Workmen's Compensation Act" of 1906 had been extended to them. Night work had been limited to the time from 10 P.M. to 6 A.M., seven hours of night work counting as eight hours of day work. The committee asked that night duty be from 8 P.M. to 6 A.M., the ratio of the relative value to remain unchanged. Some servants asked for a forty-two hour week, especially in the case of those who had "split" work to do, and for a half holiday each week. The committee thought that the forty-eight hour week should remain unchanged but that a half holiday might be granted where "the exigencies of the service demand." They also recommended that compensation should be allowed where free medical attendance was not granted. There was a general protest from postmen, telegraphists, and sorters against the employment of casual and auxiliary labour on the ground that it dealt a blow at thorough work and trade unionism. The Department replied that it was necessary in the case of especially busy holiday periods and where "split" attendance was unavoidable. The committee contented themselves by asking that casuals who have full work elsewhere should not be employed. The claim on the part of the employees that promotion should be contingent on "seniority, good conduct and ability," in the order named was not accepted by the committee, whose members contended that ability, as at present, should count for most. So far as wages themselves were concerned, a general increase was approved by the committee, and it also, commenting unfavourably on the complexity and number of existing classes, recommended a reduction in their number and greater regularity and simplicity in grading them. [324]

The recommendations of the "Hobhouse Committee" have proved, in many respects, unsatisfactory to the postal employees who have not hesitated to express their condemnation of what they consider the sins both of commission and omission of the members. In the words of the delegates from the branches of the "Postmen's Federation" meeting in London: "We express our deep disappointment with the report of the Select Committee for the following reasons": the "cowardice" of the committee in recommending the continuance of the system of Christmas boxes; the failure in many cases to increase the minimum and maximum rates of wages; the mistaken method of grading towns for wages; the failure to grant full civil rights and the granting of so much power to the permanent officials. The Conference of Postal Clerks in turn expressed their dissatisfaction with the findings of the committee. The "Irish Postal and Telegraph Guardian" considered that the "report had intensified discontent" and commented on the fact that large increases in salaries to highly paid classes had been recommended without any agitation on their part while the lower grades got practically nothing, this in direct opposition to opinions expressed both by Mr. Buxton and Mr. Ward, a member of the committee. Deputations were appointed to discuss with the Postmaster-General those findings of the committee which were unsatisfactory, but Mr. Buxton refused to grant a re-trial of the controverted points although he agreed to listen to the plea of those employees whose case had not been presented before the committee. [325]

Mr. Buxton explained his position with reference to the recommendations of the committee in a speech delivered in the House. He knew that in the case of the Tweedmouth and Bradford committees the men stated beforehand that they would not be bound by the decisions reached, but on the other hand had asked for a Parliamentary committee as the only solution of the difficulty. Broadly speaking, he was of the opinion that the findings of the committee should be binding, and he understood that the men would agree to accept them. There were, however, certain points of the report on which nearly every section of the staff asked for a re-trial, but this he was compelled to refuse. The most important recommendations of the committee which were adopted by Mr. Buxton are: an increase in the case of each employee to the minimum or "age pay" of his class; the extension of the "technical increment" beyond the ordinary maximum pay, after a searching examination; the reduction in London of the four "wage" zones to three; a reduction in the number of classes in the provinces, with wages based on volume of work and cost of living in the order named; a reduction after the first five years from five to four years in the period necessary to obtain good conduct stripes; an increase in the pay of women; a reduction in the amount of auxiliary labour employed; night labour to be reckoned from 8 instead of 10 P.M.; overtime to be watched and checked; unsanitary conditions in the Post Office buildings to be remedied; and wages increased in the engineering branch.[326]