THE LOCAL POST OFFICE IN EARLY DAYS. SIR ROWLAND HILL. RECENT PROGRESS.

It is pleasing to look back to the time, little more than one hundred years ago, when Bristol was the premier provincial post town. It had long ranked next to London in wealth, in population, and in its Post Office. Bristol has, however, in a postal sense, yielded place to other towns, and now ranks after Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester.

Dipping into history, it is found that there was a Post Office at Clifton a hundred years since. At about the time of the Battle of Waterloo it was situated near Saville Place, in a small tenement. The post keeper was a knight of the shears, who sat cross-legged at his work on a shop-board in the window, whilst his better-half sold “goodies.” The “Staff” consisted of this pigeon pair, and the work of carrying the bags to and from Bristol, and of delivering the missives, was undertaken by them conjointly.

The year 1793 was signalised by the extension to Bristol of the penny post for local letters, that is, letters for Bristol city, its suburbs, and neighbouring villages. That post covered a wide area ranging from Thornbury and Wotton-under-Edge in the North, to Temple Cloud, Chewton-Mendip, and Oakhill in the South; eastward in the direction of Box, and westward to Portishead. This institution had until then been established nowhere else but in London and in Dublin; but Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Manchester were granted the privilege at the same time as Bristol. During the year 1794-95 the penny post brought a clear gain to the revenue: in Bristol of L469, in Manchester of L586, and in Birmingham of L240. Notwithstanding these gains, the Post Office authorities concluded that neither at Liverpool nor at Leeds, nor at any other town in the Kingdom, would a penny post defray its own expenses.

There is little more on record about local Post Office details for some years; but we learn that in April, 1825, an evening delivery of post letters was ordered to Kingsdown, Montpelier, Wellington Place, and Catherine Place, Stoke’s Croft, all the year round; and to Lawrence Hill, West Street, Gloucester Lane, in the parish of St. Philip and Jacob, from 1st of March to 1st of November in each year. A receiving house for letters was established at the corner of West Street on May 20th, 1825; and also one in Harford Street, New Cut. In December, 1827, the population of Bristol was estimated at 50,000 persons; and in August, 1831, the number of persons the Post Office had to serve was 59,070.

Evans’s New Guide; or, Pictures of Bristol, published in 1828, furnishes the next record. It stated that “the London mail goes out every afternoon at twenty minutes past 5, and arrives every day at 9.0 in the morning. Bath: Out every morning at 7.0 and 10.0, and at twenty minutes past 5 in the evening; arrives at 9.0 morning, and a quarter before 5 and a quarter before 7 in the evening. Sodbury, through Stapleton, Hambrook, Winterbourne, and Iron Acton: Goes out at twenty minutes before 10 in the morning; arrives at half-past 4 in the evening. Thornbury, through Filton, Almondsbury, and Rudgeway: Goes out twenty minutes before 10 in the morning; arrives at half-past 4 in the evening. Bitton, through New Church, Kingswood, Hanham, and Willsbridge: Goes out at 10.0 in the morning; arrives at half-past 4 in the evening. Exeter and Westward: Out every morning between 9.0 and 10.0; arrives every evening between 4.0 and 5.0. Portsmouth, Chichester, Salisbury, etc.: Out at half-past 5 in the afternoon; arrives every day previously to the London mail. Tetbury and Cirencester: Out every morning at half-past 9; arrives every evening at 5.0. Birmingham and Northward: Out every evening at 7.0; arrives every morning between 6.0 and 7.0. Milford and South Wales: Out every day at half-past 9; arrives at half-past 3 in the afternoon. The Irish mail is made up every day, and letters from Ireland may be expected to arrive every day at half-past 3. Jamaica and Leeward Islands, first and third Wednesday in the month; Lisbon, every week; Gibraltar and Mediterranean, every three weeks; Madeira and Brazils, first Tuesday in each month; Surinam, Berbice, and Demorara, second Wednesday in each month; France and Spain, Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; Holland and Hamburgh, Mondays and Thursdays; Guernsey and Jersey, Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Letters for all parts may be put into the Post Office at any time, but should be delivered half an hour before the mail is made up. Letters delivered later than half an hour previous to the departure of the respective mails to be accompanied with one penny. Payment of postage will not be received unless tendered full half an hour before the time fixed for closing the bags. Letters for Axbridge, Weston-super-Mare, and adjacent places are sent and received by the Western mail. Letter bags are made up daily, after the sorting of the London mail, for Bourton, Wrington, Langford, Churchill, Nailsea, Clevedon, and their respective deliveries. The letters must be put in by 9.0 o’clock. The return to Bristol is at 4.0 in the afternoon. Letters may be put into the receiving offices for all parts of the kingdom, and the full postage, if desired, paid with them. Letter carriers are despatched regularly every day (Sundays not excepted) with letters to and from Durdham Down, Westbury, Stapleton, Frenchay, Downend, Hambrook, and Winterbourne; and also to Brislington, Keynsham, and other places. The delivery of letters at Clifton is each day at 10.0 and 6.0. Letters should be in the offices at Clifton and the Wells for the London and the North mails by 4.0.”

It may be interesting to state, what the rates of postage from this city were in 1830. Thus: Australia, 11d.; Buenos Ayres, 3d.; Canary Islands, 2d.; Cape de Verde Islands, 2d.; Chili, 3d.; China, 11d.; Colombo, 3s.; Cuba, 3s.; East Indies, 11d.; Havana, 3s.; St. Helena, 11d.; South America, 3d.; Van Dieman’s Land, 11d.; whilst for the Continent the rates were considerably higher, thus: Austria, 2d.; Belgium, 1d.; Corsica, 2d.; Denmark, 2d.; Flanders, 2d.; France Calais, 1d.; Germany, 2d.; Gibraltar, 2d.; Holland, 1d.; Italy, 2d.; Malta, 2d.; Poland, 2d.; Prussia, 2d.; Russia, 2d.; Spain, 2d.; Turkey, 2d. At that period the Inland Rates were very high, and the cost was regulated thus: From any Post Office in England or Wales, to any place not exceeding 15 miles from such office, 4d.; above 15 to 20 miles, 5d.; 20 to 30 miles, 6d.; 30 to 50 miles, 7d.; 50 to 80 miles, 8d.; 80 to 120 miles, 9d.; 120 to 170 miles, 10d.; 170 to 230 miles, 11d.; 230 to 300 miles, 12d. And one penny in addition on each letter for every 100 miles beyond 300. Thus a letter from Bristol to Cirencester cost 7d.; Cheltenham, 8d.; Banbury, 10d.; Leeds, 11d.; Hull; 12d., and so on. Now a letter four ounces in weight can be sent from one end of the land to the other for a penny, and a parcel one pound in weight for threepence.

The Bristol ex-Postal Superintendent, Mr. H. T. Carter, carrying his mind back over his forty years of diligent and zealous service, recalls the time when the mails for the not far-distant village of Shirehampton were conveyed in a cart drawn by a dog, the property of rural postman Ham. The cart was not large, but of sufficient size to carry postman and mail bags. The dog, of Newfoundland breed, got over the ground at a rapid pace. Ham was addicted to drink, but nevertheless, whether he was drunk or sober, asleep or awake, in stormy or fine weather, the dog took him and the mails to their proper destination.

A venerable man now living at Earthcott Green, a hamlet within ten miles of our great city, well recollects the time when he received his letters through Iron Acton, at a special cost to him of 2d. each, with a delivery only every other day. The plan was for an additional penny to be charged on all letters sent out by rural posts for delivery, and in addition to this penny an extra charge was levied on all letters delivered from sub-Post Offices to bye houses or places beyond the several village deliveries. In some cases recognised men or women attended at the Head Office, Bristol, once or twice a week to take out letters for delivery in the remote country regions of course for a “consideration.”

The Bristol district shared in the representations in 1838 of the hardships borne by poor people in respect of the heavy charges for the conveyance of letters. The postmaster at Congresbury deposed thus: “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 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.” Then the postmaster of Yatton stated as follows: “I have had a letter waiting lately for a poor woman, from her husband who is at work in Wales; the charge was 9d., it lay many days, in consequence of her not being able to pay the postage. I at last trusted her with it.” Of the desire of the poor to correspond, a Mr. Emery gave evidence, stating “that the poor near Bristol have signed a petition to Parliament for the reduction of the postage. He never saw greater enthusiasm in any public thing that was ever got up in the shape of a petition; they seemed all to enter into the thing as fully and with as much feeling as it was possible, as a boon or godsend to them, that they should be able to correspond with their distant friends.”

Uniform penny postage came in 1840. The Bristol citizens, of course, found it no cheaper than before to send a single letter to places in their own neighbourhood, but a light enclosure could be put in without extra charge, though the weight had to be brought down from four ounces to half an ounce.

It may not be out of place to mention in these pages that one of the penny postage stamps of the very earliest issue after the penny postage system came into operation in 1840 was made use of for the prepayment of a letter sent by His Grace the Duke of Wellington to H. Nuttall Tomlins, Esq., of the Hotwells, Bristol. It was sent six days before stamps and stamped covers were first used by the general public, the Duke, as Prime Minister, having no doubt been supplied in advance with stamps, one of which he attached to his letter, to give a surprise to his friend Nuttall Tomlins. The envelope, with the stamp still upon it, is now in the possession of a well-known philatelist in London.

The allusion to the “Penny Post” naturally calls to mind its originator. On the hill slope of the still pleasant rural village of Stapleton, four miles from Bristol Post Office, once a Roman settlement, and in later days the head-quarters of Oliver Cromwell during the siege of Bristol, the great postal reformer, Sir Rowland Hill, frequently spent some of his leisure time with his brother, the late Recorder of Bristol, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill. There is in the Bristol postal service at the present time a mail officer who recalls that, in his very young days, it was his mission to set out from Heath House to fetch the morning letters for Sir Rowland from the Stapleton Post Office. He tells how he had to ride the old pony at a rapid rate, as, even in those days, Sir Rowland’s time was valuable, and if his letters were late he had to curtail his “constitutional,” which usually consisted of a three-mile sharp walk, with cap in hand instead of on head, over Purdown, past Stoke House, returning through Frenchay.

In December, 1844, Sir Rowland Hill, in connection with the National Testimonial to him as the author of Penny Postage, recorded the circumstance that he had received a letter from Mr. Estlin, an eminent surgeon of Bristol, giving an account of proceedings in that important city anterior to any movement in London. Sir Rowland believed it was in Bristol, and from Mr. Estlin, that the testimonial had its origin. The sum presented from Bristol to the national collection amounted to about L300.

The celebration of the Jubilee of Penny Postage in 1890 took the practical turn in one respect of increasing the Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund. Bristol contributed its quota of L72 14d., made up in great measure of public subscriptions. When the grand celebration took place on July 2nd, at the South Kensington Museum, with the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh present at the conversazione, Bristol took its part, and immediately after a signal from South Kensington was received over the telegraph wire at 10 o’clock three hearty cheers for Her Majesty were given, the postmaster leading. The Post Office band then struck up the National Anthem, and cheers for the Queen were at once taken up by a body of about 200 postmen who had assembled in the Post Office yard.

As in 1847 the state of things at the provincial offices generally was not regarded as satisfactory, Sir Rowland Hill, in accordance with the wish of the Postmaster-General, visited Bristol on April 1st in that year. He found that the first delivery of the day, by far the most important of all, was not completed until 12 o’clock; the letter-carriers, as he was informed, often staying after departure from the office to take their breakfast before commencing their rounds. He was able to show how at a small cost (only L125 a year) it might be completed by 9.0. The office itself he found small, badly lighted, and ill ventilated. The day mail bag to London was nearly useless, its contents for London delivery being on the morning of his inquiry only sixty-four letters, thirty-seven of which might have been sent by the previous mail on the mere payment of the extra penny. His impression regarding this mail, both in and out of the office, agreed exactly with his evidence in 1843; viz., that all day mails, to be efficient for their purpose, should start as late as was consistent with their reaching London in time for their letters to be forwarded by the outgoing evening mails. The satisfaction Sir Rowland felt in such improvements as he had been able to make on the spot was much enhanced by his receiving at the termination of his visit the thanks of both clerks and letter-carriers for the new arrangements. It should be said that Sir Rowland Hill did not by his action cast any reflection upon Mr. Todd Walton, junior, as he was at pains to say that, regarded as a specimen of the administration of provincial Post Offices at the time the Bristol specimen was by no means an unfavourable one. At that time there were only about 20,000 letters, etc., delivered in a week.

The Bristol Chamber of Commerce took no notice of the Post Office for nearly twenty years (1835-1855), but in the latter year it did so, for its records of the annual meeting of 31st January, 1855, with John Salmon, President, in the chair, shew the following, viz.:

“The Post Office questions of salaries, internal arrangements, and local inquiry, are still in the same position as they were six months ago, except that, after repeated further applications to the Postmaster-General, your Committee extracted, on the 10th December last, a renewed promise from his lordship that ’no time should be lost in making the enquiry at the Bristol Post Office.’ As the inefficiency of the public service arises from the unjust treatment of the employes and defective internal arrangements of the local office, your Committee cannot desist, notwithstanding the tedious and disagreeable nature of the task which they have undertaken, from insisting on these repeated promises being redeemed.”

Then, under the same presidency, at the next half-yearly meeting in the same year, it was stated that “Subsequent to the date of the last report, your Committee discovered that the Postmaster-General had caused a private local enquiry to be made with respect to the classification and salaries of the officers of the Bristol Post Office.”

There was this further remonstrance:

“.... It would have been more satisfactory to your Committee if the Postmaster-General had fulfilled his promise to the deputation who waited upon him on the 30th of January, 1854, to hold a local enquiry at which they should be present, as there were several other matters connected with the internal arrangements of the Bristol Post Office (particularly the money order department, which is still very defective) with respect to which they were desirous of making some suggestions.”

Then followed a copy of the report made to the Postmaster-General by Mr. Tilley, who conducted the enquiry, also a statement of the proposed Establishment.

At the Chamber’s next annual meeting on 30th January, 1856, with James Hassell, the president, in the chair, the Post Office is again reproved thus:

“No further reply than the official printed acknowledgment and promise of attention has yet reached your Committee respecting the memorial on the subject of the Welsh mail, the West India mails, etc.; but past experience and general repute do not lead them to anticipate prompt redress from the Post Office authorities. It required repeated applications, extending over a period of about eighteen months, to obtain a remedy for the grievances set forth in our former memorial; and even now the Money Order Department is not completed, and probably similar perseverance will again be required, as it is now more than a month ago the memorial relating to the West India mail was presented.”

It was thought worthy of note in the Bristol Mirror of November 5th, 1831, that “500 letters were brought yesterday from Clifton for the general post.” In demonstration of the strides which the Post Office has made, it may be mentioned that in the “fifties,” in addition to the Post Office at Clifton, the only offices were the branches at Haberfield Crescent and Phippen Street, with four collections a day, and the receiving houses at Ashley Road, Bedminster, Hotwells, and Redland, with three collections a day. The city only boasted at that time of pillar letter boxes at Arley Chapel, Armoury Square, Bedminster Bridge, Bristol Bridge, Castle Street, Christmas Steps, College Green, Freemantle Square, Kingsdown, Milk Street, Railway Station, St. Philip’s Police Station, Kingsland Road, Whiteladies Road, and Woodwell Crescent, with three collections daily. Now there are 167 Post Offices in the district. On the Gloucestershire side there are 99, at 41 of which telegraph business is carried on; and on the Somersetshire side 68, 27 of which are telegraph offices. In addition telegraph business is carried on for the Postmaster-General at five railway stations on the Gloucestershire side and five on the Somersetshire side. Licenses to sell postage stamps are held by over a hundred shopkeepers.

There are now 350 pillar and wall letter boxes provided for public convenience.

It may be mentioned in passing that during the strike amongst the deal-runners in Bristol, when men were brought from other towns and housed and fed at “Huntersholm” (a large wooden building erected specially in one of the timber yards), and allowed out under police supervision, a stamp license was applied for and granted, to meet a large demand for postage stamps which these men made in consequence of having to send their wages home weekly to their families.

In detail, but without complication by mention of the names of all the districts, the local improvements for the seven years from March, 1892, to February, 1899, inclusive, were as follows: New post offices established, 33; telegraph offices opened, 18; money order and savings bank business extended to 17 offices; postal orders sold at 6 additional offices; new pillar and wall boxes erected, 142; new or additional day mails from 34 districts; and out to 44 districts; new extra deliveries established in 65 districts, and two extra deliveries in 7 districts. Free delivery extended in 35 rural districts, and the ordinary second or third delivery extended in 44 rural districts; morning delivery accelerated in 63, and the day delivery in 8, rural districts. A later posting for North mail in 6, and for the night mail in 58, rural districts. New collections established in 73, and a later collection in 30, rural districts.

Increased facilities in the postal world are almost invariably followed by augmentation of business. It certainly has been so in the Bristol district, for there has been a marvellous development in the last seven years. The letters delivered have increased by 60 per cent., and those posted have grown at the rate of 55 per cent. Parcels have increased by 25 per cent. There has been a similar marked increase in all branches of business. The three preceding periods of seven years were comparatively “lean” periods, for the increase in the number of letters during the whole twenty-one years was actually less than during the seven last years. The increase is altogether out of proportion to the growth of population, and it is far in excess of the general increase of letter correspondence throughout the country generally, which has been only at the rate of 22 per cent. during the period as against Bristol’s 60 per cent. It is hoped that this may be taken as a sure indication of the well-being of the trade of Bristol, and as a sign that there is quickened life in the commerce of the good old city. At all events, it shows that the local Post Office organization is quite abreast of the times, and that the facilities afforded are appreciated and are fully taken advantage of.