The History of the British Post Office

by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon

THE POSTAL ESTABLISHMENT A SOURCE OF REVENUE
TO THE STATE

1633-1711

For some time there had been dissatisfaction with the services rendered by the inland posts. It was said that letters would arrive sooner from Spain and Italy than from remote parts of the kingdom of England.[60] The only alternative was to send them by express and this was not only expensive but was not looked upon with favour by the Postmaster-General. The five great roads from London to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Bristol, Plymouth, and Dover were in operation. From the Edinburgh Road there were branches to York and Carlisle, from the Dover Road to Margate, Gravesend, and Sandwich, and from the Plymouth Road to Falmouth, but the posts were slow and the rates for private letters uncertain.[61] In 1633, a project was advanced for the new arrangement of the Post Office. The plan was not entirely theoretical, for an attempt was made to show that it would prove a financial success. There were about 512 market towns in England. It was considered that each of these would send 50 letters a week to London and as many answers would be returned. At 4d. a day for each letter, this would amount to £426 a week. The charge for conveyance was estimated at £37 a week, leaving a weekly profit of £389, from which £1500 a year for the conveyance of state letters and despatches must be deducted. Letters on the northern road were to pay 2d. for a single and 4d. for a double letter, to Yorkshire and Northumberland 3d., and to Scotland 8d. a letter. The postmasters in the country were not to take any charge for a letter except one penny for carriage to the next market town.[62] It is probable that this project originated with Witherings. At any rate it resembles closely the plan which was introduced by him two years later. He had already reformed the foreign post by appointing "stafetti" from London to Dover and through France and they had proved so efficient as to disarm the opposition even of the London merchants. His name is without doubt the most distinguished in the annals of the British Post Office. Convinced that the carriage of private letters must be placed upon a secure footing, he laid the foundation for the system of postal rates and regulations, which continued to the time of national penny postage. He introduced the first legal provision for the carriage of private letters at fixed rates, greatly increased the speed of the posts, and above all made the Post Office a financial success. In order to do this he saw that the proceeds from private letters must go to the state and not to the deputy postmasters.

His plan was entitled "A proposition for settling of Stafetti or pacquet posts betwixt London and all parts of His Majesty's Dominions. The profits to go to pay the postmasters, who now are paid by His Majesty at a cost of £3400 per annum." A general office or counting house was to be established in London for the reception of all letters coming to or leaving the capital. Letters leaving London on each of the great roads were to be enclosed in a leather "portmantle" and left at the post-towns on the way. Letters for any of the towns off the great roads were to be placed in smaller leather bags to be carried in the large portmantle. These leather bags were to be left at the post-towns nearest the country towns to which they were directed. They were then to be carried to their destination by foot-posts to a distance of six or eight miles and for each letter these foot-posts were to charge 2d., the same price that was charged by the country carriers. At the same time that the foot-posts delivered their letters, they were to collect letters to be sent to London and carry them back to the post-town from which they had started and there meet the portmantle on its way back from Edinburgh or Bristol or wherever the terminus of the road might be. The speed of the posts was to be at least 120 miles in twenty-four hours and they were to travel day and night. He concludes his proposition by saying that no harm would result to Stanhope by his plan "for neither Lord Stanhope nor anie other, that ever enjoyed the Postmaster's place of England, had any benefit of the carrying and re-carrying of the subjects' letters."[63]

The question now was, Who was to see that these reforms were carried out? Stanhope was not the man for so important and revolutionary an undertaking. Witherings alone, the author of the proposition, should carry it into effect. Sir John Coke made no mistake in constituting himself the friend of the postal reformer. Witherings was already Foreign Postmaster-General and in 1635 he was charged with the reformation of the inland office on the basis of his projected scheme. In 1637 the inland and foreign offices were again united when he was made Foreign and Inland Postmaster-General.[64] His experiment was tried on the Northern Road first and was exceedingly successful. Letters were sent to Edinburgh and answers returned in six days. On the Northern Road bye-posts were established to Lincoln, Hull and other places.[65] Orders were given to extend the same arrangement to the other great roads, and by 1636 his reform was in full and profitable operation.

Witherings still continued to sell the positions of the postmasters, if we are to trust the complaints of non-successful applicants. One man said that he offered £100 for a position but Witherings sold it to another for £40.[66] The Postmaster at Ferrybridge asserted that he had paid Stanhope £200 and Witherings £35 and yet now fears that he will be ousted. Complaints of a reduction in wages were also made, and this was a serious matter, since the postmasters no longer obtained anything from private letters.[67] The old complaint, however, of failure to pay wages at all is not heard under Witherings' administration. He was punctual in his payments and held his employees to equally rigid account. Their arrears were not excused.[68] An absentee postmaster, who hired deputies to perform his duties, was dismissed.[69] His ambition to establish a self-supporting postal system demanded rigid economy and strict administration, and with the then prevailing laxity of administrative methods, this was no mean achievement. From one occasional practice of the Post Office, that of tampering with private letters, he cannot perhaps wholly be absolved. It is hinted that he may have been guilty of opening letters, but the suggestion follows that this may have happened before they reached England, for the letters so opened were from abroad.[70]

In June of 1637, Coke and Windebank, the two Secretaries of State, were appointed Postmasters-General for their lives. The surviving one was to surrender his office to the King, who would then grant it to the Secretaries for the time being.[71] It does not appear that Witherings was altogether dismissed from the service, for his name continued to appear in connection with postal affairs.[72] Windebank later urged as reasons for the withdrawal of Witherings' patent, that he was not a sworn officer, that there was a suspicion that his patent had been obtained surreptitiously, and that the continental postmasters disdained to correspond with a man of his low birth. He concludes by saying that something may be given him, but that he is said to be worth £800 a year in land and to have enriched himself from his position.[73] At the time of his removal, in June, 1637, the London merchants petitioned for his continuance in office, as he had always given them satisfaction. When they heard who had been appointed in his stead, like loyal and fearful subjects, they hastened to add that they thought someone else was trying for the position but they had no doubt that it would be managed best by the Secretaries.[74] If they thought so they were mistaken, for the commander of the English army against Scotland found that his letters were opened,[75] the Lord High Admiral complained that his were delayed,[76] and Windebank promised an unknown correspondent that the delay in his letters should be seen to at once and Witherings was the agent chosen for the investigation.[77] This, however, was not the worst, for only a month after Witherings had been degraded, orders were issued to the postmasters that no packets or letters were to be sent by post but such as should be directed "For His Majesty's Special Affairs" and were subscribed by certain officials connected with the Government.[78] It is fair to add that this check on private correspondence may have been a protective measure induced by the unsettled state of the kingdom.

In 1640 both the inland and foreign offices were sequestered into the hands of Philip Burlamachi, a wealthy London merchant who had lent money to the king. No reasons were given except that information had been received "of divers abuses and misdemeanours committed by Thomas Witherings."[79] Stanhope, who had resigned his patent in 1637, now came forward claiming that his resignation had been unfairly obtained by the Council, and at the same time he presented his bill for £1266, the arrears in his salary for nineteen years.[80] In reply to his demand it was said that shortly before he resigned he had assigned his rights in the Post Office to the Porters, father and son. The Attorney-General gave his opinion that whatever rights Stanhope and the Porters had, they certainly had no claim to the proceeds from the carriage of private letters.[81] Stanhope had offered to enter an appearance in a suit brought against him by the Porters but now he refused to do so.[82] Windebank was also looking out for money due to him while Coke and he were Postmasters-General.[83] The state had indeed entered upon troublous times and it was every man for himself before it was too late.

As long as Witherings had enjoyed the King's favour, the House of Commons had looked upon him with suspicion. They had ordered in 1640 "that a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Grievances should be made a House Committee to consider abuses in the inland posts, to take into consideration the rates for letters and packets together with the abuses of Witherings and the rest of the postmasters."[84] As soon as Witherings was finally dismissed, the Commons took him up and resolutions were passed that the sequestration was illegal and ought to be repealed, that the proclamation for ousting him from his position ought not to be put into execution, and that he ought to be restored to his old position and be paid the mean profits which had been received since his nominal dismissal.[85] Protected by the authority of the House of Commons, Witherings continued to act as Postmaster-General.[86] Windebank, in Paris, was trying to collect evidence against him through Frizell, who, he said, had been forced out of his position by Witherings and Coke.[87] Coke himself was in disgrace and could do nothing. Parliament was now supreme. Witherings was ordered to send to a Committee of the Lords, acting with Sir Henry Vane, all letters coming into or going out of the kingdom for examination and search. Frequent orders to the same effect followed during the turbulent summer and autumn of 1641.[88] Among other letters opened were those of the Venetian Ambassador in England. He was so indignant that a Committee of the Lords was sent to him to ask his pardon.[89] The two Houses of Parliament united in condemning the sequestration to Burlamachi, but Witherings, who had become tired of the strife, assigned his position to the Earl of Warwick.[90] The Earl was supported by both Houses, but the Lower House played a double part, for, while openly supporting Warwick, they now secretly favoured Burlamachi, who had found an influential friend in Edmund Prideaux, former chairman of the committee appointed to investigate the condition of the posts and later Attorney-General under the Commonwealth.[91] Prideaux was a strong Parliamentarian, but was distrusted even by his own friends. But for the time being, as the representative of the Commons, he was supported by them. The messenger of the Upper House made oath that he had delivered the Commons' resolution to Burlamachi, commanding him to hand over the Inland Letter Office to Warwick, but James Hicks had presented an order at the place appointed by Warwick for receiving letters, to deliver all letters to Prideaux. Burlamachi on being summoned before the Lords for contempt said that Prideaux had hired his house and now had charge of the mails. The fight went merrily on. Two servants of Warwick seized the Holyhead letters from Hicks, but were in turn stopped by five troopers, agents of Prideaux, who took the letters from them by order of the House of Commons. Prideaux also seized the Chester and Plymouth letters, one of his servants calling out "that an order of the House of Commons ought to be obeyed before an order of the House of Lords."[92] Hicks, who had been arrested by order of the Lords, was liberated by the Commons as a servant of a member of Parliament.[93] As between Lords and Commons, there could be no doubt as to which side would carry the day, and by the end of 1642 the Lower House was triumphant all along the line. Understanding that discretion was the better part of valour, the Lords freed Burlamachi and dropped the contest. Warwick now petitioned the Lords again, setting forth that he was the legal successor and assignee of Witherings. Stanhope put in a counter-petition to the effect that Witherings never had any right to the position which Warwick now claimed. The House of Lords felt its own weakness too much to interfere directly, but ordered the whole matter to trial.[94] Besides Stanhope and Warwick, the following put in claims before the Council of State: Henry Robinson, through the Porters, to whom Stanhope had assigned; Sir David Watkins in trust for Thomas Witherings, Jr., for the foreign office; Moore and Jessop through Watkins and Walter Warde. Billingsley also, the old Postmaster of the Merchant Adventurers, made a claim for the foreign office.[95]