VICTORIAN ERA, 1837-1899.
MAIL TRANSPORT BY RAILWAY.--TRAVELLING POST OFFICES.
Although the world's railway system was inaugurated by the opening of
the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825, it was not until 1838 that
any attempt was made by a great railway to open up the traffic to the
West from the Metropolis. It was in that year that the Great Western
Company made a line between Paddington and Maidenhead, and mails were
sent by it. The section from Bristol to Bath was opened in the same
year. _Woolmer's Gazette_ of January, 1840, speaks of the 9.0 a.m.
"Exquisite" coach for Bristol, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Manchester, and
Liverpool, with part of the service by rail. Intermediate sections of
the railway were completed from time to time, and, finally, on the 30th
January, 1841, the Western line was opened throughout, and the coaches
which had formed so striking a feature both of town and country life
generally disappeared. One coach, however, obstinately held its ground
in spite of the railway, and continued to carry passengers from and to
London and Bristol at the rate of 1d. per mile until October, 1843.
In consequence of the completion of the Great Western Railway to
Bristol, extensive mail alterations had to be made, and they were
commenced on the 30th July, 1841, affecting the whole district right
through Somersetshire and Devonshire into Cornwall. Some towns were made
post towns and others were reduced from the rank of post towns to that
of sub-post offices. To meet the altered circumstances, revised sacking
of bags had to be resorted to. The instructions given by the President
to the staff in St. Martin's-le-Grand ended thus:
".... Any bags in addition to the ordinary number must be reported to
the road officers by the clerks of the divisions, that they may be
entered under the head of 'extra,' also any agents or portmanteaus for
Falmouth; and they must instruct the men carrying out the sacks and bags
first to report them to the check clerk, and then take them through the
letter carriers' office to the Devonport or Gloucester omnibus, as the
case may be, as the guards will not for the future come into the
office."
It was at this time that the villages of Hallatrow, High Littleton,
Paulton, Harptree (East and West), Farrington Gurney, Temple Cloud,
Cameley, and Hinton Blewett were transferred from the postal control of
Bath to that of Bristol, under which they still remain.
For several years the only trains carrying third-class passengers from
Bristol started at 4.0 o'clock in the morning and 9.0 o'clock at night,
offering the travellers, who were wholly unprotected from the weather,
an alternative of miseries, and at first travellers were not much better
off in point of speed when travelling by railway, as third-class
passengers were 9-1/2 hours on the railway between Bristol and London.
The coach at the time of its being taken off performed the journey under
12 hours.
The "Bush" coach office was closed in March, 1844.
The Bristol and Gloucester Railway was opened to the public on the 8th
July, 1844. Of the seven coaches which had been running between the two
cities six were immediately withdrawn, and on the 22nd July the
time-honoured "North Mail" left Bristol for the last time, the horses'
heads surmounted with funereal plumes and the coachman and guard in
equally lugubrious array.
As late as 1845 Her Majesty's mails were conveyed between Bristol and
Southampton in a closed covered cart, "proper for the purpose," as set
forth in an advertisement inviting tenders for a new contract. The whole
journey had to be performed at the rate of eight miles within the hour,
stoppages included. The hours of despatch were: From Bristol at about
6.0 p.m., and from Southampton about 9.0 p.m.
[Illustration: "THE OLD BUSH HOTEL," CORN STREET, BRISTOL.
_From a picture in the possession of E. G. Clarke, Esq._]
In 1849 a great mail robbery took place, which was committed with very
much daring. The robbers, who booked from Starcross station on the 1st
January, left a compartment of the up night mail train (which left
Bridgwater at 10.30 p.m. and reached Bristol at midnight); they crept
along the ledge, only 1-1/2 inch wide, to the mail-brake at the rear of
the post office sorting carriage, and effected an entrance, having
previously possessed themselves of a key of the lock. After having
rifled the mail bags they crept back to their compartment, and
alighted from the train at the Bristol station, giving up their tickets
to the Great Western Railway policeman. Not contented with robbing the
up mail, they got into the night mail train from London to the West,
which left Bristol at 1.15 a.m., and actually had the daring to pursue
the same tactics with regard to the mail bags in the locked brake. This
further audacity brought about their capture, for the news of the
robbery of the up mail reached the ears of the officers at Bristol who
were in the down mail, and so they were on the alert. On arrival,
therefore, at Bridgwater the second robbery was at once detected, all
exit from the station was stopped, and the train searched. Two men were
discovered in a first-class compartment near the travelling post office,
and registered letters and money letters were found upon them. In
addition to the letters, masks, and false moustache found, a
woolstapler's hook, which it is supposed was used by the thieves to hang
on to the tender when leaving the first-class carriage, was also
discovered. One of the registered letters stolen, it was stated,
contained L4,000, and the loss, as far as it was known, unquestionably
amounted to _fifty times_ that sum. The robbers turned out to be Henry
Poole, a discharged Great Western guard, and Edward Nightingale, a
London horse dealer. The case excited a great deal of interest in the
West of England, and when the trial took place at Exeter the court was
crowded to excess, and the avenues and approaches thereto were very
inconveniently crowded. Mr. Rogers, Q.C., and Mr. Poulden appeared for
the prosecution, and Mr. Slade, Mr. Cockburn, Q.C., and Mr. Stone
defended.
Evidence was given by clerks in the Lombard Street Post Office,
messengers and letter-carriers in the G.P.O., "register" clerks, clerk
at Charing Cross Post Office, the clerk of the Devonport Road, guard of
the mail from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Paddington, and by letter-sorters
in the travelling Post Office. Jane Crabbe, barmaid at the "Talbot Inn,"
Bath Street, Bristol, recollected the two men entering the bar and
calling for two small glasses of brandy-and-water. They were shown to an
adjoining room, where they remained until 1 o'clock, and then went to
the bar to pay. They appeared impatient, and looked at the clock. It was
suspected that all the property which, had been abstracted from the up
mail was secreted somewhere in Bristol, and a most rigid search was
instituted, but without success. Mr. Cockburn's speech to the jury for
the defence occupied over two hours. Lord Justice Denman, the Judge of
the Spring Assize, sentenced the culprits to fifteen years'
transportation.
A Select Committee was appointed in 1854 to inquire into the causes of
irregularity in the conveyance of mails by railways, and to consider the
best means of securing speed and punctuality; also to consider the best
mode of fixing the remuneration of the various Railway Companies for
their services. The local witnesses, Mr. James Creswell Wall and Mr. J.
B. Badham, Secretary and Superintendent respectively of the late Bristol
and Exeter Railway Company, and Bristol residents, gave evidence before
the Committee, composed of Mr. Wilson Patten (chairman), Mr. James
MacGregor, Mr. H. G. Liddell, Mr. H. Herbert, Mr. C. Fortescue, Mr.
Cowan, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Philipps, and Mr. Milner.
Replying to questions, witnesses considered two hours forty minutes, as
fixed by the Post Office Department, insufficient time for the down
night mail to travel from Bristol to Exeter, including six stoppages.
The delivery of mail bags at certain stations by apparatus without
stopping the train was suggested, but witnesses considered the plan
dangerous and that it could not with safety be adopted.
The Secretary of the South Wales Railway Company, Mr. F. G. Saunders,
gave evidence as to the frequent loss of time sustained by the South
Wales night mail through the late receipt of the Bristol and West of
England mails at Chepstow. At that time the bags for South Wales were
still conveyed from Bristol to the Aust Passage, thence by ferry to the
opposite bank of the Severn and on to Chepstow. The conveyance of mails
for South Wales _via_ Gloucester was subsequently adopted.
All the witnesses complained of the reduction of railway parcel traffic
through the then recent establishment of book postage and consequent
falling off of receipts, also that the remuneration awarded for the
carriage of mails was insufficient, although decided by
mutually-appointed umpires.
[Illustration: THE OLD PASSAGE, AUST.]
For many years the night mails were conveyed between Paddington and
Bristol by a special train, which did not carry passengers. It was the
only train of its kind in the kingdom, but so useful was it held to
be in securing a regular delivery of letters that the Government
introduced a clause in a Postal Bill in 1857 rendering it compulsory for
all railways to provide similar trains. On the 1st June, 1869, the Post
Office special Great Western train commenced to be a mail train limited
to carry a certain number of passengers, so that opinion had by that
time become altered as regards the value in relation to cost of a train
exclusively for Post Office purposes.
The travelling Post Office service assists greatly in the speedy
distribution of letters, and by its agency remote places are put on an
equality with the country generally in respect of deliveries and
despatches. Two of the most important travelling Post Office systems in
the kingdom are conducted through, or to, Bristol--the gate to the
Western country--viz.: The Great Western Railway, with a travelling Post
Office annual mileage of 500,000; and the Midland and North-Eastern
lines from Newcastle, with a mileage of 220,000. Travelling Post
Offices, with a combined coach length of from 48 feet on the day mails
to 158 feet on the night mails, are attached to the Great Western down
trains which arrive at Bristol at 12.13 a.m. and 8.48 a.m.; to the up
trains, at 12.45 a.m. and 3.0 p.m.; to the trains leaving Bristol for
the West at 6.15 a.m. and 12.9 p.m., and for the North at 7.40 p.m. The
Midland travelling Post Office carriages are attached to the 5.40 a.m.
inward train and to the 7.0 p.m. outward train.
There is living at Midford, about fifteen miles distant from Bristol, a
gentleman (Mr. Coulcher) who--now pensioned from the Post Office--was
the clerk in charge of the Midland Travelling Post Office on its first
run from Bristol to Derby in 1857. He well recollects the night, and
what impressed it upon his memory more than anything else was the fact
that on reaching Bristol, after he and his two subordinate clerks and
his mail-guard (Samuel Bennett) had made almost superhuman efforts to
get the work completed, he had to send 13,000 letters unsorted into the
Bristol Post Office, there to await despatch by day mails to towns in
the West of England, instead of going at once in direct travelling Post
Office bags by the connecting early morning train.
Samuel Bennett, the old mail guard mentioned, and contemporary of Moses
Nobbs, was frequently injured on road and rail. In 1847 he was much
shaken when a Birmingham-to-Bath train by which he was travelling ran
off the line. A few years later he nearly came to an untimely end,
having been regarded as dead after being much knocked about when two
trains between Bristol and Birmingham collided. On that occasion, after
he recovered consciousness, he got together some of his mail bags and
carried them on to Bristol.
The _Gloucester Journal_ said of the occurrence:--"Samuel Bennett, the
guard of the mail bags, appeared dead when found, and was dreadfully
cut; but on recovering, he manifested great anxiety for the bags. When
the special train arrived in which the wounded passengers were conveyed
onward, Bennett, with great courage, determined to take the bags by this
train, which was done."
And the _Bristol Mercury_ wrote of him as follows:--"The mail guard,
Samuel Bennett, was very much cut over the face and head, and bled
profusely. Happily, he was not rendered long unconscious or disabled,
and with a conscientious and self-denying attention to duty not often
met with, he refused any attention to his hurts until he had gathered up
the mutilated letter bags and their contents, and made provision for
bringing them on to this city."
In the Bristol district there is a railway Post Office apparatus station
at Fishponds, on the Midland Railway, bags being deposited thereat by
the train due at Bristol at 5.40 a.m., and taken up by the train ex
Bristol at 7.0 p.m. On the Great Western Railway, the apparatus
arrangement is in operation at Flax Bourton, Nailsea, Yatton, and
Hewish, chiefly in connection with the 6.15 a.m. train ex Bristol. It
rarely happens that any failures occur at Fishponds or Hewish, but
vagaries of the apparatus are more frequent at Yatton. About once a year
something or other goes wrong, the pouch usually being dropped and
carried along by the train, with mutilation of the mail bags and a
general scattering of the letters. On the last occasion, after the line
had been searched up and down, the embankment closely looked over, and
the ground on the other side of the hedge on the down side closely
scrutinized, all unavailingly, some two or three days after the
accident a bundle of letters was picked up which, such was the force of
the impact, had been "skied" into a field over two hedges of an
intervening lane.
On another similar mishap, a Post Office remittance letter containing
L20 in gold was burst open and the coins scattered over the line. After
diligent search in every direction, L18 10s. was recovered. One half
sovereign, bent in an extraordinary manner, was found between the metals
three-quarters of a mile from the apparatus standard. The apparatus has
to be adjusted with mathematical nicety, and if not so arranged failures
are liable to occur. It is well that the public should bear in mind that
packets sent by mails which are exchanged by apparatus are in more or
less danger, and any article of a fragile or costly nature should, if
possible, be forwarded by mails carried by stopping-trains. The places
so affected in this neighbourhood are:--Alveston, Bitton, Blagdon,
Burrington, Clevedon, Congresbury, Downend, Fishponds, Flax Bourton,
Frampton Cotterell, Frenchay, Glastonbury, Hambrook, Hewish, Iron Acton,
Langford, Mangotsfield, Nailsea, Oldlands Common, Portishead,
Pucklechurch, Rudgeway, Sandford, Staple Hill, Thornbury, Tockington,
Warmley, West Town, Willsbridge, Winterbourne, Wrington, and Yatton.
Until lately mails for Bristol were forwarded by the midnight train from
Euston (L. & N. W. R.) and reached this city by way of Birmingham in
time for the North mail delivery. It was on that railway that in 1890 a
sad occurrence happened at Watford, when a young man whilst in the
discharge of his duties as fireman lost his life. The deceased was
leaning over the side of his engine, which was stationary, watching for
the signals to be turned, when the day mail train from London dashed by.
The travelling Post Office apparatus net which had picked up a pouch at
a point a few score yards away was still extended and it struck the
unfortunate young man on the head, completely severing it from the body.
The poor fellow's cap was torn from his head by the apparatus net and
fell into the travelling Post Office carriages with the mail pouches
much to the consternation of the travelling sorters, who found evidence
of the mutilation on the apparatus framework. The net was only down for
the short space of ten seconds. The travelling officials first heard
full details of the accident on their arrival at Tring, where the train
next stopped.
"Once upon a time," writes Mr. A. W. Blake in the _St. Martin's-le-Grand
Magazine_, "the London afternoon mail was made up at a provincial office
down West (Chippenham), and despatched to be taken off by apparatus. All
proceeded as usual up to the actual point of transfer, when a strange
thing happened. Instead of falling soberly into the net, the man in
charge was astonished to see the pouch leap high into the air and
descend he knew not whither. Search was carefully made along the track
of the departed train, but not a vestige of the missing pouch could be
seen, and a local inspector who was travelling up the line promised to
keep a look-out for it. Just at this time an 'S.G.' was received from
the officer in charge of the sorting tender notifying the non-receipt of
the pouch. As the mystery seemed to deepen, word was received that a
signalman at a level crossing two miles away had noticed the missing
article on the top of the train. Quoth the worthy apparatus man: 'If
it'll ride two miles, it'll ride two hundred'; and accordingly a wire
was sent to the sorting-tender people asking them to search the top of
the train, and soon came the reply that the pouch had been found on the
roof of the guard's van at Didcot. The train had stopped the regulation
time at that hub of the Great Way Round, Swindon, and proceeded on its
way without the extraordinary position of Her Majesty's mails being
discovered."
The occurrence was attributed to the swaying of the carriage, and to the
apparatus-net not working quite steadily in consequence.
At a later period than the mishap narrated by Mr. Blake, the bags for
Oxford and Abingdon, due to be picked up at Wantage by the up night mail
travelling Post Office apparatus, and to have been delivered by the same
process at Steventon, were not found when the net was drawn in, and it
was thought they had been missed; but at Didcot it was discovered they
had been thrown over the end of the net and were hanging outside it.
Since the opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1883 it has not often been
found an absolute necessity to make use of it for the conveyance of
mails diverted from the route from South Wales through Gloucester to
London; but such was the case in February of the present year (1899),
when a tidal wave of forty feet was experienced in the Bristol Channel,
which caused serious damage by displacing the railway line between
Lydney and Wollaston. The effects of the high tide were disastrous. A
wave dashed on to the Great Western Railway with huge force, and so
disintegrated the ballasting of the permanent way that the lines were
twisted into all manner of shapes. The mails to and from Paddington to
South Wales were circulated _via_ Bristol and the Tunnel for some time.
Bristol is at a disadvantage as compared with London in respect of its
Continental correspondence, but is far better situated than many other
provincial towns. The letters from the Continent by night mails reach
Bristol by the train leaving London at 9.0 a.m. and, arriving at Temple
Meads at 11.57 a.m., are on delivery in the private box renters' office
at about 12.30 p.m. The postmen start out with the letters at 1.10 p.m.
As the hour of posting for the outward Continental night mails is 2.10
p.m., it is only the private box renters who have time, brief though it
be, to reply to their correspondence on the day of receiving it.
An appeal to the Hon. Member for Bristol East was made by the writer at
a Chamber of Commerce dinner to exercise his influence as a director of
the Great Western Railway in the direction of obtaining the use of a
goods train for the conveyance to Bristol of a midnight mail from
London. In the end the Railway Company afforded the Post Office the
means of bringing down a midnight mail, not by goods train as was
originally contemplated, but by new and fast passenger train, with the
result that half a million letters a year now fall into the first
delivery throughout the town, instead of into the second delivery as
heretofore. The letters posted in London up to 9.0 p.m. reach the head
office in Small Street in time to be delivered throughout the city and
suburbs by the postmen on their first round. Under the old system, when
"routed" _via_ Birmingham, the arrival was often so late and irregular
that the letters missed even the second delivery. The letters for the
rural districts having no day mail deliveries had to lie at Bristol for
twenty-four hours, while now they are delivered on the morning of
receipt from London. The advantages oL the new system apply to parcels
as well as letters, and the acceleration in delivery is particularly
serviceable as regards parcels containing perishable articles.
The Railway Company recently gave the Department another opportunity of
improving the mail services by establishing a merchandise train from
Cornwall and the West to London, reaching the Metropolis in time for the
letters sent by it to be delivered some three or four hours earlier than
when conveyed by the first passenger train in the morning. Strangely
enough, the establishment of this new mail service was the means of
enabling the hon. baronet (Sir W. H. Wills), the Member for Bristol
East, to take his seat in the House of Commons on the day of his last
election, for the writ and return were sent by that mail to London in
time to reach the Crown Office for all formalities to be gone through in
connection with the seat being taken at once.