Sub-postmasters in the rural districts of Bristol attain to great ages. The sub-postmaster of Mangotsfield, who had long since passed three-score years and ten, had his cross to bear, having at 60 entirely lost his eyesight. Although blind, and unable to work in consequence, he quaintly appeared in his apron to the end, and said that having worn it for so many years he did not feel happy without it. A daughter acted as his deputy, and mitigated, as far as possible, his hard lot. At his funeral some hundreds of people, representing various religious and other bodies, attended to pay their last tribute of respect to him.
At Bitton, a village midway between Bristol and Bath, there died Sub-postmaster James Brewer, in the 87th year of his age, and in the fifty-seventh year of his Post Office service. It was more pleasant to enter this Post Office and find the old
man calmly smoking his churchwarden pipe before the fire, cheery and chatty, than to have such a welcome as that afforded at another office by the exhibition on the Post Office counter of a miniature coffin and artificial wreaths for graves. Another worthy of local Post Office fame has lately passed away in the person of Join Warburton, aged 84, who for thirty years was the sub-postmaster of Henbury, and who for five years was his daughter's adviser after her succession to the appointment. The sub-postmaster of the village of High Littleton lost an arm some fifty years ago, but notwithstanding that affliction he manages with adroitness to sell postage stamps and issue postal orders to the public. This will not be considered a very great feat, considering that he has been for years a crack one-handed shot, and even now, at the age of 70, can bowl over a pheasant or a rabbit quite as readily as many of our sportsmen who have the use of both arms.
Sub-postmistresses of great longevity are also to be found. One dame (Martha Pike), now in her 93rd year, represented the Department until quite recently in the charming little village of Wraxall.
When nearly 90 years old she had a three hour letter round every morning up hill and down dale, and she even trudged a mile and a half to fetch a letter and parcel mail from the railway station. The sub-postmistress of Stoke Bishop died at the age of 84; she and her father had held the Post Office in the village for over fifty years. An equally remarkable case was that of Hannah Vowles, the sub-postmistress of Frenchay, who, after performing the active duties of that position in the village of Frenchay for forty-seven years, resigned when within five years of 100 years old. In her youth she lived for some time in the West Indies; but she gave up her employment there in order to return home to support her mother, who was 90 years of age when she died. Mrs. Hannah was succeeded in the office of sub-postmistress by Miss Kate Vowdes, a relation, who had already been postwoman in the same district forty-two years!
Hannah Brewer.
(Postwoman.)
Hannah Brewer is one of the Bristol Post Office worthies. Her father was the sub-postmaster of the village of Bitton alluded to herein. Hannah commenced to deliver letters in the hamlets and at the farmhouses near Bitton when a mere child, and
continued to do so during all the years our gracious Sovereign has sat on the throne. Recently, however, she had to give up the work, as, having attained the advanced age of 72 years and walked
her quarter of a million of miles, she felt that she ought to take life more easily than hitherto. In distance her round was eleven miles daily, and the route was a very trying one on account of the steep hills she had to traverse, and of great exposure to the sun in summer, and to the wind, frost, and snow in winter. It may be interesting to record that Hannah Brewer, although she had to serve a district sparsely populated, was never robbed, stopped, nor molested in any way. She was the recipient of the first official waterproof clothing issued to postwomen in England, and in her picture she is represented as wearing it. She only occasionally made visits even to places so near as Bath or Bristol, and was, as a rule, a stay at home.