The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

Orders were given to the postmen in 1603 that they should not delay the mails more than fifteen minutes at each stage and that they should travel at the rate of seven miles an hour in summer and five in winter.[376] This was an ideal but seldom realized. Complaints continued to come in pretty constantly during the first thirty-five years of the seventeenth century.[377] Secretary Conway wrote to Secretary Coke that the posts must be punished for their tardiness.[378] Even those from London to Dover were reprimanded and they had hitherto given the best satisfaction. The postmaster at Dover was threatened with imprisonment unless he mended his ways.[379] Letters were either not delivered at all or were needlessly delayed on the road. Some of the postmasters, who held lucrative positions, were themselves absentees and their work was performed by their agents, who were often incompetent, and this sort of thing was connived at by the Postmaster-General, from whom their positions were bought. The postmen themselves acknowledged their tardiness but said that they were able to do no better, since they had received no wages for several years.[380] One had been paid nothing for over two years, another had received no wages for seven years,[381] and finally in 1628 a petition was presented to the Privy Council from "all the posts in England, being in number ninety-nine poor men." This petition prays for their arrears, due since 1621, the amount unpaid being £22,626, "notwithstanding the great charge they are at in the keeping of many servants and horses to do His Majesty's service."[382] The Council did not grant their petition, for two years later £25,000 were still due them.[383]

The Council of State gave directions in 1652 for roads to be manned between Dover and Portsmouth, Portsmouth and Salisbury, London and Yarmouth, and London and Carlisle through Lancaster.[384] Hitherto, Carlisle had to depend upon a branch post from the great North Road. Dover and Portsmouth had no direct connection nor had Bristol and Exeter, but letters between these places passed through London. These orders formed part of the directions given to the farmer of the posts in the following year.[385] Cromwell seems to have recognized the impracticability of enforcing the speed limit ordered by Elizabeth in the case of the ordinary mails. He issued orders that in future only public despatches or letters from and to certain high officials should be sent by express, and such despatches and letters must be carried at a speed of seven miles an hour from the first of April to the thirtieth of September, and five miles an hour the rest of the year.[386]

Toward the close of the seventeenth century, more attention was directed to the slowness of the posts and the delays along the road. The average speed on the great roads varied from three to four miles an hour, anything below three miles generally calling for reproof. For instance, the posts on the Portsmouth road were reprimanded for travelling only twenty-two miles in ten hours.[387] It was said that it took the Yarmouth mail sixty-six hours to travel less than one hundred miles. The post labels were an important check upon the postmaster's carelessness. Each postmaster was supposed to mark the time that he received the mail on a label attached to it for that purpose. In this way no postmaster marked the speed that his own postboy made and each was a check upon his neighbour.[388] Lord Arlington gave orders in 1666 for this practice to be enforced more strictly. In addition to marking the time of arrival, the time of departure was also to be added.[389] A year later a further improvement was made by the use of printed labels, containing also directions as to speed. The names of the post towns through which the mail must pass were also added, and blanks were left for the postmasters to fill in the hours of arrival and departure.[390]

It was often difficult to tell the relative position of places in England from the post towns. The Post Office had for its own use a table of places along the great roads,[391] and from the middle of the seventeenth century, private individuals began to publish road maps. On these maps, the post towns are marked by a castle with a flag flying from it. Some of them are quite artistically done and represent on a large scale every important road in England with the places where branch roads leave them. One map has each road outlined on a long scroll, and it gives the rivers, brooks, bridges, elevations, villages, post towns, forests, and branch roads throughout the whole distance.[392] In 1668, Hicks, in writing to Arlington's secretary, advised him not to have a new map of the post roads printed, fearing the great changes that might thereby be produced in the Post Office. He says: "When Parliament sees how all the branches lie and most of them carried on at the charge of those in the country concerned, they will try to have them carried through by the Postmaster-General, which will be very chargeable."[393]

At the close of the seventeenth century, the five great roads to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Bristol, Plymouth, and Dover remained practically unchanged. The Plymouth road had been continued to Falmouth and the Northern Road now passed through York. The greatest changes noticeable are in the Southern and Eastern counties. In the South, nearly all the coast towns were now connected with the Falmouth road, and the post ran to the extreme southwest of Cornwall. Portsmouth had a direct service from London through Arundel and Chichester. There were branches from the Falmouth road to several towns in Dorset and Somerset, but as a rule the country between the two great roads to the West was poorly supplied. A new road of considerable importance ran from Maidenhead on the Bristol road through Abingdon, Gloucester, Cardiff, and Swansea to Milford, where there was a packet boat for Ireland. From this road there were a few unimportant branches to the North.

In the Northeast, the post road to Edinburgh now passed through York to Northallerton. From York there was a branch to Scarborough and Whitby. A new road left the Edinburgh road at Royston, about forty miles from London, and passed along the coast nearly parallel to the great road, through Newmarket, Lynn, Boston, and Hull to Bridlington. Another branch left Newmarket for Norwich and the seacoast towns of northern Norfolk. An important road left London for Yarmouth, with branches to the coast towns of Suffolk. One new road ran through the midland counties, leaving the Holyhead road about thirty miles from London and passing through Sheffield, Manchester, and Preston to Carlisle. Derby was supplied by an east and west road from Grimsby to Manchester. Liverpool had a post road to Manchester. In 1683, provision was made for an extension of the post roads by an order issued to the Postmaster-General to set up posts between the market towns and the nearest post towns. These were called bye-posts. It was to them that Hicks had objected as leading to increased expense. At the same time orders were given for a map to be printed, showing where all these bye-posts were situated so that people might know where to address their letters.[394]

In Ireland, there were three main post roads, running from Dublin through Ulster, Munster, and Connaught.[395] There were practically no post roads worthy of the name in Scotland. That part of the great North Road beyond the Tweed was English rather than Scotch. Between Edinburgh and Glasgow there was a foot-post. The mail was also carried between Glasgow and Portpatrick.[396] In 1699, the length of the roads in America over which the mails passed was 700 miles. These roads connected the principal towns along the Atlantic coast.[397]

In 1696, the Postmaster-General reported favourably on the establishment of a cross post road between Bristol and Exeter.[398] The report was approved, and two years later Bristol and Exeter had direct postal communication. Colonial and foreign letters for Bristol, after their arrival in Falmouth, still went via London.[399] Towns adjacent to Bristol and Exeter, which might have been connected with the cross post, remained separated. For example, the post went from London through Cirencester to Wotton-under-Edge, which was within fourteen miles of Bristol, yet letters from Cirencester to Exeter went via London.[400] The Exeter-Bristol cross post proved a success. After it had been in operation three years, it produced over £350 net profits a year. The use of cross posts was advocated as leading to the conveyance of a larger number of letters, and private individuals started to establish them.[401] In 1700, the post road from Exeter to Bristol was continued to Chester through Worcester and Shrewsbury.[402] Three years later, a direct road was ordered between Exeter and Truro, but it seems to have been discontinued after one year's trial.[403]

The post roads throughout the kingdom had not been measured correctly. A mile on the London-Edinburgh road was fully ten furlongs. This had resulted in a decreased revenue from post horses and often unjustifiable reprimands for slowness. By a provision in the act of 1711, it was ordered that all the post roads in the kingdom should be measured. This was to be done by officials appointed by the Postmaster-General and the measurements left in the general offices in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[404]

As the seventeenth century had seen the extension of roads in the southern and eastern counties of England, so the eighteenth century was marked by the establishment of posts in those parts of the kingdom most affected by the industrial revolution. The country about Birmingham, Kidderminster, and Worcester was to share in the better postal facilities offered by the mail coaches. Lancashire and the West Riding of York were not debarred from the use of Palmer's innovation. This was especially the case in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Halifax, and Leeds, for where industrial expansion paved the way, the coaches were sure to follow.