The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago/Pearson Hill's pamphlet
THE POST OFFICE
OF
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
THE POST OFFICE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Among the many beneficent measures for which the first fifty years of Her Majesty's reign will always be gratefully remembered, few, perhaps, have conferred greater blessings upon the public at large, especially upon the poorer classes, than the reforms effected during that period in our postal system—reforms which, commencing in the United Kingdom soon after Her Majesty's accession, have now been extended to every civilised country in the world.
It is just fifty years since Sir Rowland Hill, with whom the great reform originated, published (in February, 1837) his celebrated pamphlet, and in the belief that it will be interesting to many now rejoicing in Her Majesty's Jubilee to be enabled to glance for a moment at the condition in which the public found itself in postal matters at the commencement of her beneficent reign, we reprint the pamphlet, giving at the same time a brief description of the older state of things, so that our readers may the more readily judge of the magnitude of the change which has been effected.
In these days, when postal facilities have so enormously extended, and cheap and rapid communication by letter has become so completely a part of our everyday life, like the air we breathe or the water we drink, few persons ever trouble themselves to think how it would be possible to exist without them; and those who are not old enough to remember the former state of things, under a postal system which the authorities at St. Martin's-le-Grand of that day regarded as almost a marvel of perfection, can hardly picture to themselves the inconvenience to which the public had then to submit.
As Miss Martineau points out in her History of the Thirty Years' Peace (1815—1845), we look back now with a sort of amazed compassion to the old Crusading times, when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed parents and their brave sons, parted with the knowledge that it must be months or years before they could hear even of one another's existence. We wonder how they bore the depth of silence, and we feel the same now about the families of polar voyagers, but, till the commencement of Her Majesty's reign, it did not occur to many of us how like this was the fate of the largest classes in our own country. The fact is, there was no full and free epistolary intercourse in the country, except for those who, like Members of Parliament, had the command of franks. There were few families in the wide middle class who did not feel the cost of postage a heavy item in their expenditure; and if the young people sent letters home only once a fortnight, the amount at the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it was the vast multitude of the lower orders who suffered like the Crusading families of old and the geographical discoverers of all time. When once their families parted off from home, it was a separation almost like that of death. The hundreds of thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of governesses, of domestic servants, were cut off from family relations as if seas or deserts lay between them and home.[1]
In those days, the visit of the postman, so far from being welcomed, was, as a rule, dreaded. Letters were almost always sent unpaid, and the heavy postage demanded for what might sometimes turn out to be merely trade circulars was a serious tax grudgingly paid, or, amongst the poorer classes, the letter had to be refused as too expensive a luxury.
The lowest postage on any letter, except those in the local town deliveries and their suburban posts, was 4d. This, however, would only suffice if the distance it was carried did not exceed 15 miles. The postage on Inland letters carried longer distances was regulated by the following scale:—
| PER "SINGLE" LETTER. | |||||
| From any Post Office to any place not exceeding 15 miles from such office | d. 4 | ||||
| Above | 15 | and not exceeding | 20 | miles | 5 |
| " | 20 | "" | 30 | " | 6 |
| " | 30 | "" | 50 | " | 7 |
| " | 50 | "" | 80 | " | 8 |
| " | 80 | "" | 120 | " | 9 |
| " | 120 | "" | 170 | " | 10 |
| " | 170 | "" | 230 | " | 11 |
| " | 230 | "" | 300 | " | 12 |
Beyond that distance the postage increased at the rate of one penny per "single" letter for every additional 100 miles. One halfpenny was also charged on every letter crossing the Scottish border.
Under this scale the postage on any "single" letter from London to Brighton was 8d.; to Liverpool or Manchester, 11d.; to Edinburgh or Glasgow, 16½d.; and to Cork or Londonderry, 17d.
Only "single" letters, however—i.e., letters written on a single sheet of paper—could pass at these rates. If an envelope or cover were used, or if the letter consisted of two pieces of paper, or contained any enclosure, the postage was at once doubled. Two enclosures involved treble postage. If, however, the letter, with or without enclosures, weighed an ounce, the postage was fourfold, and each additional quarter of an ounce in weight led to an additional rate of postage.
Thus, a letter just under 2 ounces in weight, which now goes from Land's End to John o' Groat's for 1½d., would, fifty years ago, have been charged sevenfold the heavy rates given in the above table. Such a letter, even if sent only from London to Croydon, would have been charged a postage of 2s. 4d.; if sent from London to Manchester, it would have been charged 6s. 5d.; while from London to Cork the postage would have been 9s. 11d., or nearly 80 times the present rate.
In order to ascertain whether letters contained enclosures, they were held up against strong artificial lights, many post offices in those days being built without windows, the better to facilitate such examination; and many letters got stolen in the post office through its being thus discovered that they contained bank-notes or other valuables.[2]
How seriously these high charges tended to suppress correspondence may be gathered from the fact that, except in the town and local "penny posts," where postage was comparatively low, the Post Office was but little used. Half the letters delivered in London fifty years ago were posted within 12 miles of St. Paul's, three-quarters within 100 miles, and only one-fourth in all the world besides.
As another illustration, which will perhaps bring this hindrance of correspondence more fully home to the present generation, it may be mentioned that when, in 1827, Sir Rowland Hill, then a young man, was engaged to the lady who afterwards became his wife, the high rates of postage compelled them to restrict their correspondence to a letter once a fortnight.
Newspapers, in consideration probably of the large contributions they then made to the public revenue—viz., a duty of 1s. 6d. on every advertisement, a paper duty at 1½d. a lb., and a newspaper stamp duty of 1d. or upwards on every copy printed—were allowed, as a rule, to circulate through the post without additional charge, though there were important exceptions to their enjoyment of this privilege. No newspaper could be posted in any provincial town for delivery within the same, nor anywhere within the London District (a circle of 12 miles radius from the General Post Office) for delivery within the same circle, unless a postage of one penny, in addition to the impressed newspaper stamp, were paid upon it—a regulation which, however, was constantly evaded by large numbers of newspapers, intended for delivery in London, being sent by newsagents down the river to be posted at Gravesend, the Post Office then having the trouble of bringing them back, and of delivering them without charge.
These restrictions have long been removed, the taxes levied on newspapers have all been abolished, a better daily paper is now to be had for a penny than that for which fivepence was charged fifty years ago, and newspapers can now be sent through the post anywhere within the United Kingdom for one halfpenny—i.e., for half the price then paid for the minimum stamp duty alone.
There was no "Book Post" in those days, printed matter, such as trade circulars, being charged the same as letters; and those persons who now declare it a "postal scandal" that they should be charged so extravagant a rate as one half-penny for the collection, conveyance, and delivery of two ounces of trade circulars sent from one end of the United Kingdom to the other—say from London to Cork or Londonderry—may find it profitable to reflect that the charge in 1837 for the same service would have been, in the instance we have given, nearly 240 times as much!—that is to say, somewhat distorting the meaning of the old proverb, they are now only "in for a penny" where formerly they would have been "in for a pound."
As an instance of the extraordinary charges sometimes made under the old system, we may mention that in 1839 Sir John Burgoyne wrote to complain that, for a packet of papers sent to him at Dublin, which had been forwarded from some other part of Ireland by mail-coach, as a letter, instead of a parcel, he had been charged a postage of £11. That is to say, for a packet which he could easily have carried in his pocket, he was charged a sum for which he could have engaged the whole mail-coach—i.e., places for four inside and three outside passengers, with their portmanteaus, carpet bags, &c.
Much evidence was produced before the Parliamentary Committee appointed in 1837 to inquire into Rowland Hill's scheme of postal reform, of the hardships which the high rates of postage caused to the poor.
Frauds, to evade postage, were daily practised upon the Post Office, and, where contraband conveyance was not available, letters were constantly refused on account of the heavy postage demanded, or remained many weeks in the postmaster's hands, when the persons to whom they were addressed were poor—mothers sometimes even pawning their clothes to pay for letters from their children, or having to wait till, little by little, they could save up the money necessary for that purpose.
Mr. Emery, Deputy-Lieutenant for Somersetshire, and a Commissioner of Taxes, stated, as evidence of the desire but inability of the poor to correspond, that—
"A person in my parish of the name of Rosser had a letter from a grand-daughter in London, and she could not take up the letter for want of the means. She was a pauper, receiving two-and-sixpence a week. * * * She told the post-office keeper that she must wait until she had received the money from the relieving officer; she could never spare enough; and at last a lady gave her a shilling to get the letter, but the letter had been returned to London by the post-office mistress. She never had the letter since. It came from her grand-daughter, who is in service in London."
Struck by this fact, Mr. Emery made further inquiries, and received the following statement from the postmaster of Banwell:—
"My father kept the post office many years; he is lately dead; he used to trust poor people very often with letters; they generally could not pay the whole charge. He told me—indeed, I know—he did lose many pounds by letting poor people have their letters. We sometimes return them to London in consequence of the inability of the persons to whom they are addressed raising the postage. We frequently keep them for weeks; and, where we know the parties, let them have them, taking the chance of getting our money. One poor woman once offered my sister a silver spoon to keep until she could raise the money; my sister did not take the spoon, and the woman came with the amount in a day or two and took up the letter. It came from her husband, who was confined for debt in prison; she had six children, and was very badly off."
The following was reported by the postmaster of Congresbury:—
"The price of a letter is a great tax on poor people. I sent one, charged eightpence, to a poor labouring man about a week ago; it came from his daughter; he first refused taking it, saying it would take a loaf of bread from his other children; but after hesitating a little time, he paid the money, and opened the letter. I seldom return letters of this kind to Bristol, because I let the poor people have them, and take the chance of being paid; sometimes I lose the postage, but generally the poor people pay me by degrees."
The postmaster of Yatton stated as follows:—
"I have had a letter waiting lately from the husband of a poor woman, who is at work in Wales; the charge was ninepence; it lay many days, in consequence of her not being able to pay the postage. I at last trusted her with it."
Mr. Cobden stated:—
"We have fifty thousand in Manchester who are Irish, or the immediate descendants of Irish; and all the large towns in the neighbourhood contain a great many Irish, or the descendants of Irish, who are almost as much precluded as though they lived in New South Wales from all correspondence or communication with their relatives in Ireland."[3]
Mr. Henson, a working hosier of Nottingham, stated:—
"When a man goes on the tramp—i.e., when he travels in search of employment—he must either take his family with him, perhaps one child in arms, or else the wife must be left behind; and the misery I have known them to be in from not knowing what has become of the husband, because they could not hear from him, has been extreme. Perhaps the man, receiving only sixpence, has never had the means, upon the whole line, of paying tenpence for a letter, to let his wife know where he was."
The average postage on a letter in 1837, even including the penny letters which circulated by the local posts, was as high as 6¼d., a sum which in those days formed a far larger fraction of a working man's daily wages than it now does; and the difficulty the poor had in paying such a postage was well shown in the evidence of Mr. Brewin, of Cirencester, a member of the Society of Friends. "Sixpence," said he, "is a third of a poor man's daily income. If a gentleman, whose fortune is a thousand pounds a year, or three pounds a day, had to pay one-third of his daily income—that is to say, a sovereign—for a letter, how often would he write letters of friendship?"[4]
Extravagant and almost prohibitive as were the postal charges in 1837, the service rendered by the Post Office in return was ludicrous for its slowness and inefficiency.
There was only one dispatch of mails from the country into London daily (the mail-coaches arriving at St. Martin's-le-Grand at about 6.30 a.m.), and there was only one dispatch from London in return;—this left at 8 p.m. All letters passing through London, as, for instance, those from Brighton to Birmingham, were detained, all day long, at St. Martin's-le-Grand, and when Sunday (blank-post day) intervened, the delay was of course far greater.
Between towns near to each other on opposite sides of London, this delay and infrequency of communication rendered the Post Office almost useless. Thus a letter posted in Uxbridge on Friday evening, after the office had closed, would not be delivered at Gravesend—a distance of little more than 40 miles—till Tuesday morning, and for this service the minimum postage was sixpence.
Even if blank-post day did not intervene, and a letter was posted at Uxbridge on Monday morning, it would not be delivered at Gravesend till Wednesday; and if the reply were immediately written and posted, it would not be received till Friday—four days being then required, under the most favourable circumstances, for an exchange of communication per post which can now be effected in twenty-four hours.
Scotland and Ireland were even less well served by the Post Office than England and Wales, but even in this, the most favoured portion of the United Kingdom, there were, at the date of Her Majesty's accession, districts larger than Middlesex into which the postman never entered.
Of the 2,100 Registrars' Districts into which England and Wales were then divided, 400 districts, each containing on the average about 20 square miles, and about 4,000 inhabitants (making in all a population of about a million and a half) had absolutely no post offices whatever. The chief places in these districts, containing about 1,400 inhabitants each, were, on the average, about 5 miles, and in some instances as much as 16 miles, from the nearest post office.
Even in the London District, where postal facilities were better than in any other part of the country, the service was singularly slow and costly. A letter posted at any Receiving Office in the city after 2 p.m. was not delivered, even in Brompton, till next morning,[5] and the postage charged was 3d. per "single" letter.
As regards postal communications with places abroad, it may suffice to record the fact that the lowest postage on a single letter to Paris was 1s. 8d., to Gibraltar it was 2s. 10d., and to Egypt, 3s. 2d. Any letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight may now be sent to these places for 2½d.
A letter just weighing an ounce can now be sent to Canada or the United States for 5d., but in 1837 the postage on such a letter was 8s. 8d., with a further charge for delivery on arrival.
A packet of manuscript accounts, weighing, say, 2¾ lbs., can now be sent to Canada or the United States, by book post, for 11d., but in 1837 the "reduced postage" on such a packet was £5. Nothing heavier than 3 lbs. could be sent at this "reduced" rate. If the packet weighed, say, 3¼ lbs., it was charged full letter postage—viz., £22 10s. 8d., the present charge for such a packet being only thirteen pence.
The mails to North and South America, India, and other places beyond seas, were in 1837 conveyed by sailing vessels only, those to New York being conveyed by gun-brigs, starting from Falmouth, the voyage frequently occupying many weeks; and mails were made up in London for North and South America, the Cape of Good Hope, and India, only once a month.
The slow-sailing packets have long ago been superseded by swift steam vessels, and in place of the single monthly dispatch, the mails to India are now four a month, and to the United States four a week.
With such indifferent postal facilities, our readers will not be surprised to learn that in England and Wales, at the commencement of Her Majesty's reign, each person received, on the average, a letter only once in three months; in Scotland, only once in four months; and in Ireland, only once a year. The business of the Post Office, in those days, instead of keeping pace, as it does now, with the growth of population and trade, had become stationary, no increase whatever having taken place in either the gross or net revenue of the Post Office during the twenty years ending with 1835.
Such was the state of things when Mr. (afterwards Sir) Rowland Hill, rather more than fifty years ago, turned his attention seriously to the question of postal reform.
It is a remarkable fact that until Sir Rowland Hill had thoroughly imbued the Post Office with his own earnestness for improvement, nearly all the great reforms effected in the postal service originated with persons wholly unconnected with that department—Mr. Dockwra, who in the time of the Commonwealth instituted the town and local "penny posts," Mr. Allen, who about the year 1750 established cross posts, and Mr. Palmer, who in 1784 effected the substitution of mail coaches for horse and foot posts, having all been "outsiders;" and history again repeated itself in the case of Sir Rowland Hill, who, until his plan had been some time in operation, had never been inside the walls of any post office—a request of his, in 1836, while preparing his plans, to be permitted to see the working of the London Post Office having been politely refused.
Some two or three years before this date, Mr. Robert Wallace, M.P. for Greenock, had, in Parliament, commenced a series of bold attacks upon the postal administration, and had succeeded in breaking down the prestige which, ever since Palmer's great improvements, that department had enjoyed as a mysterious and almost perfect organisation. Mr. Wallace had compelled the Post Office to adopt many minor improvements, but the supposed necessity of protecting the Post Office revenue from any serious loss caused Postmasters-General and Chancellors of the Exchequer to set their faces firmly against all demands for a general reduction in the rates of postage.
Sir Rowland Hill had taken great interest in the question, and had come to the conclusion that the postage rates charged the public were far too high, even if revenue, and not public convenience, were the primary object for which the Post Office was maintained.
Fortunately, in the financial year ending March 31, 1836, there was a considerable excess of revenue of the country generally over the expenditure, thus leaving a good surplus at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, as is usual in such cases, there was much speculation as to what remissions of taxation might be granted. This seemed to Sir Rowland Hill to afford a good opportunity for pressing for a reduction in the rates of postage (the high rates then levied being, in fact, a heavy tax on all commercial and social communications), and in order to satisfy himself what reductions might be possible, he set to work carefully to ascertain the actual cost which the Post Office had to incur in the collection, conveyance, and delivery of letters, and it was in the course of this analysis that he discovered the startling and hitherto unsuspected fact that the actual cost of conveyance per letter, from one post town to another, was not, as had hitherto been supposed, a large fraction of the total cost incurred, and roughly proportionate to the distance the letters were carried, but was so exceedingly small that it might fairly be disregarded, and that a uniform rate of postage, with all its manifold advantages of simplicity, was not only practicable, but even fairer than one in any way dependent upon distance.
How Sir Rowland Hill arrived at this discovery, and demonstrated that by improved arrangements the lowest rate of postage then charged—viz., one penny—would suffice for all inland letters of moderate weight, even for those carried the longest distance, will be gathered from a perusal of his pamphlet.
Uniformity of postage, doubtless, at the present time, seems to most persons so completely in accordance with the fitness of things, that it may appear strange when we state that in 1837 it was so startling an innovation that, when publishing his pamphlet, Sir Rowland Hill thought it prudent to reject a suggestion to entitle it "Uniform Penny Postage," fearing lest the mere title should cause people to throw away the pamphlet unread, as something too ridiculous to deserve perusal. He, therefore, adopted the more modest heading of "Post Office Reform—Its Importance and Practicability," and it was not until the reader had been carefully led, step by step, to the point where no other conclusion would have been logical, that uniformity of postage was suggested.
So difficult, indeed, at that time, was it to convince even intelligent people that this was the true principle, that even after the pamphlet had been widely circulated, and a Parliamentary Committee had heard all the evidence in its favour, the adoption of uniformity of charge was only carried in Committee by the casting-vote of the chairman.
The difficulty the Committee had may perhaps be best understood by the present generation, if they bear in mind that Sir Rowland Hill's proposition to charge letters going long distances no more than those posted and delivered in the same town, was at least as great a departure from what was then believed to be the natural and proper arrangement, as a proposition would be now-a-days, to adopt the lowest railway passenger fare as a uniform charge for all distances.
To many of the present generation, especially to those who are afflicted with the mania for collecting postage-stamps, it will doubtless be interesting to read the earliest propositions for their adoption. Stamped envelopes, for prepayment of postage, are said to have been in use in Paris as far back as the year 1653, but they seem soon to have fallen into disuse, possibly because prepayment of postage was then, in France, as contrary to long-established custom as in 1837 it was in this country, and no advantage by way of reduced postage appears to have been offered to secure prepayment. At all events, their existence had long been forgotten, and was certainly unknown to Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent publisher, who about the year 1834 revived the idea, by proposing that stamped wrappers should be employed as a substitute for the impressed newspaper stamp, as is explained in Sir Rowland Hill's pamphlet.
Mr. Charles Knight's valuable idea, modified by Sir Rowland Hill's happy suggestion (given in his evidence before the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry on 13th of February, 1837[6] of making the stamp adhesive "by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash, which . . . by applying a little moisture," might be attached to the letter,[7] was the little seed which has now attained so gigantic a growth.[8]
Prepayment of postage by means of stamps has now become so universal a practice that to many persons it may seem incredible that, in 1839, Sir Francis Baring, and some other earnest advocates of Sir Rowland Hill's reforms, believed it would be almost impossible to induce the public to prepay their letters. This necessary change of habit was, indeed, regarded by them as a dangerous rock ahead, upon which the scheme might possibly be wrecked. To prepay a letter in those days (unless addressed to a person of very inferior social position) was considered quite as contrary to good manners as it would now be for one gentleman, when writing to another, to enclose a stamp for his reply. The fact that the postman had to collect the postage on delivery was also regarded as affording almost the only security that letters sent by post would ever reach their destination. In Sir R. Hill's pamphlet it was found necessary to deal with this supposed difficulty at considerable length. (See Appendix, p. 96.) The great reduction of postage, however, reconciled the public to the change.
Under the old postal system, to have attempted to secure prepayment, especially by means of stamps, would have been hopeless and objectless; yet many persons, trusting to their supposed recollection, have from time to time come forward to assert that they had suggested postage stamps long before Sir Rowland Hill's reforms gave the opening for them. Possibly they also believe they suggested first-class return tickets before railways were invented. Postage stamps, under the old system, when practically no one dreamed of prepaying his letters, would not only have been utterly useless, but if a stamp had been stuck upon an ordinary "single" letter, double postage would at once have become chargeable, as the letter would then have consisted of two separate pieces of paper.[9]
THE RECEPTION OF THE PLAN AND ITS RESULTS.
Although, if strict chronological order were observed, Sir Rowland Hill's pamphlet should here be given, it will probably be more convenient to many readers if we first complete this narrative by a short account of the manner in which his proposals were received, and of the results which his reforms have now produced.
By the Post Office authorities the scheme was met with the most determined hostility, one high official stating that, in his opinion, there was no portion of the plan that could be adopted with advantage either to the revenue or to the public, while the Postmaster-General (Lord Lichfield) declared that "of all the wild and visionary schemes he had ever heard or read of, it was the most extraordinary." The Secretary of the Post Office did not believe the people would write more letters even if they were carried for nothing; the Postmaster-General, on the contrary, declared that the amount of correspondence would be so enormous as to be quite unmanageable, and that the walls of the Post Office would burst—an observation that laid his lordship open to Sir Rowland Hill's sarcastic rejoinder that he was sure the Postmaster-General, on reconsideration, would have no difficulty in deciding whether, in this great and commercial country, the size of the Post Office was to be regulated by the amount of correspondence, or the amount of correspondence by the size of the Post Office.
That the Government was opposed to his scheme was, however, no news to Sir Rowland Hill. Early in January, 1837, he had, through Mr. Charles P. Villiers, then and still Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton, privately submitted the plan to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Spring Rice)—offering, indeed, to let the Government have the whole credit of the reform, if they cared to take it up—a course, however, which they were too timid to adopt.[10]
By the public at large the scheme was welcomed with enthusiasm. Meetings in support of it were called throughout the country, and petitions for its adoption poured in upon Parliament. Mr. Robert Wallace, M.P., gave the question his heartiest support, and moved for and obtained a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the scheme.
In London a strong Committee, known as "The Mercantile Committee," was formed under the Chairmanship of Mr. Bates, of the firm of Baring Brothers, containing many influential gentlemen, amongst whom the name of Mr. George Moffatt, afterwards M.P. for Southampton, deserves especial mention. Of this Committee Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Cole was the energetic Secretary, and he and it gave valuable assistance in pressing the reform on the attention of the public and the Government.
As already stated, one great difficulty was to convince the Parliamentary Committee of the fairness of adopting a uniform rate of postage, and this vital principle was only carried at last by the casting-vote of Mr. Robert Wallace, the Chairman; but even then the scheme was nearly wrecked, for the proposal that the uniform rate should be one penny was negatived by six votes against three. A three-half-penny rate was then proposed, but rejected; but a twopenny rate was finally adopted by the Committee, though this again was only carried by the Chairman's casting-vote. The report of the Committee therefore recommended the twopenny rate.
To any persons interested in postal history, this long-forgotten blue book (Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage, 1838) will amply repay perusal. It was written by Mr. Henry Warburton, a member of the Parliamentary Committee, and a most earnest friend to the measure; and though in obedience to the vote of the Committee a twopenny rate is proposed, any one able to read between the lines can easily see that the facts and conclusions of that report undoubtedly show that the rate which ought logically to be adopted was the penny.
Notwithstanding the favourable report of the Committee, the Government were reluctant to move in the matter, and little, probably, would at that time have been done but for a lucky chapter of accidents.
On the 9th April, 1839, Lord Melbourne's Government brought in what is generally known as the Jamaica Bill—a Bill for suspending for five years the constitution of that colony. This measure was strongly opposed by the Conservative party (led by Sir Robert Peel), and by many of the Radicals. On the second reading of the Bill, the Government only escaped defeat by the narrow majority of five votes. The Ministry thereupon resigned; Sir Robert Peel was sent for by Her Majesty, but owing to the "Bedchamber Difficulty" failed to form a Government. Lord Melbourne was recalled, and in the negotiations with the Radical members for future support to his Government, the bargain was struck that that support should be given, provided Penny Postage was conceded.
Thus one of the greatest social reforms ever introduced was, to speak plainly, given as a bribe by a tottering Government to secure political support.
The Act authorising the adoption of the Uniform Penny Postage system received Her Majesty's assent on the 17th of August, 1839, and, in order to carry it into effect, Sir Rowland Hill was appointed to a temporary office in the Treasury; a somewhat undignified attempt being made by the Government to get him to accept a salary wholly inadequate, under circumstances sufficiently explained in the following letter from his brother, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, whom he had consulted on the matter. This letter, it may be added, foreshadowed, with considerable accuracy, the difficulties with which the path of Postal Reform was, for many years afterwards, constantly obstructed.
Before I give you my opinion, I think it better to prevent the possibility of misapprehension, by putting in writing the heads of what you have reported to me as having occurred at the interview between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and yourself on Tuesday, respecting your proposed employment by the Government in carrying your plan of Post Office reform into operation.
You state that Mr. Baring, having regard to what had been arranged between Lord Monteagle and himself, offered to engage your services for two years for the sum of £500 per annum; you, for that remuneration, undertaking to give up your whole time to the public service. That on your expressing surprise and dissatisfaction at this proposal, the offer was raised to £800, and subsequently to £1000 per annum. You state that your answer to these proposals was, in substance, that you were quite willing to give your services gratuitously, or to postpone the question of remuneration until the experiment shall be tried; but that you could not consent to enter upon such an undertaking on a footing in any way inferior to that of the Secretary to the Post Office. You explained, you say, the object which you had in view in making this stipulation—you felt that it was a necessary stipulation to insure you full power to carry the measure into effect.
I have carefully considered the whole matter in all its bearings, and I cannot raise in my mind a doubt of the propriety of your abiding by these terms; and I will set down, as shortly as I can, the reasons which have occurred to me to show that the course you have taken was the only one really open to you.
It is quite clear that to insure a fair trial for your plan you will require great powers; that Ministers will not interfere with you themselves, nor, as far as they can prevent it, suffer you to be thwarted by others, I can readily believe; but I am not so sure of their power as I am of their goodwill. You have excited great hostility at the Post Office—that we know as a matter of fact; but it must have been inferred if the fact had not been known. It is not in human nature that the gentlemen of the Post Office should view your plan with friendly eyes. If they are good-natured persons, as I dare say they are, they will forgive you in time; but they have much to overlook. That a stranger should attempt to understand the arcana of our system of postage better than those whose duty it was to attain to such knowledge, was bad enough; that he should succeed, was still worse; but that he should persuade the country and the Parliament that he had succeeded is an offence very difficult to pardon. Now, you are called upon to undertake the task of carrying into action, through the agency of these gentlemen, what they have pronounced preposterous, wild, visionary, absurd, clumsy, and impracticable. They have thus pledged themselves, by a distinct prophecy, repeated over and over again, that the plan cannot succeed. I confess I hold in great awe prophets who may have the means of assisting in the fulfilment of their own predictions. Believe me, you will require every aid which Government, backed by the country, can give you to conquer these difficulties. You found it no easy task to defeat your opponents in the great struggle which is just concluded; but what was that to what you are now called upon to effect? no less an enterprise than to change your bitter enemies into hearty allies, pursuing your projects with goodwill, crushing difficulties instead of raising them, and using their practical knowledge, not to repel your suggestions and to embarrass your arrangements, but using the same knowledge in your behalf, aiding and assisting in those matters wherein long experience gives them such a great advantage over you, and which may be turned for or against you at the pleasure of the possessors.
To try this great experiment, therefore, with a fair chance of success, it must be quite clear that you have the confidence of the Government; and that can only be shown by their advancing you to an equality, at least, with the principal executive officer among those with whose habits and prejudices you must of necessity so much and so perpetually interfere. Have you made Mr. Baring sufficiently aware of the numerous—I might say numberless—innovations, which your plan of necessity implies? The reduction of postage and the modes of prepayment are, no doubt, the principal features of your plan; but you lay great stress, and very properly, in my opinion, on increasing the facilities for transmitting letters; and this part of the reform will, I apprehend, cause you more labour of detail than that which more strikes the public eye. In this department you will be left to contend with the Post Office almost alone. It will be very easy to raise plausible objections to your measures, of which Ministers can hardly be supposed to be competent judges, either in respect of technical information or of leisure for inquiry. Neither would the public, even if you had the means and inclination to appeal to it, give you assistance in matters upon which you could never fix its attention.
But your personal weight and importance as compared with that of others who it is reasonable to believe will, in the first instance at least, be opposed to you, will be measured very much by comparison of salary. We may say what we will, but Englishmen are neither aristocratic nor democratic, but chrysocratic (to coin a word). Your salary will, therefore, if you have one at all, fix your position in the minds of every functionary of the Post Office, from the Postmaster-General to the bellman, both inclusive.
But though I see these insuperable objections to your accepting either of the salaries which have been offered, I will not advise you (and you would reject such advice if I gave it) to embarrass the Government, if there be any difficulty, which there may be unknown to us, in the way of their either giving you a higher salary, or postponing the question of remuneration until the end of the two years. Your offer made on the spur of the moment, to surrender your present appointment, and work for the public without salary, though it does look somewhat "wild and visionary" at first sight, yet after a long and careful reflection upon it, I distinctly advise you to renew, and more than that, I seriously hope it will be accepted. Your fortune, though most men would consider it very small, is enough to enable you to live two years without additional income; and I feel certain that the Government and the country will do you and your family justice in the end; but suppose I should be mistaken, and that you never receive a shilling for either your plan or your services in carrying it into operation, I should be very glad to change places with you, and so would thousands of your countrymen, if, on taking your labours and privations, they could also feel conscious of your merit.
With reference to this letter, it is only right to add that Mr. (afterwards Sir) Francis Baring at once recognised the soundness of the views expressed therein, overruled all official objections, and placed Sir Rowland Hill's appointment on a proper footing.
To Sir Francis Baring, for his cordial support through a period of great difficulty, Sir Rowland Hill was deeply indebted. Many years after, when an old man, Sir Francis Baring stated that nothing gave him more satisfaction, when looking back upon his career, than the part he had taken in helping on the cause of Penny Postage.
On the 10th January, 1840, the Uniform Penny Postage System came into operation. Of the endless difficulties Sir Rowland Hill had to encounter in forcing his reforms down the throats of the authorities at St. Martin's-le-Grand, we need not here give any account. The story is told in the Life of Sir Rowland Hill published about seven years ago; and the complete success of his postal scheme is now everywhere fully recognised.
It should, however, be stated that in 1842 the hostility of certain officials to the new reform rose to such a pitch that—by means which even at this length of time it would hardly be safe to describe—Sir Robert Peel's Government (then in power) was coerced into putting an end to Sir Rowland Hill's engagement at the Treasury. This was terminated in September, 1842; the excuse publicly given by the Government for so doing being that the new postal system was then working so well that Sir Rowland Hill's services were no longer necessary. As was characteristically stated by Thomas Hood at the time, "it would never surprise him, after such an instance of folly and ingratitude, to hear of the railway people some day, finding their trains running so well, proposing to discharge the engines."
With profuse expressions of the high sense the Government entertained of his personal character, and of the value of the services he had rendered to the public, Sir R. Hill was politely bowed out of office, and the new postal system handed over to the tender mercies of its worst enemies.
By the public this ungracious act was strongly resented, and when, in 1846, Lord John Russell's Government came into power, a staff appointment at the Post Office was offered to Sir Rowland Hill, and accepted by him (though at a serious personal sacrifice), in order that he might complete his reforms.
Gradually official opposition died away (or was confined to small cliques, more or less troublesome, within the department), old opponents became converted into zealous helpers, postal reform sped swiftly on, and the minute of the Treasury on the occasion of Sir Rowland Hill resigning the Secretaryship of the Post Office in 1864—which we here append—shows how cordially his services were at last recognised even in the official world itself.
Copy of Treasury Minute granting a Special Superannuation Allowance to Sir Rowland Hill, K.C.B., Secretary to the General Post Office.
Treasury Minute, dated 11th March, 1864.
Read also letter from the Postmaster-General of the instant, stating that Sir Rowland Hill has in consequence of the state of his health been compelled to retire from the public service, and bearing his testimony to the eminent services which Sir Rowland Hill has rendered.
The retirement of Sir Rowland Hill from the office of Secretary to the Post Office would, if treated under the ordinary machinery of the Superannuation Act, afford to my Lords the power of granting him no more than a pension of £566 13s. 4d., or at the utmost £666 13s. 4d., but it supplies, in the judgment of my Lords, an occasion of peculiar fitness for calling into action the 9th or special clause of the Superannuation Act, and thus, by a proceeding which marks their sense of his services, of drawing to those services the attention of Parliament.
The period during which Sir Rowland Hill has held office, either by a temporary or a permanent appointment, is but little in excess of 20 years; yet my Lords have to regret that while he remains full as ever of ability, energy, and resources, and of disposition to expend them for the public good, the state of his health, due, without doubt, in great part to his indefatigable labours, compels him to solicit a retirement.
It is not, however, by length of service that the merits and claims of such a man are to be measured. It is not even by any acknowledgment or reward which the Executive Government, in the exercise of the powers confided to it, can confer.
The postal system, one of the most powerful organs which modern civilisation has placed at the command of Government, has, mainly under the auspices and by the agency of Sir Rowland Hill, been, within the last quarter of a century, not merely improved, but transformed. The letters transmitted have increased nearly nine-fold, and have been carried at what may be estimated as little more than one-ninth of the former charge. In numerous respects convenience has been consulted and provided for even more than cheapness.
Upon the machinery for the transmission of letters there have been grafted other schemes, which, at a former period, would justly have been deemed visionary, for the transmission of books with other printed matter, and of money, and for receiving and storing the savings of the people.
While these arduous duties have been undertaken, the condition of the persons employed in this vast department has been improved, and, could attention be adequately drawn to what lies beneath the surface, my Lords are persuaded that the methods of communication by letter which are now in action have produced for the mass of the population social and moral benefits which might well have thrown even these brilliant results into the shade.
As respects purely fiscal interests, advantages so great as those which have been recited were, of course, not to be obtained without some effort or sacrifice. But the receipts on account of postal service, which on the first adoption of the change were reduced by above a million sterling, have now more than recovered themselves, and if computed on the same basis as under the old system, the gross sum realised is about £3,870,000, instead of £2,346,000, and the net about £1,790,000, in lieu of £1,660,000; at the same time, contraband in letters may be stated to have ceased, and instead of a stationary revenue, such as that derived from letters between 1815 and 1835, the State has one which is steadily and even rapidly progressive.
My Lords do not forget that it has been by the powerful agency of the railway system that these results have been rendered practicable. Neither do they enter into the question, as foreign to the occasion, what honour may be due to those who, before the development of the plans of Sir Rowland Hill, urged the adoption of the uniform penny postage.[11] Nor are they insensible to the fact that the co-operation of many able public servants has been essential to the work performed. But after all justice has been done to others. Sir Rowland Hill is beyond doubt the person to whom it was given to surmount every kind of obstacle, and to bring what had been theretofore matter of speculation into the world of practice, without whom the country would not have enjoyed the boon, or would only have enjoyed it at a later date, and to whom, accordingly, its enjoyment may justly be deemed due.
Nor is it in this country alone that are to be perceived the happy fruits of his labours; the recognition of his plans has spread with a rapidity to be accounted for only by their excellence from land to land, and truly may now be said to have met with acceptance throughout the civilised world.
Under these circumstances, it may justly be averred that my Lords are dealing on the present occasion with the case not merely of a meritorious public servant, but of a benefactor of his race; and that his fitting reward is to be found not in this or that amount of pension, but in the grateful recollection of his country.
But my Lords discharge the portion of duty which belongs to them, with cordial satisfaction, in awarding to Sir Rowland Hill, for life, his full salary of £2,000 per annum.
Let a copy of this Minute be laid before Parliament.
Transmit copy to the Postmaster-General, with a request that it may be communicated to Sir Rowland Hill.
My Lords, — The Postmaster-General, as requested by your Lordships, has done me the favour to furnish me with a copy of your Minute of 11th instant, granting me a special superannuation allowance on retiring from my office as Secretary to the Post Office, and conveying to me the very favourable opinion, which your Lordships are pleased to express, of the manner in which I have discharged my duties.
It cannot be necessary to assure your Lordships of the deep gratification with which I have received so handsome and elaborate a recognition of my services. I have only to beg that you will be pleased to accept my most respectful thanks.
In a document so highly complimentary, I hesitate to notice what would appear to be an admission, inadvertently made, to the effect that the adoption of the uniform penny postage was urged by others before the development of my plans. This, I assure your Lordships, is an error; and, as uniformity of rate constitutes the main feature of my plan, I am naturally anxious to place before you the real facts of the case. I trust, therefore, you will pardon me if I request attention to the enclosed memorandum on the subject.
I need scarcely add, that should the expectations of my medical friends, of improved health from rest, be realised, and any occasion arise in which it may appear to your Lordships that my assistance or advice in further postal improvements may be of advantage, I shall feel honoured by being permitted to place them at your disposal.
The Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of
Her Majesty's Treasury, &c. &c. &c.
Memorandum.
A low and uniform rate of postage forms the most essential feature of my plan of postal reform, and I have no hesitation in stating that its conception originated wholly with myself. To guard against future error, I ask permission to place on record a brief statement of facts.
The principle of uniformity of rate, now that it has been in successful operation for nearly a quarter of a century, appears, perhaps, simple and obvious; but so far from its having been, as it is sometimes supposed, the happy thought of a moment, it was the result of most laborious investigation on my part. Indeed, a slight consideration will show that its conception necessarily involved a previous discovery, viz., that the cost per letter of mere transit within the limits of the United Kingdom was practically inappreciable, or, at least, that it was not dependent mainly on distance, being, in fact, quite as much dependent on the number of letters contained in the particular mail as on the distance that mail was carried. Indeed, it was shown from careful investigation that the cost of mere conveyance, even for so great a distance as from London to Edinburgh, was only the 36th part of a penny per letter. From this and other facts it followed that a uniform rate was more just than one varying according to distance. The convenience of uniformity was obvious.
I may add that when I first entered on the investigations preparatory to the construction of my plan, I myself had no conception of the practicability of a uniform rate; and that the discovery referred to above was as startling to myself, as it proved when announced to the public at large.
A reference to my original pamphlet, a copy of which is, I presume, still in your Lordship's possession, or to my evidence before the Select Committee of 1838, appointed to inquire into the practicability of my plans, will show the various steps by which I arrived at the conclusion that a uniform penny rate was at once just and practicable.
There is but one other person, so far as I am aware, to whom the suggestion of a uniform penny rate has, with even the slightest plausibility, ever been assigned—I refer to the late Mr. Wallace, formerly Member for Greenock, and Chairman of the Select Committee on Postage in 1838; but though Mr. Wallace frequently urged, among other useful reforms, a great reduction in the postal charges, I can say from personal knowledge that he had no idea whatever of a uniform rate until after the publication of my pamphlet. Indeed, this sufficiently appears from his speech in Parliament in July, 1836, the last occasion on which, before the publication of my pamphlet, he referred to the rates of postage. The following is an extract from "Hansard" (vol. 35, 3d series, p. 422):—
*****
"At the same time the rates of postage ought to be reduced. It would be proper not to charge more than 3d. for any letter sent a distance of 50 miles; for 100 miles, 4d.; 200 miles, 6d.; and the highest rate of postage ought not to be more than 8d. or 9d. at most."
*****
Further evidence upon this point is also in my possession, which can be submitted, should it be deemed necessary.
Hampstead, 17th March, 1864.
In reply to this the Treasury at once assured Sir Rowland Hill that they had had no intention whatever of questioning the originality of his scheme of postal reform.[12]
[With reference to the above memorandum, it may be useful to state that ever since the Uniform Penny Postage became an admitted success, numerous claimants—generally insane—have come forward from time to time, each asserting that he, and not Sir Rowland Hill, was the real originator of the plan, or of some of its essential features. Similar claims—mostly founded on some hallucination—are constantly forthcoming to every important improvement. No one, however, has yet explained what could have induced all these early postal reformers, without one single exception, to adopt the extraordinary course of carefully destroying every shred of documentary evidence which would have been useful in establishing their claims; not one of them having been able to produce a single published document, containing his supposed-to-be-similar suggestions, which is not of much later date than Sir Rowland's Hill's pamphlet of February, 1837. Probably these claimants, if they ever really devised anything, never published their ideas; but if that be the case, valuable suggestions never published are worth no more to the public than good advice never given, and any claims founded thereon are too absurd to deserve attention.]
Besides the Treasury minute above quoted, other cordial recognitions of his services were showered upon Sir Rowland Hill on his retirement. Her Majesty had, a short time before, been graciously pleased to confer upon him the dignity of a Knight Commander of the Bath. The Society of Arts, through the hands of the Prince of Wales, presented him with the Albert Gold Medal—the first ever conferred. From Oxford he received the honorary dignity of D.C.L.; from Parliament a grant of £20,000 and full salary as a pension for the remainder of his life.
Birmingham, and, later on, Kidderminster (his native town) and London, erected a statue in his honour. Liverpool and other towns presented him with valuable testimonials of their regard; amongst other such gifts was one to which he attached especial value—viz., a pair of china vases, made by the workmen of the Staffordshire potteries, who, when they knew for whom the vases were intended, had, at their own request, given their labour and skill without any remuneration.
Sir Rowland Hill lived in quiet retirement at Hampstead more than fifteen years after he had left the Post Office. Just a few months before his death the Corporation of London, on the motion of Mr.Washington Lyon, conferred upon him the Freedom of the City, giving a double grace to the honour by adopting, in consequence of his failing health, the hitherto unprecedented course of dispensing with his personal attendance at Guildhall, and appointing a special deputation to present it to him at his own residence.
Peacefully and painlessly he passed away in his 84th year, on the 27th of August, 1879, and was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of James Watt; and in concluding this portion of our notice, we can hardly do better than quote the admirable poem in which, turning as he sometimes does from lighter to more serious thoughts, Mr. Punch expressed the feelings of the world at large.
IN MEMORIAM.
Rowland Hill.
Originator of Cheap Postage.
Born at Kidderminister, Dec. 3rd, 1795. Died at Hampstead, Aug. 27th, 1879.
Buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of James Watt,
Thursday, September 4th.
No question this of worthy's right to lie
With England's worthiest, by the grave of him
Whose brooding brain brought under mastery
The wasted strength of the Steam-giant grim.
Like labours—his who tamed by sea and land
Power, Space, and Time, to needs of human kind,
That bodies might be stronger, nearer hand,
And his who multiplied mind's links with mind,
Breaking the barriers that, of different height
For rich and poor, were barriers still for all.
Till "out of mind" was one with "out of sight,"
And parted souls oft parted past recall;
Freeing from tax unwise the interchange
Of distant mind with mind and mart with mart;
Releasing thought from bars that clipped its range;
Lightening a load felt most i' the weakest part.
What if the wings he made so strong and wide
Bear burdens with their blessings? Own that all
For which his bold thought we oft hear decried,
Of laden bag, too frequent postman's call,
Is nothing to the threads of love and light
Shot, thanks to him, through life's web dark and wide.
Nor only where he first unsealed men's sight.
But far as pulse of time and flow of tide!
Was it a little thing to think this out?
Yet none till he had hit upon the thought;
And, the thought brought to birth, came sneer and flout
Of all his insight saw, his wisdom taught;
All office-doors were closed against him—hard;
All office heads were closed against him too.
He had but worked, like others, for reward."
"The thing was all a dream." "It would not do."
But this was not a vaguely dreaming man,
A wind-bag of the known Utopian kind;
He had thought out, wrought out, in full, his plan;
'Twas the far-seeing fighting with the blind:
And the far-seeing won his way, at last,
Though pig-headed Obstruction's force died hard;
Denied his due, official bitters cast
Into the cup wrung slowly from their guard.
But not until the Country, wiser far
Than those that ruled it, with an angry cry,
Seeing its soldiers 'gainst it waging war,
At last said resolutely, " Stand you by!
"And let him in to do what he has said,
And you do not, and will not let him do."
And so at last the fight he fought was sped,
Thought at less cost freer and farther flew.
And all the world was kindlier closer knit,
And all man's written word can bring to man
Had easier ways of transit made for it,
And none sat silent under poortith's ban
When severed from his own, as in old days.
And this we owe to one sagacious brain,
By one kind heart well-guided, that in ways
Of life laborious sturdy strength had ta'en.
And his reward came, late, but sweeter so,
In the wide sway that his wise thought had won;
He was as one whose seed to tree should grow,
Who hears him blest that sowed it 'gainst the sun.
So love and honour made his grey hairs bright,
And while most things he hoped to fulness came,
And many ills he warred with were set right,
Good work and good life joined to crown his name.
And now that he is dead, we see how great
The good work done, the good life lived how brave,
And through all crosses hold him blest of fate,
Placing this wreath upon his honoured grave!
CONCLUSION.
LATER IMPROVEMENTS.
Not the least important of the reforms Sir Rowland Hill effected was the transformation of St. Martin's-le-Grand from a sort of official "Sleepy Hollow" into a department taking a just pride in the efficiency of the postal service, and eagerly and constantly seeking to extend its usefulness. The good that men do lives after them, and Sir Rowland Hill's views and principles—once regarded by the Department as "wild, visionary, and absurd"—have long become its fundamental rules, and daily receive practical recognition.
By weeding the office, as far as possible, of the State's "bad bargains;" by steadily encouraging efficiency and zealous service wherever found; by taking care that in all promotions advancement should be regulated solely by superior efficiency, no regard whatever being given to political or private influence, Sir R. Hill succeeded in training up a staff of officers well capable of continuing the great work he had originated.
Since his resignation in 1864, the whole of Europe, Canada, the United States, Egypt, and many other important places, have been included in a Postal Union, throughout which letters may be sent for a uniform rate of 2½d. per half ounce—a marvellous change in the direction of simplicity and cheapness; and before long we hope India, Australia, and indeed our whole Colonial Empire, may be enjoying the same great advantage.
Looking nearer home we find that in place of the single daily communication with London, towns like Liverpool, Manchester, and Brighton receive as many as seven such dispatches daily—many other towns receiving four or five—while even to those places, so remote from London, that letters sent could not be delivered the same day (and where, therefore, very frequent dispatches would be useless), two, and in some cases three, mails daily have been established.
Town and suburban deliveries have been greatly increased in frequency and rapidity, and additional facilities are constantly being afforded. In the year ending 31st March, 1886—the latest for which the Postmaster-General's Report has as yet been issued—371 new Post Offices and 860 pillar and wall boxes were established, or, roughly speaking, four new Post Offices of one sort or another were opened every working day throughout that year.
The result of these long-continued improvements—powerfully assisted of course by the extension of the Railway system—has been enormously to increase the amount of correspondence.
The 76½ millions of chargeable letters delivered in the United Kingdom under the old system in 1839, had expanded in the year 1885-6 to a gross total, including post-cards, of nearly 1,575 millions, or more than twenty-fold the former number.
In place of 44½ millions of newspapers transmitted by post, as in 1839, the annual number is now more than 147½ millions, and if we add to these the 342 millions of Book-packets and circulars, and the 26½ millions of articles sent last year by Parcel Post, the total number of missives transmitted through the Post Office annually for delivery in the United Kingdom (exclusive therefore of outward Foreign and Colonial mails) reaches the goodly total of more than 2,091 millions.
The gross revenue is now fourfold, and the net revenue double its former amount—pretty fair results from a plan no portion of which could, in the opinion of the old postal officials, be adopted with advantage either to the public or to the revenue!
Among other great improvements in the Post Office, the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks, originally proposed by Sir Charles W. Sykes, manager of the Huddersfield Banking Company, the cheapening of the telegraph service, and the establishment of the Parcel Post are too obvious to need more than a passing allusion, though they furnish abundant evidence of the sturdy growth and strong vitality of that beneficent measure of "Post Office Peform" of which, just fifty years ago, the "importance and practicability" were first made manifest.
The contrast between the old and new postal systems in all matters affecting social intercourse, has perhaps never been placed in a more striking light than in the following letter from Miss Harriet Martineau to Sir Thomas Wilde, M.P. (afterwards Lord Truro), who, at the time it was written, was drawing the attention of Parliament to the difficulties which official jealousy was placing in the way of Postal Reform. This letter gives a vivid picture of the happiness which the Penny Postage system, even in its then imperfect state, had conferred almost at a burst upon the public, and especially upon the poorer classes.
THE BENEFITS OF PENNY POSTAGE.
Letter from Miss Harriet Martineau to Sir Thomas Wilde, M.P.
The benefits it confers on social and domestic interests exceed, in my opinion, the whole sum of the rest. We hear less of this class of results than of others—partly because they are of a delicate nature, involving feelings which individuals shrink from laying open, and partly because they are so universal (where the privilege of cheap postage extends), that it seems to be no one's especial business to declare them; but there can be no doubt that this class of blessings is felt with a keenness and a depth of gratitude which, if they could only find expression, would overwhelm the author of this reform with a sense of the magnitude of his own work.
The first mournful event in the life of a happy family of the middle and lower classes—the family dispersion—is softened, has, indeed, assumed a new aspect within the last four years. When the sons go forth into the world to prepare themselves for a vocation, or to assume it, the parting from parents and sisters is no longer what it was, from the sense of separation being so much lessened. Formerly, the monthly or fortnightly letter—a stated expense, to be incurred only with regularity, and the communication itself confined to a single sheet—had nothing of the familiarity of correspondence. At present, when on any occasion, on the slightest prompting of inclination, the youth can pour out his mind to his best friends—no sudden check upon family confidence being imposed, and no barrier becoming gradually erected by infrequency of intercourse—the moral dangers of a young man's entrance upon life are incalculably lessened.
In the preservation of access to parents and home, many thousands of young men are provided with a safeguard, for want of which many thousands formerly became aliens from family interests, and thereby outcasts from the innocence and confidence of home.
The State has the closest interest in the rectitude and purity of its rising citizens, and therefore the public gratitude is due to a measure which promotes them; but when it is considered that the general sense of access to home which young men now carry abroad puts new valour into the heart of the brave—new reliance into that of the timid—that it encourages the enterprising, rouses the indolent, and, in short, brings all the best influences of the old life to bear upon the new, it is clear that the State must be better served in proportion to the improved power and comfort of its rising race of men.
Not less certain is the benefit to the daughters of the industrious classes. If the governesses of this country (in whose hands rest much of the moral destiny of another generation) could speak of the influence of this reform upon their lot, what should we not hear of the blessing of access to home? We should hear of parents' advice and sympathy obtained when needed most; of a daily sense of support from the scarcely ideal presence of mother or brother; of nights of sleep obtained by the disburdening of cares; of relief from the worst experience of poverty (however small the actual means may be) while expense is no longer the irritating hindrance of speech, the infliction which makes the listening parent deaf, and the full-hearted daughter dumb. When we look somewhat lower, and regard the classes which furnish hundreds of thousands of workwomen, of dressmakers, of shopwomen, and domestic servants, the benefits of this access to home become clearly inestimable. Society seems to be awakening to a sense of the hardship of ill-requited labour—of the extreme scantiness of the recompense of the toil of women especially. However grievous the hardship may be, the case was worse when the solitary worker felt her affections crushed—felt as if forsaken under an enforced family silence. Far more important is the opening of the Post Office to hundreds and thousands of these industrious workers than an increase of earnings would be; for the restoration of access to home, which might then be an expensive indulgence, is now a matter of course for all; a benefit enjoyed without hesitation or remorse. Now while they can spare a few pence from the supply of their urgent wants, they can retain their place in affection and self-respect beside the family hearth, and who shall say to how many this privilege has been equivalent to peace of mind—in how many cases to the preservation of innocence and a good name?
Then, again, how many are the sick-rooms of this country, and how many of the active members of society are interested in each sick-room? Among the richer classes, if any member of a family is ill, the rest can come together and await the event. Not so in the wide-spreading working classes. There, whatever may be their anxieties, families must remain asunder. For the most part the absent members were, till lately, obliged to be patient under a weekly bulletin, or if more frequent accounts were indulged in, the expense was a heavy aggravation of the cost of illness, and was indeed in large families out of the question. Look at the difference now! How much more allowable is a daily bulletin now than a weekly one was then; and though the sick are few in comparison with the numbers who have an interest in them, they are numerous enough, particularly if we include the aged and infirm, to deserve consideration for themselves. Who can imagine the importance of the post hour, in these days, to the sick and suffering? Who does not know that to a multitude of these sufferers post time is the brightest season of the day? Indeed, an entirely new alleviation, a most salutary source of cheerfulness, has been let into the sick-room by the new Post Office arrangement. It would be a blessing if only a few sufferers were enriched with a flow of family and friendly correspondence, not only of letters but of drawings, books, music, flowers, seeds, and bouquets—of all the little gifts that the Post Office can convey. It would be agreeable that a small adornment of such graces should accompany the grand utilities of the system, but when it is considered to what an extent this benefit spreads, that not a day of any year passes that a multitude of sick and infirm are not thus cheered, these humanities and graces command a gratitude seldom due on so large a scale.
Then, again, there is a diffusion of the advantages gained by one member of a family or society, so that the recompense of one person's talents or merits becomes a benefit to many. If one member of a family attains a position in literature, or any other pursuit which gives him a command of information or other interests, he needs no longer to confine it to himself for want of means to communicate the luxury. The infirm father, the blind mother, whose pleasures are becoming fewer and fewer, may now not only enjoy the fame of an eminent son and daughter as a matter of complacency, but may share that portion of the results which consists in correspondence.
Instead of the weekly letter of one single sheet, there comes now a frequent packet, enclosing letters from all parts of the world—tidings on a host of subjects of interest, political, scientific, or literary—a wealth of ideas to occupy the weary mind, and of pleasures wherewith to refresh the sleepless affections. As for the advantages of a more business-like character arising from the present facilities for the transmission of family letters and papers, they are so great as to defy description, and so obvious as not to need it.
Some persons seem to think all these considerations of too private and delicate a character to be openly connected with any fiscal arrangement. The more unusual such a connexion the more carefully, in my opinion, should it be exhibited. The more infrequent the occasions when a Government can, by its fiscal arrangements, directly promote the social and domestic virtue and happiness of a whole people, and engage its gratitude and affection, the more eagerly should such occasions be embraced. The present is such a one as, I imagine, has never before presented itself in the history of legislation. The best that one can ordinarily say in regard to revenue arrangements is that they produce the smallest practicable amount of evil, and that that amount of evil ought to be cheerfully borne for the sake of the indispensable object. Very different is the case of the new postage. By the same means which are yearly augmenting the revenue, there is a strengthening of social and domestic charities. The same arrangements which carry more money into the Treasury, which stimulate commerce and encourage science and literature, serve to expand the influences of home, and to repeal for the dispersed the sentence of banishment from the best influences of life. From this strong and honourable peculiarity our new Post Office system will, I imagine, take rank in history above all fiscal arrangements of any former time.
It will stand alone as being not only tolerated and obeyed, but as having won for Government a gratitude and attachment such as no other single measure could win, and such as will deepen with every passing year. My own belief is that at this moment such grateful attachment is already a set-off against a large measure of disaffection, partial and imperfect as is, as yet, the working of the system.
As regards the author of the penny postage system, I know, of my own knowledge, that a multitude of persons are, like myself, really oppressed by the sense of obligation as yet almost unacknowledged and wholly unrequited. The personal obligations of every one of us are heavy, but when we think of the amount of blessing he has conferred on the morals and affections of a whole people, of the number of innocent persons and sufferers cheered by the knowledge spread abroad and human happiness promoted by his single hand, we are led to question whether any one member of society ever before discharged so much of the functions at once of the pulpit, the press, the parent, the physician, and the ruler—ever in so short a time benefited his nation so vastly, or secured so unlimited a boon to the subjects of an empire; and when other nations shall have adopted his reforms, there may be an extension even of this praise.I am, Sir, yours respectfully,
Sir Thomas Wilde, M.P.
We now place a facsimile of Sir Rowland Hill's pamphlet in our readers' hands.
- ↑ Vide Martineau's History of the Thirty Years' Peace, Vol. IV., p. 11.
- ↑ For a remarkable case of this kind, see Sir R. Hill's pamphlet, Appendix, p. 72.
- ↑ Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, Vol I., pp. 306–7.
- ↑ Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, Vol. I, p. 305.
- ↑ A letter can now be posted up to 6 p.m., and still be delivered the same evening.
- ↑ See Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry, pp. 32—33. See also Sir Rowland Hill's pamphlet, p. 45.
- ↑ "Mr. Hill, adopting Mr. Knight's suggestion, has applied it to the general purposes of the Post Office with an ingenuity and address which make it his own."—Quarterly Review, No. 128, p. 555.
- ↑ Postage stamps were first used in the United Kingdom on 6th May, 1840. They were manufactured by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon, and Petch, of 69, Fleet Street, who for forty years retained the contract for supplying the penny
FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL SKETCH FOR THE POSTAGE STAMP.and twopenny labels—these constituting more than nine-tenths of all the postage stamps employed. The number of stamps produced by them in the forty years amounted to the enormous total of nearly twenty-three thousand millions, sufficient, if placed in line, to encircle the world fifteen times over. In 1855, Messrs. Delarue & Co., of 110, Bunhill Row, also commenced the manufacture of postage stamps, having obtained the contract for the fourpenny labels. Gradually the whole work of making postage stamps for this country and most of its colonies has been entrusted to the latter firm.
- ↑ The late Dr. J. E. Gray, of the British Museum (of whose honesty, as distinguished from failing memory, no question could arise), has claimed to have suggested adhesive postage stamps as early as 1833-4. Claims of similar character are more fully noticed at p. 36.
- ↑ Vide Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, Vol. I., p. 263.
- ↑ For correction of this error, see Sir R. Hill's reply subjoined.
- ↑ Life of Sir Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage, Vol. II., p. 394.
