At the Conversazione at the South Kensington Museum in 1890, in celebration of the Jubilee of Penny Postage, Mr. Nobbs, as one of the oldest officers in the Postal Service, had the honour of presenting to Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh a letter signed by old officers of the Post Office, who entered the service more than fifty years previously. Again, at a meeting which was held at the General Post Office to inaugurate the City Telegraph Messengers’ Institute, Mr. Nobbs in his brilliant scarlet coat put Postmen and Telegraph Messengers quite into the shade. He said at this meeting what a boon it would have been to him if Institutes, with night classes, had been formed in the days when he first donned Her Majesty’s uniform. If he could then have obtained the educational advantages now enjoyed by every Telegraph Boy employed in the City, he would not, after a period of fifty-five years of most faithful and zealous service have occupied at the last the comparatively subordinate position of a Mail Guard.
In order that this good old man may not depart without some testimony that his sterling qualities have been recognised and respected, it has occurred to me that the publication of some incidents of his life, told by himself, may be of interest, as the words of a man who has seen the old order of things entirely displaced by the new, and who, by his integrity and unflagging zeal in a long life of faithful devotion to duty, has well exhibited—
“The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed.”
In introducing his interesting narrative, I would remark that the self-sacrificing spirit which Mr. Nobbs displayed on the trying occasions recalled in these reminiscences has characterised the whole of his official career. He would have deserved well of his country if he had done nothing more than show by his example, as he certainly has done, that he acted up to the bon mot, given in his narrative, that he would never “damage his own health by drinking other people’s.” Certainly no one should know so well as an old Mail Guard how many people put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains; and no doubt Mr. Nobbs has carried many a Squeers who found it necessary to alight at every stage “to stretch his legs,” but whose breath on getting up again was redolent of gin. Mr. Nobbs has, however, done more than present an example of self-control and temperance. To use his own unaffected words, it has always been his “greatest ambition” to do his duty faithfully, and thus earn the confidence of his superior officers. To this ambition he has been consistent throughout. He has succeeded in winning the confidence and esteem of his official superiors, and he retires from the Service with their heartiest good wishes.
R. C. TOMBS.
December, 1891.
SOME INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MOSES JAMES NOBBS.
On retiring from the Service of the Post Office after fifty-five years spent in harness, it has been suggested to me that some account of my experience of Post Office work in the days before the railways were established might be of interest to many who have no knowledge of “the good old coaching days,” except what they have acquired by hearsay or from books. I will, therefore, set down a few of the incidents that stand out most clearly in my memory. They will show, at any rate, that life on a Mail Coach fifty years ago was not all “beer and skittles,” though enjoyable enough at times.
I was born in Angel Street, Norwich, on the 12th May, 1817. My father was a coach-builder, and had at that time a contract for the construction and repair of the Mail and other coaches running in and out of Norwich. I was brought up to the same business until I was about nineteen, when my entry into the Mail Service was brought about in this way. My father was a staunch Whig, and about the year 1835 there happened to be a General Election. In those times the polling at an election lasted for fourteen days, and I can remember that I took a very keen interest in the proceedings. My father had seven tenants, and these were kept in reserve until the final day of the polling, when they were the last men to vote. Their votes carried the election. Some little time afterwards, the member who was elected showed his gratitude to my father by getting me an appointment in the Post Office Service. When I was leaving home to take up my new duties, my father—who, no doubt, knew the temptations of the life I was about to enter upon—gave me an excellent piece of advice, which I never forgot, and which was of great benefit to me in after years. He told me “Never to injure my own health by drinking other people’s.”
About Midsummer in 1836, then, I was sent down to act as guard to the Mail from London to Stroud, and shortly afterwards was transferred to the Mail running from Peterborough to Hull. It was not very long before I had another change, and this time I was appointed to the Portsmouth and Bristol Mail as a regular duty. This was a night journey, and occupied about 12 hours—from 7.0 p.m. to 7.0 a.m. My duty as Mail Guard was to take charge of the Mail bags and protect them.