The Post Office and Its Story. Edward Bennett
the word under the Tudors, and the first man to be described as Master of the Posts was Brian Tuke, appointed by Henry VIII. in 1509. In this reign there was a service more or less regular between London and Berwick and between London and Calais. The Dover road is probably the oldest mail route in the kingdom. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries services were gradually extended to Scotland, Ireland, and the West of England.
The posts were slow and unreliable. The roads of this country were for several centuries in a wretched condition, and travelling was difficult and dangerous. The causeway or bridle-track ran down the middle of the road, while “the margin on either side was little better than a ditch, and being lower than the adjoining soil and at the same time soft and unmade, received and retained the sludge.” The authorities were chiefly concerned to preserve the causeway, for the mails were carried by runners or postboys on horseback. The maximum speed for the postboys allowed by the Master of the Posts was seven miles an hour: there was no authorised minimum, and the speed, including stoppages, rarely exceeded four miles an hour. Moreover the postboys were undisciplined and a source of infinite trouble to their employers. The postmaster on the other hand frequently considered that any horse was good enough to carry the mails, and the animals he supplied were a disgrace to the service. The temptations of the wayside inn often also explained the long delays. An official in the early part of the eighteenth century complained that “the gentry doe give much money to the riders whereby they be very subject to get in liquor which stops the males.”
The words, “Haste, Post, haste,” have been found on the backs of private letters written at the close of the fifteenth century, and this was no formal endorsement but an urgent appeal to the lazy postboy to hurry up. “Ride, villain, ride—for thy life—for thy life—for thy life,” appeared also on letters with sketches of a skull and cross-bones or of a man hanging from a cross-bar. It was thought desirable to frighten the servant of the Government into the performance of his duties.
The towns on the route were bound to supply the horses for the King's posts. The postmasters in each town were the persons immediately responsible for this business, and it is interesting to know that one of the qualifications for the situation was the ability of the candidate to furnish a certificate under the hand and seal of the Bishop of the diocese that he was conformable to the discipline of the Church of England, and he was required to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper three months after admittance to office. The postmaster was frequently the innkeeper: he was the person best able to supply horses; and though his salary was small, the position was probably remunerative, as travellers were drawn to his house.
The Mail Coaches Leaving London.
In the early part of the nineteenth century one of the sights of London was the departure from St. Martin's le Grand every evening of the mail coaches bound for all parts of England.
But we must not forget the foot posts in the old days, or runners as they are usually called. In the year 1715 there was not a single horse post in Scotland, all the mails being conveyed by runners on foot. Cross posts were frequently undertaken by runners, and the runners were not extravagantly paid for their services. A post-runner travelled from Inverness to Lochcarron—a distance, across country, of about fifty miles—making the journey once a week, for which he was paid five shillings. Naturally there was much difficulty with them, and they were continually at the mercy of highwaymen. Moreover, in spite of the penalty of capital punishment being visited on those who robbed his Majesty's mails, the postman himself was a frequent offender.
The difficulties of travelling in the seventeenth century are illustrated by the fact that in 1626 nearly £60 was spent in setting up wooden posts along the highway and causeway, near Bristol, for the guidance of travellers and runners. A Government running post then existed from London to Bristol. There is a spirited description in Cowper's Task of the arrival of the mail which would have been applicable during the whole of the postboy period:—
“Hark, 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,
He comes the herald of a noisy world,
With spattered boots, strapped waist and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn,
And having dropped the expected bag, pass on.”
Such was the service with which our forefathers were more or less contented during the greater part of two centuries. At the end of the seventeenth century there were weekly posts to many parts of the country: there was a mail six days a week along the Kent road: at any place where the Court happened to be in residence a daily post was at once created, and during the season at Bath and Tunbridge Wells the visitors enjoyed the privilege of a daily despatch and delivery of letters.
It was not until late in the eighteenth century that any radical alteration in the system took place. For many years it had become a reproach against the Post Office that it had not kept pace with the travelling capacities and requirements of the time. What were called “Flying Coaches” had been established in the seventeenth century to many towns in the Kingdom, and while these conveyances were increasing in speed and comfort the Post Office was still satisfied with its four or five miles an hour. The slowness of the posts was in fact becoming intolerable to the people. The General Convention of the Royal Burghs of Scotland called the attention of the Postmasters-General to the slowness of the posts on the Great North Road. “Every common traveller,” they wrote, “passed the King's mail on the first road in the kingdom,” and complaints were made, generally by traders and professional men, that business was hampered by the backwardness of the Post Office.
To John Palmer, proprietor of the theatre at Bath, belongs the credit of the proposal to use the coach for the carriage of the mails. He was remorseless in his description of the system he wished to abolish. The correspondence, he said, “was entrusted to some idle boy without character mounted on a worn-out hack, who so far from being able to defend himself against a robber, was more likely to be in league with one.” Palmer's duties carried him into many parts of the country, and he thought letters should be conveyed at the same pace at which it was possible to travel in a chaise. He submitted his plan to Pitt, who was Prime Minister, and this statesman gave his warm approval to a trial of the scheme. On the 2nd August 1784 the first mail coach started from Bristol, and so successful was the experiment that in the following year there were coaches running to all parts of the Kingdom. Then ensued a period of great activity on the part of the General Post Office. There was competition with the private coaches, and year after year there were attempts to make records and to accelerate the mails.
The mail-coaching period extended a little over fifty years, and it marked as great an advance on the service of the past as the mail train has since shown compared with the mail coach. For instance, in 1715 the time allowed for the mail between London and Edinburgh was six days. Eighty years later a great advance had taken place. In 1798 Lord Campbell relates: “I was to perform the journey by mail coach to Edinburgh, and was supposed to travel with marvellous velocity, taking only three nights and two days for the whole distance from London. But this speed was thought to be highly dangerous to the head, independently of all the perils of an overturn, and stories were told of men and women who, having reached London with such celerity, died suddenly of an affection of the brain. My family and friends were seriously alarmed for me and advised me at all events to stay a day at York to recruit myself.” The fares he mentions were £10 from Edinburgh to London; to York, £4, 15s.; and from York to London, £5.
In 1836 the speed of some of the mail coaches was nearly ten miles an hour including stoppages, and this was kept up over very long distances. From Edinburgh to London, a distance of 400 miles, the time allowed was forty-five and a half hours;