Sir Rowland Hill

and Hill's connection with the Treasury augured ill for its continuance. Even t

r what seemed to be the signature of a then well-known man connected with Australian affairs who, at the meetings of the Association, was much given to bestow on its members much unsought advice and worthless criticism; and was therefore, by unanimous consent, voted an insufferable bore. However, when a messenger came from the Treasury to ask why no notice had been taken of a letter from the Chan

ORME

and Hill when Penny P

was put up

aph by Messrs.

class, had just inaugurated an epoch-making reform destined to confer lasting benefit on his own country and on the entire civilised world; who was on the wrong side of forty; and who had a wife and young children to support. The offer—however intended—could only be described as shabby; and the fact that during the interview the amount of emolument was twice increased suggested a hard-bargain-driving transaction rather than a discussion between friendly negotiators. We have also seen that in 1837 Rowland Hill, through his friend Mr Villiers, offered to make a present to the Govern

rt Hill, when writing of this subject, wittily and wisely said: “I hold in great awe prophets who may have the means of assisting in the fulfilment of their own predictions.” It was therefore imperative that Rowland Hill's position should be a well-defined one, and he [Pg 151] himself be placed on an equality with the principal executive officer among those with whose habits and prejudices he was bound to interfere. The labour would be heavy, and the conditions were unusual. He must try to turn enemies still smarting under the bitterness of defeat into allies willing as well as able to help on the reform they detested; and to persuade them not to place obstacles in its way. The innovations to be made would be numerous, because, while reduction of postage and modes of prepayment formed the principal features of the plan, they wer

ust consult his friends; and that as his eldest brother was away on circuit at Leicester, and he proposed to start

s of fatigue, threw himself with ardour into the subject of the offered appointment. After a while, Matthew proposed to write a letter on his own account to Rowland, which the latter should hand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This was done the next day, the younger brother writing to the elder's dictation; and the lette

unications will be to the Treasury, from which any directions to the Post Office will be issued; and you will not exercise any direct authority, or give any immediate orders to the officers of the Post Office.” The [Pg 153] explanation was said to be given “to prevent future misunderstanding”; and this was doubtless the euphonious mode of e

rs which, however weak and limited in the outset, seemed, if discreetly used, not unlikely in due time to acquire strength and durability. I was far from supposing that the attainment of my post was the attainment of my object. The obstacles, numerous and formidable, which had

erly:[128] the only position in which the reformer could really acquire that authority which was essential to the development of his plan. But the Fates were stronger even than one strong-willed man; and Colonel

onger Rowland Hill served under his chief the more cordial grew the relations between them. Ample proof of this confidence was seen in the Chancellor o

e only ten years previously, struck him as too small for the business carried on [Pg 155] in it; badly planned, badly ventilated, and deficient in sanitary arrangements—a monument to the fatuity alike of architect and builder. This discovery led him to think of practicable alterations in the existing edifice and of devolution in the shape of erection of district offices;

e at first his appearance at an hour when many officials were probably only beginning to rise caused considerable astonishment, and where he stayed as long as he could. If even under these circumstances the progres

, but the number of a letter's enclosures was not taken into consideration, the postage varying according to weight. Though Paris was much smaller than London, its post offices were more numerous than ours, being 246 against our 237. There was a sort of book post, a parcel post for valuables of small dimensions at a commission paid of 5 per cent.—the Post Offi

ut it was not till the early 'fifties that they were introduced to any great extent. Before the establishment of penny postage there were only some 4,500 post offices in the United Kingdom. In the year of my father's death (1879), the number had grown to over 13,000, in addition to nearly 12,000 pillar and wall boxes. And the ad

POST

Office

the Proprietors o

ed both by the monarch and by the Postmaster-General, M. Dubost, the “French Maberly.” Therefore, while the “citizen king” remained on the throne the Government gave little or no encouragement to the proposed reform. But M. Piron, too much in earnest to put personal advancement above his country's welfare, went on manfully fighting for cheap postage. He it was who made the accidental discovery among the archives of the French Post Office of documents which showed that a M. de Valayer had, nearly two

osed by him (20 centimes) was adopted, and the stamp issued was the well-known black head of Liberty. In order to keep pace with the public demand, the first sheets were printed in such a hurry that some of the heads—the dies to produc

t, and other leading post officials; and, among non-official and very interesting people, M. Horace Say, son t

e, and pushed on again, he drove his party by mistake to the back-door of their friends' house. It was now late at night, and the family, who had retired to rest, and were waked by the driver's loud knocking, mistook the belated travellers for robbers, and refused to unbar the door. It was only after a long parley that the wearied visitors were admitted, to receive, of course, the warmest welcome. The master of the house had been the hero of an unusually romantic story. As a young officer in the French army, he was captured at the time of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition, and carried to England, there to remain some years as a prisoner of war. While on parole he made many friends in this country, where he occupied part of his time by the study of English law, in which he became a proficient. During his [Pg 160] novitiate he became acquainted with a young lady unto whom he was not long

people it was still pronounced “un-English” to prepay letters. But my father was so confident of the wisdom of the step that Mr Baring ultimately gave way, stipul

Rowland Hill, hating compulsion, and feeling confident of their ultimate acceptability, maintained that it would be better if at first the two mo

ccupy him in dealing with the many suggestions contained in the letters sent in by the public, and in the vast number of designs accompanyi

ystem, as a vast increase of letters, necessarily productive of some temporary confusion, was looked for on the advent of the uniform penny rate. Under the old system 4d. had been the lowest charge beyond the radius of the “twopenny post”; therefore, even the preliminary reduction was a relief. But although three years earlier a lowering of the existing rates to a minimum of 6d. or 8d

e unpaid letters being about as numerous as usual, prepayment being not yet made compulsory. This state of things my father considered “satisfactory”; Mr Baring “very much so.” The next da

ing to their friends, and not a few—some of the writers being entire strangers—addressed letters of thanks to the reformer.[130] One of these was from Miss Martineau, [Pg 163] who had wo

er for the chief outgoing mail of the day ended, the window shut suddenly, sometimes with a letter or newspaper only half-way through.[132] On the afternoon [Pg 164] of the 10th, six windows instead of one were opened; and a few minutes before post time a seventh was thrown up, at which the chief of the Circulation Department himself stood to help in the receipt of letters. The crowd was good-tempered, and evidently enjoyed the crush, though toward

em fully expected to hear that 100,000 letters, or more than three times the n

rate showed that the increase was rather less than two-and-three-quarters-fold. The average postage on the inland letters proved to be three halfpence; and the reformer calculated that at that rate a four-and-three-quarters-fold increase would be required

ly been made in the [Pg 166] postage of foreign letters had led to a great

e has declared itself unable to estimate, but it is probable that in England and Wales alone it is not less than 4,000,000. The great extent of the deficiency [of postal facilities] is shown by the fact that, while these two divisions of the empire contain about 11,000 parishes, their total nu

were meanwhile being reported; some told in conversation, or in

ge tried to master the twin arts; and at evening classes, some of which were improvised for the purpose, two generations of a family would, not infrequently, be seen at work seated side by side on the same school bench. Other poor people, with whom letter-writing, for lack of opportunity to practise it, h

lasses had probably increased a hundredfold; and that adults as well as young people took

ted science and needed to exchange ideas and documents. He also stated that before penny postage came in he had of

to write in order to send letters to his mother, who lived in a remote part of the [Pg 168] country; and added that he had many friends who were also learning. Inde

-sellers; and the honorary secretary to the Parker Society, whose business was the reprinting of the early reformers' works, wrote, two year

not have existed without cheap postage. The Commissioners could not have sent it under their frank without giving it away, which would have cost them ￡1,000 a year. It is sold at 4d., including the postage, which we prep

m 30,000 to 720,000 per annum. And testimony of similar character was given either in evidence [Pg

ies, among them the manufacture of letter-boxes and letter-weighing machines—which were turned out

ost profitable part of the Post Office business.[134] It is a marvel that the new system should have fared as well as it did, when we take into consideration the bitter hostility of the postal authorities, the frequent hindrances thrown in the path of reform, to say nothing of the terrible poverty then existing among many classes of our fellow country p

t of the extension of rural distribution—to which allusion has already been made—one of the most essential features of the plan, one long and wrongfully kept back; and, when granted, gratefully appreciated. Is

system continued in force. Then it went up by leaps and bounds, till by the end of the first year of the new system (1840) it reached the sum of ￡333,418. It has gone on steadily growing, as was indeed inevitable, owing to the increase of pos

oach contractors about ￡200 for [Pg 171] the privilege of carrying the mail twice a day between Lancaster and Carl

ce on different lines, one Company receiving about ￡400 a year more than was its due—although, of course, the true distance was given i

lies were given. Thus Rowland Hill found himself “engaged in petty contests often unavailing and always invidious”;[138] and in these petty contests and ceaseless strivings to push forward some item or other of his plan, much of his time, from first t

heavy blow. For, if during the past two years he had not succeeded in accomplishing nearly all he had hoped to do, still the record of work was far from meagre. But if, with Mr Baring as

ing approbation of his official chiefs, were quietly laid aside to be forgotten. On the plea of insufficiency of employment—insufficiency which was the natural consequence of the taking of work out of his hands—the number of his clerks was cut down to one; and all

ide post offices in 400 registrars' districts which were without anything of [Pg 173] the sort, was, after long waiting, conceded by the Treasury before the break-up of the Melbourne Ministry; and my father, unused till latterly to strenuous modes of official evasion, believed the measu

t of a list of measures which stood in need of adoption. Later, my father wrote urging that other parts of his reform should be undertaken, drawing attention to the work which had already been successfully achieved; and so forth

ted. He was also desirous of visiting some of the country post offices; but, being anxious to avoid possible breach of rule, he wrote to Colonel Maberly on the subject. The letter

he “fallacious return,” published in 1843. In this the Post Office accounts were so manipulated as to make it seem that the Department was being worked at an annual loss of ￡12,000 or m

Post Office. Now, in comparing the fiscal results of the old and new systems, it was obviously unfair to include the cost of the packet service in the one and exclude it from the other. Despite all statements made to the contrary—and a

he at once admitted the error, but said that a corrective entry made by him had been “removed by order.”[140] And not only was correction in this ca

ive against the correctness of the account, it was urged that without such modification the next quarter's account could not be made to balance.”[141] Not a very bright example of the application of culinary ope

ceedings was naturally to foster mi

posed of by Lord Monteagle, who, after pointing out the falseness of the allegation, declared that the expense of the packet service had n

rovided for his use, repeated these misleading statistics; and, later, they have

ave been entrusted to men whose official reputation was pledged not to its success but to its failure; and that the “shunting” of its author on to a

y was undergoing one of the heaviest of those periodically recurrent waves of depression which lessen the product of all taxes (or the ability to pay them) when, in April 1843, my father was able t

years' engagement at the Treasury would terminate in the ensuing September, and adding that he did not con

right, its author offered to work for a time without salary. The offer was refused, and the intended dismi

been harshly used. The Ministers themselves were probably of divided mind; and my father, when commenting upon a letter which the Prime Minister about this time addressed to him, says: “I cann

Exchequer, Mr Goulburn's courteous manner also went “far to confirm the i

ster-General's plan of letter-registration been carried into effect, it “would have created an uproar throughout the country.” It was well known that the head of the Post Office did not feel too kindly towards the reform, and was bent on charging a shilling on every registered letter, w

programme of the Anti-Corn-Law League should be followed:—a national subscription raised,

Said Hood: “I have seen so many instances of folly and ingratitude similar to those you have met with that it would never surprise me

nd the Mercantile Committee, well entitled as, after its arduous labours, it was to repose, roused i

he list of dismissed postal reformers was added yet one more.

telling if only to serve as warning to any would-be reformer—perhaps in any field: in the Post Office certainly—of the difficulties that lie in the path he yearns to tread. Should the reader be inclined to fa

as very likely to be well-informed on the subject. It is an ugly story; and for a long time my brother and I agreed that it should be told in these pages. Later, seeing that all whom it concerned are

ter history, because, however chronologically out of place

ed, or whose profitable sinecures had to be suppressed. Thus even when Rowland Hill's position had become too secure in public estimation for open attack to be of much [Pg 181] avai

Hill, I think it right to let you know that you have enemies in high places who run you down behind your back. When I became Postmaster-General, every endeavour was made to prejudice me against you. I determined, however, to judge for myself. I have hi

as was rumoured, a figure twice, thrice, or even four times those established by the reformed system. It was a dread shared by Messrs Baring, Wallace, Moffatt, and very many more. Great

me in useless lamentations, but at once curtailed domestic expenses—those most ruthlessly cut down being, as, later, our father failed not to tell us, her own. In his parents' home he had lived in far plainer style than that maintained in the house of which, for many years, owing to her mother's early d

ilway Board of Directors. Owing to gross mismanagement, the line had long been going from bad to worse in every way; and an ent

ewhere. In a work dealing only with the postal reform, repetition of the story in detail would be out of

Company was ere long enabled to add to its title “and South Coast.” The invitation to my father to join the Board met, at the sitting which discussed the proposal, with but one dissentient voice, that of Mr John Meesom Parsons of the Stock Exchange. “We want no Rowland Hills here,” he said, “to interfere in everything; and even, perhaps, to introduce penny fares in all directions”—a rate undreamed of in those distant days. He therefore resolved to oppose the unwelcome intruder on every favourable occasion. The day the two

stage, and while its author was still excluded from office, the nation showed its appreciation of Rowland Hill's work by presenting him with a monetary testimonial. Sir Robert Peel was among the earliest contributors, his cheque being for the maximum amount fixed by the

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