Uniform penny postage came in 1840. The Bristol citizens, of course, found it no cheaper than before to send a single letter to places in their own neighbourhood, but a light enclosure could be put in without extra charge, though the weight had
to be brought down from four ounces to half an ounce.
It may not be out of place to mention in these pages that one of the penny postage stamps of the very earliest issue after the penny postage system came into operation in 1840 was made use of for the prepayment of a letter sent by His Grace the Duke of Wellington to H. Nuttall Tomlins, Esq., of the Hotwells, Bristol. It was sent six days before stamps and stamped covers were first used by the general public, the Duke, as Prime Minister, having no doubt been supplied in advance with stamps, one of which he attached to his letter, to give a surprise to his friend Nuttall Tomlins. The envelope, with the stamp still upon it, is now in the possession of a well-known philatelist in London.
The allusion to the "Penny Post" naturally calls to mind its originator. On the hill slope of the still pleasant rural village of Stapleton, four miles from Bristol Post Office,—once a Roman settlement, and in later days the head-quarters of Oliver Cromwell during the siege of Bristol,—the great postal reformer, Sir Rowland Hill, frequently
spent some of his leisure time with his brother, the late Recorder of Bristol, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill. There is in the Bristol postal service at the present time a mail officer who recalls that, in his very young days, it was his mission to set out from Heath House to fetch the morning letters for Sir Rowland from the Stapleton Post Office. He tells how he had to ride the old pony at a rapid rate, as, even in those days, Sir Rowland's time was valuable, and if his letters were late he had to curtail his "constitutional," which usually consisted of a three-mile sharp walk, with cap in hand instead of on head, over Purdown, past Stoke House, returning through Frenchay.
In December, 1844, Sir Rowland Hill, in connection with the National Testimonial to him as the author of Penny Postage, recorded the circumstance that he had received a letter from Mr. Estlin, an eminent surgeon of Bristol, giving an account of proceedings in that important city anterior to any movement in London. Sir Rowland believed it was in Bristol, and from Mr. Estlin, that the testimonial had its origin. The sum presented from Bristol to the national collection amounted to about £300.
The celebration of the Jubilee of Penny Postage in 1890 took the practical turn in one respect of increasing the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Bristol contributed its quota of £72 14s. 6d., made up in great measure of public subscriptions. When the grand celebration took place on July 2nd, at the South Kensington Museum, with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh present at the conversazione, Bristol took its part, and immediately after a signal from South Kensington was received over the telegraph wire at 10 o'clock three hearty cheers for Her Majesty were given, the postmaster leading. The Post Office band then struck up the National Anthem, and cheers for the Queen were at once taken up by a body of about 200 postmen who had assembled in the Post Office yard.
As in 1847 the state of things at the provincial offices generally was not regarded as satisfactory, Sir Rowland Hill, in accordance with the wish of the Postmaster-General, visited Bristol on April 1st in that year. He found that the first delivery of the day, by far the most important of all, was not completed until 12 o'clock; the letter-carriers, as he was informed, often staying after departure
from the office to take their breakfast before commencing their rounds. He was able to show how at a small cost (only £125 a year) it might be completed by 9.0. The office itself he found small, badly lighted, and ill ventilated. The day mail bag to London was nearly useless, its contents for London delivery being on the morning of his inquiry only sixty-four letters, thirty-seven of which might have been sent by the previous mail on the mere payment of the extra penny. His impression regarding this mail, both in and out of the office, agreed exactly with his evidence in 1843; viz., that all day mails, to be efficient for their purpose, should start as late as was consistent with their reaching London in time for their letters to be forwarded by the outgoing evening mails. The satisfaction Sir Rowland felt in such improvements as he had been able to make on the spot was much enhanced by his receiving at the termination of his visit the thanks of both clerks and letter-carriers for the new arrangements. It should be said that Sir Rowland Hill did not by his action cast any reflection upon Mr. Todd Walton, junior, as he was at pains to say that, regarded as a specimen of the administration