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Transcriber's Note:
No copyright date is indicated in the source material, but the last date
mentioned is November, 1899.
Found at the end of the text is a list of corrections of discovered
publisher's typographic errors.
THE
BRISTOL ROYAL MAIL.
[Illustration: THE POSTMASTER'S OFFICE, BRISTOL.
_From a photograph by Mr. Protheroe, Wine St., Bristol._]
_All rights reserved._
THE
BRISTOL ROYAL MAIL.
POST, TELEGRAPH, AND
TELEPHONE.
BY
R. C. TOMBS,
_Postmaster of Bristol,
Ex-Controller of the London Postal Service._
BRISTOL:
J. W. ARROWSMITH, 11 QUAY STREET.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. _Page_
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MAIL SERVICES. RALPH ALLEN.
1532-1764 1
CHAPTER II.
MAIL COACH ERA. JOHN PALMER. 1770-1818 17
CHAPTER III.
1818 ONWARDS. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. OLD MAIL
GUARDS 35
CHAPTER IV.
VICTORIAN ERA, 1837-1899. MAIL TRANSPORT BY
RAILWAY. TRAVELLING POST OFFICES 49
CHAPTER V.
BRISTOL POSTMASTERS. 1678-1899 68
CHAPTER VI.
NOTABLE POST OFFICE SERVANTS OF BRISTOL ORIGIN 82
CHAPTER VII.
POST OFFICE BUILDINGS 89
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LOCAL POST OFFICE IN EARLY DAYS. SIR ROWLAND
HILL. RECENT PROGRESS 121
CHAPTER IX.
BRISTOL AS A MAIL PORT 141
CHAPTER X.
POSTAL SERVICE. STAFF: ITS COMPOSITION, DUTIES,
RESPONSIBILITIES. VOLUME OF WORK 160
CHAPTER XI.
CHRISTMAS AND ST. VALENTINE SEASONS 175
CHAPTER XII.
PUBLIC OFFICE: ITS BUSINESS. THE SAVINGS BANK.
PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS 186
CHAPTER XIII.
TELEGRAPHS. TELEPHONES. EXPRESS DELIVERY 198
CHAPTER XIV.
TELEGRAPH MESSENGERS 222
CHAPTER XV.
LETTER DELIVERY SYSTEM. POSTMEN: THEIR DUTIES
AND RECREATIONS 234
CHAPTER XVI.
POST LETTER BOXES: POSITION, VIOLATION, PECULIAR
USES 253
CHAPTER XVII.
RURAL DISTRICT SUB-POSTMASTERS. RURAL POSTMEN.
INCIDENTS 257
CHAPTER XVIII.
GENERAL FREE DELIVERY OF LETTERS 287
CHAPTER XIX.
RETURNED LETTER OFFICE 292
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE POSTMASTER'S OFFICE, BRISTOL Preface iv
RALPH ALLEN OF CROSS POST FAME _Page_ 8
" HIS RESIDENCE AT PRIOR PARK, BATH 10
" HIS TOWN HOUSE IN BATH 12
" HIS TOMB AT CLAVERTON 16
JOHN PALMER, INTRODUCER OF MAIL COACHES 20
OLD ENGLISH "FLYING" MAIL COACH 22
MAIL COACH. PLATE DEDICATED TO PALMER 34
THE WEST COUNTRY MAIL COACHES ABOUT TO LEAVE
PICCADILLY 36
THE LAST OF THE MAIL GUARDS 44
ARRIVAL OF THE BATH AND BRISTOL MAIL COACH AT
ROADSIDE INN 48
START OF MAIL COACHES FROM BUSH INN, BRISTOL 52
THE OLD PASSAGE, AUST 56
JOHN GARDINER 70
THOMAS TODD WALTON, SENIOR 72
THOMAS TODD WALTON, JUNIOR 74
EDWARD CHADDOCK SAMPSON 80
SIR FRANCIS FREELING, BART 82
THE BRISTOL HEAD POST OFFICE IN 1899 118
THE "GREAT WESTERN" 152
R.M.S. "MONTEREY" 158
THE PUBLIC HALL OF THE BRISTOL POST OFFICE 186
THE TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT ROOM, BRISTOL 204
CRIBBS CAUSEWAY POST OFFICE 261
MR. EDWARD BIDDLE 263
LETTER BOX AT WINTERBOURNE 269
HANNAH BREWER, THE BITTON POSTWOMAN 276
PREFACE.
In these days when books on every conceivable subject are written in
their thousands annually; when monthly journals are produced by scores,
and daily newspapers in hundreds, to supply the public with a record of
the world's doings; and when readers are found for them all, it may not
be thought unfitting that each large mail centre in the United Kingdom
which contributes by its postal and telegraph organisation to the
dissemination of much of this literature, should in its turn have some
record of its own doings. This present compilation has, therefore, been
undertaken with that object in view, as regards the Bristol Post Office,
and in the hope that the facts, figures, and incidents contained in it
relating to past doings and present days and present ways may prove of
interest to the inhabitants of the County and City, and its surrounding
districts, and in an unpretentious way commence, or add to, local
Post Office history, and demonstrate that though Bristol is not,
unfortunately, the leading provincial seaport, as of yore, she has not
lagged one step behind her competitors in respect of postal progress.
The profit which may accrue from the publication of _The Bristol Royal
Mail_ will be devoted exclusively to the Rowland Hill Memorial and
Benevolent Fund, the chief patron of which is Her Most Gracious Majesty
the Queen-Empress, who is about to show her great interest in works of
the kind by visiting our ancient city to open the new Convalescent Home.
The object of the fund is the relief of all Post Office servants
throughout the United Kingdom, who, through no fault of their own, have
fallen into necessitous circumstances. It also affords assistance to
their widows and orphans, for whom no provision is made under the
Superannuation Acts. The fund is managed by a body of trustees, who are
assisted by a committee of recommendation composed of officers of the
Post Office. The trustees are well-known gentlemen of high standing and
repute in the city of London, to whose benevolent efforts on behalf of
the department the fund owes its origin. The Superannuation Acts afford
pensions to those who have been in the Post Office not less than ten
years. Sometimes a deserving and distressed Post Office servant has not
served long enough to qualify for a pension, and sometimes help is
needed by persons whose time has been partly spent in the postal
service, but who, because they have been permitted to carry on some
other occupation, are not entitled by law to any pension at all. A
pension, even if it should prove to be sufficient for the pensioner's
own support, ceases at death, and the widow and orphans are often left
destitute. There are more than eighty-one thousand, and, counting those
employed only a portion of their time, nearly one hundred and fifty
thousand servants in the Post Office; and in comparison with the number
of persons amongst whom cases needing relief may arise, the assured
income at the disposal of the trustees of the fund is still inadequate.
In the period since 1893 the trustees have granted to necessitous cases
in the Bristol district L120, so that any proceeds from the sale of this
book will be bestowed where such bestowal is certainly due.
It is right to state that some of the information in these pages has
been derived from _The History of the Post Office_, by the late Mr.
Herbert Joyce, C.B.; _Forty Years at the Post Office_, by Mr. F. E.
Baines, C.B.; _The Royal Mail_, by Mr. J. Wilson Hyde; and from _St.
Martin's-le-Grand Magazine_, also Latimer's _Annals of Bristol_. Thanks
are due also to Mr. Norris Mathews, the Bristol City Librarian, for his
courtesy in permitting and facilitating access to old records in the
Public Library; to Mr. H. J. Spear, Secretary to the Chamber of
Commerce; to the proprietors of the _Times and Mirror_, for allowing
inspection of their old files; and for illustrations to Mr. A. F.
Walbrook, of the _Bath Chronicle_; to the proprietor, _Black and White_,
and many others whose kindness is hereby acknowledged.
The Bristol Royal Mail.
CHAPTER I.
1532-1764.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE MAIL SERVICES.
RALPH ALLEN.
It appears that before Post Offices were established special messengers
were employed to carry letters. It is recorded that such a special
messenger was paid the sum of one penny for carrying a letter from
Bristol to London in the year 1532, but the record affords no further
particulars as to the service, and the assumption is that the special
messenger was, in his own person, a rough-and-ready "post." Later on, a
post would be suddenly established for a particular purpose, and as soon
abandoned when no longer specially required. Thus in the year 1621 a
post to Ireland--Irish firms being then considered to require "oftener
despatches and more expedition"--was set up by way of Bristol, only to
be discontinued in a few years.
There was in 1660 a direct but irregular post between London and some of
the larger provincial towns, but there were no cross posts between two
towns not being on the same post road. Letters could only circulate from
one post road to another through London, and such circulation through
London involved additional rates of postage. Bristol and Exeter are less
than eighty miles apart, but, not being on the same post road, letters
from one place to the other passed through London, and were charged, if
single, 6d., thus:--one rate of 3d. from Exeter to London, and another
rate of 3d. from London to Bristol. This was in conformity with a system
established in the reign of Charles II. That system went on until 1696
when a post was established between Bristol and Exeter, that being the
first cross post in the kingdom authorised by the Monarch's own personal
assent. From Bristol the posts went on Mondays and Fridays, starting at
10.0 in the morning. The posts left Exeter on Wednesdays and Saturdays
at 4.0 in the afternoon, and arrived at Bristol at the same hour on the
following days. Under this cross post plan, the two towns being less
than eighty miles apart, the charge was reduced to 2d. for a single
letter. In three or four years the new post produced a profit of L250 a
year. In 1678 Provost Campbell established a coach to run from Glasgow
to Edinburgh, "drawn by sax able horses, to leave Edinboro' ilk Monday
morning, and return again (God willing) ilk Saturday night." In 1700 the
service between Bristol and London became fixed, and on alternate days
at irregular hours, depending upon the state of the weather and the
roads, the extent of the journey and the caprices of the postboys and
the sorry nags that carried them, the mail arrived in Bristol. There
were, however, only a mere handful of letters and newspapers. At the end
of the same year, the Post Office authorities in London, after being
earnestly petitioned by local merchants, counselled the Government to
establish a "cross post" from this city to Chester. Up to that time the
Bristol letters to Chester, Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester had
been carried round by London under the system already described,
involving double postage and great delay. The effect of this system, as
on the Bristol and Exeter road, had been to throw nearly all the letters
into the hands of public carriers, by whose wagons they were conveyed
more quickly than by the postboys through London, and at a cheaper rate.
Moved by the success of the new cross posts from Bristol to Exeter, the
Treasury consented to the starting of the Chester service. The Post
Office reported to the Treasury in March, 1702, that the profit for the
first eighteen months of the Chester service had been about L156. The
accounts of Henry Pyne, the Bristol postmaster, appended to the report
in the State papers, show that so far as this part of the service was
concerned, he had received L168 for letters by this post, whilst his
expenses had been L60.
The people of Cirencester and Exeter, hearing of the Chester concession,
hastened to complain of shortcomings affecting themselves. The
Devon clothiers had a considerable trade with the wool dealers of
the district of Cirencester, which town was served by the postboys
riding between Gloucester and London, with a branch postboy mail to
Wotton-under-Edge. By there being no direct postal service of any kind
between Bristol and Wotton-under-Edge, correspondence between Exeter and
Cirencester had to be sent _via_ London, and a fortnight elapsed between
the despatch of a letter and the receipt of an answer, the result being
that not one letter in twenty was sent through the post. All that was
needed to shorten the transit from fourteen days to four was to put
Bristol in direct communication with Wotton, the expense being estimated
at only L30 a year. The Government declined to comply with this
reasonable request, and nothing was done!
[Illustration: RALPH ALLEN.
_By permission of the Proprietor of "The Bath and County Graphic."_]
Soon after this time a Post Office reformer arose in our immediate
district in the person of Ralph Allen. He, unlike later reformers,
passed all his working days in the Post Office service. Born at the
"Duke William Inn," at St. Blazey Highway, in Cornwall in about 1693, he
went as a boy to help his grandmother, who was postmistress at St.
Columb. In 1710 he was transferred as a clerk to Bath, and on the 26th
March, 1712, he became postmaster of that city, in succession to one
Mary Collins, and in that year appears to have taken over the management
of the Bristol and Exeter Cross Road Post, previously farmed by Joseph
Quash, postmaster of Exeter. In 1720 Ralph Allen contracted to farm the
cross-country posts throughout the country generally, and to carry the
mails by what were subsequently known as "Allen's Postboys," who were
supposed to travel on horseback at a pace averaging five miles an hour.
A robbery from these postboys carrying the mails between London and
Bristol was a common occurrence. Two men were executed in April, 1720,
for having twice committed that crime, yet the letter bags were again
stolen seven times during the following twelve months. The _London
Journal_ of August 27th remarked: "It is computed that the traders of
Bristol have received L60,000 damages by the late robberies of the
mail." In 1722 the postboys were robbed twice in a single week, and for
the crimes three men were executed in London. Another incident of the
kind worthy of mentioning occurred in September, 1738. The bag then
carried off by three highwaymen contained a reprieve for a man lying
under sentence of death in Newgate, and a second reprieve despatched
after the robbery became known would have arrived too late to save the
man's life, had not the magistrates postponed the execution for a day
or two in order that it might not clash with the festivities of a new
Mayor's inauguration.
[Illustration: PRIOR PARK, BATH.
(_Formerly residence of Ralph Allen._)
_By permission of the Proprietor of "The Bath and County Graphic."_]
About 1732 the Bristol riding boys were deprived of their perquisite of
1d. a letter for "dropping of letters" at the towns and villages through
which they passed. This was done because the postboys not only carried
letters which they picked up on the road and did not account for at the
next post office of call, but even went to the length of taking out
letters from the mail bags when those bags were, as was the case
sometimes, not properly chained and sealed. In connection with Ralph
Allen's "By-Posts," in the year 1735 arrangements were made so that the
mails sent from Manchester, Liverpool, or any other place in Lancashire,
to Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, etc., might be
answered four days sooner than they could possibly have been answered
before. In 1740 a new branch by-post was established from Bristol and
Bath to Salisbury, through Bradford, Trowbridge, Devizes, Lavington,
Tinhead, Westbury, Warminster, Heytesbury, and Wilton. In 1741 the
growth of trade and population encouraged the Bristol citizens to
appeal to the Ministry for an improvement in the postal communication
with London, which was still limited to three days per week. Yielding to
this pressure, Allen converted the tri-weekly posts into six-day posts
in June, 1741. The post began to run every day of the week, except
Sunday, between London and Bristol, and all intervening towns
participated in the benefit. In 1746 a further extension took place,
whereby letters were conveyed six days in every week, instead of three
days, at Mr. Allen's expense, between London and Wells, Bridgwater,
Taunton, Wellington, Tiverton, and Exeter, through Bristol. The mail
service is not in further evidence in local history until 1753, when the
Bristol merchants again showed themselves tenacious of their rights, and
waged a bitter war against the Postmasters-General in respect of the
imposition of a double rate of postage on letters which, although under
an ounce in weight, contained patterns of silk or cotton or samples of
grain. There was a lawsuit, and the Bristol merchants won it.
A Government notification in the local newspapers of the 4th September,
1752, announced an acceleration of the mails between the Southern
Counties and Bristol. In future a postboy was to leave Salisbury on
Mondays at six o'clock in the morning, to arrive at Bath (a distance of
about thirty-nine miles) at eight or nine at night, and to leave Bath
for Bristol at six next morning. On Wednesdays and Fridays the departure
from Salisbury was in the evening, the journey occupying about nineteen
hours. By this arrangement letters from Portsmouth were received in this
city two days earlier than before.
[Illustration: RALPH ALLEN'S TOWN HOUSE IN BATH.
_By kind permission of the Proprietor of the "Bath and County
Graphic."_]
Ralph Allen's improvements had great influence in the Post Office
services in this western city. The profits on the contracts enabled
Allen to take up his residence at Prior Park, Bath, one of the finest
Italian houses in England, in addition to having a grand house in the
City. It is said that the profits which accrued to him from his long
contracts amounted to about half a million of money.
Mansions so lordly are not for the hardest and best workers in the Post
Office field of present times, for the nation does not reward its great
men so liberally as then. Nowadays an introducer of the inland parcel
post service, the foreign parcel post service, an improver of the
telegraph service, and leader in bringing about vastly accelerated mail
services throughout the country,--works of great moment, even if not
comparable with Ralph Allen, John Palmer, or Rowland Hill's great
achievements,--has, after forty years at the Post Office, to be
contented on retirement with no more than the modest pension due to him,
which will not even be continued to his nearest and dearest relative.
Allen benefited the Bristol postal district in another way than by his
improved Post Office services when he built the bridge over the Avon at
Newton-St.-Loe at a cost of L4,000. He was buried in Claverton
Churchyard, near Bath. The inscription on his tomb runs thus:--"Beneath
this Monument lieth entombed the Body of Ralph Allen, Esqr., of Prior
Park, who departed this life y^e 29th day of June, 1764, in the 71st
year of his Age. In full hope of everlasting happiness in another state
thro' the infinite merit and mediation of our blessed Redeemer, Jesus
Christ."
Ralph Allen did not hoard up his money or spend it on riotous living,
but bestowed a considerable portion of his income in works of charity,
especially in supporting needy men of letters. He was a great friend and
benefactor of Fielding, and in _Tom Jones_ the novelist has gratefully
drawn Mr. Allen's character in the person of Squire Alworthy. He enjoyed
the friendship of Chatham and Pitt; and Pope, Warburton, and other men
of literary distinction were his familiar companions. Pope has
celebrated one of his principal virtues--unassuming benevolence--in the
well-known lines:
"Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
Derrick has thus described Allen's personal appearance shortly before
his death: "He is a very grave, well-looking man, plain in his dress,
resembling that of a Quaker, and courteous in his behaviour. I suppose
he cannot be much under seventy. His wife is low, with grey hair, and of
a very pleasing address." Kilvert says that he was rather above the
middle size and stoutly built, and that he was not altogether averse to
a little state, as he often used to drive into Bath in a coach and four.
His handwriting was very curious; he evidently wrote quickly and
fluently, but it was so overloaded with curls and flourishes as to be
sometimes scarcely legible.
The lack of all show about his garb seems to have somewhat annoyed
Philip Thicknesse, the well-known author of one of the Bath Guides, for
he speaks of Allen's "plain linen shirt-sleeves, with only a chitterling
up the slit."
Allen's son Philip became Comptroller of the "By-Letter" Department in
the London Post Office.
[Illustration: RALPH ALLEN'S TOMB IN CLAVERTON CHURCHYARD, NEAR BATH.
_By kind permission of the Proprietor of the "Bath and County
Graphic."_]