Sir Rowland Hill

re 1840 an interesting account is given of the reformers who, long before Rowland Hill's

hose who are rash enough to meddle with a long-established monopoly, no matter how greatly it may stand in need of reform. In every instance the reformer struggled hard for recognition of the soundness of his views, toiled manfully w

as a sub-searcher at the Custom House; and Palmer was the proprietor of the Bath theatre. My father, as has been shown, had been a schoolmaster, a rotatory printing press inventor, and a member of the South Australian Commission. Even when his plan was accepted by the Gove

thy" had, Mr Joyce tells us, "been cradled and nursed in the Post Office," and his grandmother was postmistress at St Columb, Cornwall. Here he kept the official accounts in so neat

l system. To that which superseded it he makes but brief allusion, because the subject

far as postal reform is [Pg 72] concerned. The later history of the Post Office, which would easily make a volume as large as Mr Joy

his work, Mr Joyce says, "This was the introduction of postage."[49] To Witherings, therefore, must be awarded the merit of having furnished cause f

were, of course, exacted. If "bigger" than double, the postage became 6d., 9d. and 1s. Single postage to and from Scotland was 8d., to and from Ireland 9d. These were heavy rates at a time when the country was far less wealthy and

nly reformer from outside who, withinside, rose to become supreme head of the Department. The office was given to enable him to undertake, unhindered, the improvements he proposed to make in the inland pos

e farmed at ￡43,000 a year, and the officials consisted of one Postmaster-General and seventy-five e

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ap rates, of parcels and letters, and established agencies about the country for the furtherance of a scheme to greatly reduce the postal charges throughout the kingdom; his p

[53] and there was no such thing as a delivery of letters between one part of London and another. Thus, if any Londoner wished to write to any other Londoner, he was obliged to employ a messenger

he city letters were delivered for 1d., in the suburbs for 2d. It must have been quite [Pg 75] as epoch-making a reform to the Londoners of the seventeenth century, as was the far wider-reaching, completer scheme established a hundred and sixty years later to the ent

der system. Things called by a similar name are not necessarily identical. Indeed, as we have seen, the word "postage" had formerly quite a different meaning from that it now has; and, although Dockwra's "penny post" and R

hile its area, which in Queen Anne's reign had been extended to from 18 to 20 miles beyond London, shrank into much narrower limits.[56] The increase of charge was due to that augmented contribution, on the part of the Post Office, to the war-tax which has been already mentioned. During the la

d by a few public-spirited citizens of London. The undertaking was a losing speculation at first, but presently began to prosper; and the Duke's jealousy was at once roused. "So long," says Mr Joyce, "as the outgoings exceeded the receipts, Dockwra re

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e was granted a pension, and after some delay was reinstated as comptroller of the penny post. But in 1700 both situation a

ck-on-Shannon was the only town in County Leitrim which received a mail, and that not oftener th

in some instances a single assistant, constituting the entire staff, no sort of duty outside the official walls being undertaken. The Channel Islands were treated as though they had been in another planet. Before 1794 they had no postal communication with the rest of the United Kingdom

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ress becomes evident. Ruts there were, says Arthur Young, which measured 3 feet in depth, and in wet weather were filled to the brim with water; while in "Guy Mannering" Scott speaks of districts "only accessible through a succession of tremendous morasses." In "Waverley" (temp. 1745) is described the "Northern Diligence, a huge, old-fashioned tub drawn by three horses, which completed the journey from Edinburgh to London ('God willing,' as the advertisement expressed it) in three weeks." Twenty years later, even, the coaches spent from twelve to fourteen days upon the journey, and went once a mont

might be had from a place distant 200 miles from the writer." And now, even in face of that notable advance, the public wanted further concessions! One prominent official "could not see why the post should be the swiftest conveyance in England." Another [Pg 80] was sure that if travelling were made quicker, the correspondence of the country would be thrown into the utmost confusion. But he thought-and perhaps the parentage of the thought was not far to seek-that to expedite the mails was simply impossible. The officials, indeed, were "unanimously of opinion that the

therings and Dockwra; and, after him, with Rowland Hill. The unforgivable offence is t

My father, who was born less than forty-three years [Pg 81] after "the change of style," as a child often heard old people, in all seriousness, lament the loss of "our eleven days," and declare that since it was made everything in this country had gone wrong.[62] I too, when young, have heard aged lip

ncerning them are substantially alike. The terrible things prophesied never come t

s mail-coaches were new. He was a born organiser, and insisted on the introduction and maintenance of business-like methods. Unnecessary stoppages along the road were put an end to, and necessary stoppages shortened; the mail-bags to be taken on were made up before the coaches appeared, the mail-bags to be taken off were

hirty-eight hours. The first mail-coach which started from Bath to London under his auspices in 1784 performed the journey in seventeen hours, proving with what nearness to absolu

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One postman had sufficed for Edinburgh; now four were required. Manchester till 1792 had but one letter-carrier, and its postal staff c

; and then it was not a highwayman, but a passenger who did the looting. Before 1784 the annual expenditure incurred through prosecution of the thieves had been a heavy charge on the service, one tr

time consumed on each journey, calculating in how much less time it could be performed b

ere kept of its gains. Palmer looked into the condition of the local post, as, in addition to the mail conveyance, he had already looked into the condition of the newspaper post and other things which stood in need of rectifica

eforms on their own account. Hasker, the head superintendent of the mail-coaches, kept the vehicles, horses, accoutrements, etc., to say nothing of the officials, quite up

et over the ground at such a rate that the late Lord Campbell, when a young man, was once, in all seriousness, advised to avoid using Palmer's coaches, which, it was said, owing to the speed at which they travelled between London and Edinburgh, and elsewhere,

lford and his contemporary MacAdam-whose name has enriched our language with a verb, while the man himself endowed our thoroughfares wit

p. The threatened mail-coaches lived on for many a year, but from each long country highway they disappeared one after another, some of them, it is said, carrying, on their last journey, the union Jack at half-mast; and, ere long, the once busy

riod of senile decay, but when his work was at the high water-mark of efficiency and fame. Perhaps that singular fact is suggestive of th

on and gold vehicles in single file, each with its load of comfortably wrapped-up passengers sitting outside, and each drawn by four galloping steeds, whose quick footfalls made a pleasant, rhythmic sound. One heard the long, silvern horns of the guards, [Pg 87] every now and then, give notice in peremptory tones to the drivers of ordinary conveyances to scatter to right and left, and one noted the heavy cloud of dust which rolled with and after the striking picture. A spectacle it was beside which the modern railway train is ugly, the motor-car hideous: which rarely failed to draw onlookers to doorways and windows, and to give pedestrians pause; and which always swe

the coach swept past, the passengers shouted out the latest intelligence. Even from afar the waiting throngs [Pg 88] in war time could always tell when the news was of victories gained, or, better still, of peace, such as the short-lived pact of Amiens, and the one of long duration after June 1815. On these occasions the vehicle was made gay with flags, ribbons, green boughs, and fl

wland Hill, who found him an interesting and original-minded man, his fluent English, naturally, being redolent of the Hibernian brogue. Bianconi's daughter, who married a son of the great O'Connell, wrote her father's "Life"; and, among other experiences, told how on one occasion he was amazed to see a Catholic gentleman, while driving a pair of horses along the main street of an Irish town, stopped by a Protestant who coolly detached the animals from the carriage, an

ing so when, like the mail-coaches, they had reached a high level

, long current in our [Pg 90] family, and strictly authentic, belongs to the ante-railway portion of the nineteenth century. One of my mother's girl-friends, pretty, lively, clever, and frankly coquettish, was once returning alone by coach to London after a visit to the country. She was the only inside passenger, but was assured that the other three places would be filled on arrival at the next stage. When, therefore, the coach halted again, she looked with some curiosity to see who were to be her travelling companions. But the expected three resolved themselves into the person of one smiling young man whose face she recognised, and who at once sat down on the seat opposite to hers, ere long confessing that, hearing

e of Kelly, of whom more anon. But the [Pg 91] chilling treatment meted out by officials within the postal sanctuary to those reform-loving persons sojourning outs

behind the Post Offices of other countries-especially, perhaps, that of France-and t