His Majesty's Mails
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1934.tb02395.x |
| Date | 01 October 1934 |
| Author | V. Kenny |
| Published date | 01 October 1934 |
His
Majesty’s
Mails
By
V.
R.
KEm,
M.B.E.
Barrister-at-Law
[Being
a paper read before
the
Leeds Regional Group
of
the
Institute
of
Public Administratio?&, Janzcary, 1934-revisedI
HE
origin of the
Postal
Services was the organisation of relays
to
T
carry the
King’s
despatches. These relays date from
1482.
The
‘I
Chronicle
of
Croyland
”
tells
us
that
King
Edward
IV
had
intro-
duced the practice of
“
appointing a single horseman for every twenty
miles by means of which travelling with the utmost speed and not
passing their respective limits news was always able to be camed by
letter
from
hand to hand
200
miles within
two
days.” These horse-
men were the
original
posts. They requisitioned horses by the royal
right of Purveyance, with the enforced aid of the local authority and
paid for them practically what they chose.
Posts
were not permanent
on any road, but were set up as required. They were controlled from
the
King’s
household and an officer was appointed to control them,
known as the
“
Master of the Posts.” The first Master of the Posts
whose name is
known
was Brian Tuke who was in office in
1516,
and had
a
yearly salary of
A66 13s.
4d.
The camage of private
letters
is dealt with
in
a Proclamation of
Elizabeth in
1591
ordering that no letters were to be sent to or from
foreign countries except by the Posts.
This
followed earlier pro-
clamations and was intended to put a stop to arrangements which had
been set up by certain London merchants for the conveyance of their
own
letters.
Fixed posts were set up to Ireland
via
Holyhead and Bristol in
1598,
to
Berwick and Scotland in
1603,
and
to
Plymouth
in
1620.
The letter service which was
thus
growing up was systemized in
1635
by Thomas Witherings under a proclamation of Charles
I.
The
scheme was that he should pay the Posts 3d.
a
mile
(Ct;2,530
in
all)
and that they should carry for
him
a
mail
of
letters. He was
to
take
for himself
a
postage
on
the letters as follows
:
-
zd. per single letter up to
80
miles.
6d.
),
,,
above
140
,,
ad.
J,
,,
to Scotland.
4d.
,,
%I
*s
140
,>
363
Public
Administration
He was to
set
up the service on
six
roads,
viz.
:-to
Edinburgh,
Holyhead, Plymouth, Bristol,
Norwich
and Dover (daily
to
Dover,
two
or three
times
a week to other places), and he was to have a
monopoly. The post out and home to Edinburgh was to take
six
days. Branch Posts were organised to meet the main
Posts
at various
towns.
The advantage of
this
scheme to the
King
was that he was relieved
of the cost (1609, ;t;3,400) of the Posts, to the public generally there
was much advantage by regularity of
Posts
and Witherings is believed
to
have made large sums
of
money. Later (16491660), the Common-
wealth exacted a large annual payment
from
the possessor of the
letter monopoly and finally put it up to tender. Thus began in the
form
of an annual rent the Public Revenue of the Post Office. In
1657 a Bill was passed through Parliament which
fixed
postage
rates,
retained
the
letter monopoly, and appointed the
“
Postmaster-
General of England and Comptroller
of
the Post Office.” In
1663
Post Office revenue was settled on the Duke of York.
The general farm of the
Posts
ceased
in
1677, but many Posts
continued
to
be farmed locally. In 1680 a London merchant named
Dockwra organised a private local Post for London. He opened
several hundred offices where messengers called for letters and post-
marks were introduced. The postage was
a
penny.
This
post was
held to
be
a
breach of
the
Postmaster-General‘s monopoly and was
taken over by the Postmaster-General.
It
was turned into a
two-
penny post in
1801
to raise additional revenue for the Napoleonic
Wars.
In 1720 Ralph Allen, Postmaster
of
Bath, got a farm
of
the
Posts
at a rental
of
50
per cent. higher than the
gross
receipts of the previous
year. He reorganised and greatly extended the
Posts
at steadily
rising rentals until his death
4
years later. His enterprise was
rewarded and he made
a
fortune
of
~500,000
for himself.
Even at
this
time, London, Edinburgh and Dublin were the only
cities within which there was recognised machinery for delivery.
The first mail coach
ran
on.end August, 1784, from Bristol to
London (114 miles) and it did the distance in 17 hours. The system
was soon extended to other roads.
The last of the old London mail coaches arrived in London from
Norwich and Newmarket on 6th January,
1846.
The times
of
some
of
the mail coaches are worth noticing: the night mail coach from
London to Holyhead
(258
miles) took 27 hours, to Falmouth-(263
miles)
zg
hours,
to
Edinburgh
(396
miles) 43 hours,
and
to Thurso
108
hours.
On the
11th
November,
1830,
the first rail-borne mail was carried
between Liverpool and Manchester.
364
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