The Bristol Royal Mail: Post, Telegraph, and Telephone

by Robert Charles Tombs

is borne out by his appearance in his portrait. He used to visit the Bristol Post Office after his retirement, especially to have a morning glass of water from the old well on the premises. He died in July, 1857, at his residence, King's Parade, Clifton, in his eighty-fifth year, and was buried in the adjacent church of St. John's. On his tombstone is this inscription: "Here rests the body of Thomas Todd Walton, late of Cheshunt, Herts, and of the foreign post, London, Esquire. A quarter of a century an inhabitant of this parish, and for some years head postmaster of the Bristol district. Deceased 13th July, 1857. Aged 85. Also of Catherine Elizabeth, his wife, elder daughter of Thomas Todd, of Durham, Esquire. She died April 11th, 1860, aged 77 years."

On Mr. Walton's retirement, in 1842, in view of his services, Lord Viscount Lowther, the Postmaster-General of the day, conferred the appointment of postmaster of Bristol on his son, Thomas Todd Walton, who had been employed as chief clerk in the Bristol Post Office for ten years. Mr. Todd Walton, it seems, was properly initiated into the mysteries of the Post Office art by his father, who decreed that he should commence at the bottom of

the ladder and work his way up thence, so that young Todd Walton was in his day to be found at mail-bag opening, letter sorting and other routine work of the kind, which will account for the thorough knowledge of his business which he is said to have possessed when called upon to take the reins of office handed over to him by his popular parent.

Mr. Thomas Todd Walton (junior). Postmaster of Bristol, 1842-1871.

In connection with the recent selection of the port of Bristol as a mail station, alluded to in later pages, it may be mentioned that Mrs. Todd Walton well remembers how, when the Great Western steamship, which carried the American mails between Bristol and New York for several years, was first due (1838) to reach this port, her

husband organised his small staff for a night encounter with the pressure of work which the heavy mail would inevitably occasion, and obtained auxiliary aid. The little staff was at "attention" for two or three days, and when the news came by means of the runner from Pill that the ship was coming up the Avon, Mr. Walton turned out at 2 a.m., rallied his little band, and went manfully to the work, which lasted for many hours before the letters were fully sorted and sent off to their respective destinations or delivered through the streets and lanes of the old city. In the autumn of 1841 the Great Western happened to arrive on the same day that a large ship mail from Australia by the Ruby was received, and the whole staff available—then only ten men for all duties—had to work night and day continuously to get off the letters by the mails to other towns. As many as 20,000 letters and newspapers were brought by these two vessels on that occasion. It is recorded that every available space in the premises was filled with letters piled as high as they could be got to stand, and great was the joy of the sorters when the flood of letters subsided.

Mr. Todd Walton had many other night reminders of the mail services besides those respecting the arrival of direct mails from America, as the rattling of the horses' hoofs, the clang of the pole-chains and the twang of the mail guard's horn as the coaches dashed past his house on their way to the passages must have frequently reminded him of his responsibilities as "mail master" of Bristol. He would have blessed Bristol's very able General Manager of the Tramways Company had he been to the fore in those days to procure the benefit of freedom from the noise of traffic by the use of wood paving in our principal thoroughfares.

Mr. Todd Walton had the interests of the staff of the Post Office at heart, and, as an exemplification of his sympathy with them, it may be mentioned that when a promising officer in the heyday of youth met with an accident which eventually necessitated the amputation of his right leg, Mr. Walton did not allow the misfortune to stand in the way of the young man's continuing in remunerative employment in the Post Office, but found for him a suitable sedentary duty which he performed for fourteen years.