"No further reply than the official printed acknowledgment and promise of attention has yet reached your Committee respecting the memorial on the subject of the Welsh mail, the West India mails, etc.; but past experience and general repute do not lead them to anticipate prompt redress from the Post Office authorities. It required repeated applications, extending over a period of about eighteen months, to obtain a remedy for the grievances set forth in our former memorial; and even now the Money Order Department is not completed, and probably similar perseverance will again be required, as it is now more than a month ago the memorial relating to the West India mail was presented."
It was thought worthy of note in the Bristol Mirror of November 5th, 1831, that "500 letters were brought yesterday from Clifton for the general post." In demonstration of the strides which the Post Office has made, it may be mentioned that in the "fifties," in addition to the Post Office at Clifton, the only offices were the branches at
Haberfield Crescent and Phippen Street, with four collections a day, and the receiving houses at Ashley Road, Bedminster, Hotwells, and Redland, with three collections a day. The city only boasted at that time of pillar letter boxes at Arley Chapel, Armoury Square, Bedminster Bridge, Bristol Bridge, Castle Street, Christmas Steps, College Green, Freemantle Square, Kingsdown, Milk Street, Railway Station, St. Philip's Police Station, Kingsland Road, Whiteladies Road, and Woodwell Crescent, with three collections daily. Now there are 167 Post Offices in the district. On the Gloucestershire side there are 99, at 41 of which telegraph business is carried on; and on the Somersetshire side 68, 27 of which are telegraph offices. In addition telegraph business is carried on for the Postmaster-General at five railway stations on the Gloucestershire side and five on the Somersetshire side. Licenses to sell postage stamps are held by over a hundred shopkeepers.
There are now 350 pillar and wall letter boxes provided for public convenience.
It may be mentioned in passing that during the strike amongst the deal-runners in Bristol, when
men were brought from other towns and housed and fed at "Huntersholm" (a large wooden building erected specially in one of the timber yards), and allowed out under police supervision, a stamp license was applied for and granted, to meet a large demand for postage stamps which these men made in consequence of having to send their wages home weekly to their families.
In detail, but without complication by mention of the names of all the districts, the local improvements for the seven years from March, 1892, to February, 1899, inclusive, were as follows:—New post offices established, 33; telegraph offices opened, 18; money order and savings bank business extended to 17 offices; postal orders sold at 6 additional offices; new pillar and wall boxes erected, 142; new or additional day mails from 34 districts; and out to 44 districts; new extra deliveries established in 65 districts, and two extra deliveries in 7 districts. Free delivery extended in 35 rural districts, and the ordinary second or third delivery extended in 44 rural districts; morning delivery accelerated in 63, and the day delivery in 8, rural districts. A later posting for North mail in 6, and for the
night mail in 58, rural districts. New collections established in 73, and a later collection in 30, rural districts.
Increased facilities in the postal world are almost invariably followed by augmentation of business. It certainly has been so in the Bristol district, for there has been a marvellous development in the last seven years. The letters delivered have increased by 60 per cent., and those posted have grown at the rate of 55 per cent. Parcels have increased by 25 per cent. There has been a similar marked increase in all branches of business. The three preceding periods of seven years were comparatively "lean" periods, for the increase in the number of letters during the whole twenty-one years was actually less than during the seven last years. The increase is altogether out of proportion to the growth of population, and it is far in excess of the general increase of letter correspondence throughout the country generally, which has been only at the rate of 22 per cent. during the period as against Bristol's 60 per cent. It is hoped that this may be taken as a sure indication of the well-being of the trade of Bristol,
and as a sign that there is quickened life in the commerce of the good old city. At all events, it shows that the local Post Office organization is quite abreast of the times, and that the facilities afforded are appreciated and are fully taken advantage of.