WILLIAM DOCKWRA
1660-1685
At the Restoration the Post Office was leased to Henry Bishopp of
Henfield in Sussex, for the term of seven years at a rent of L21,500 a
year, or more than double the amount which had been paid by the previous
farmer. Before three years had elapsed, however, Bishopp surrendered his
lease, and was succeeded for the remainder of his term and at the same
rent by Daniel O'Neile, Groom of the King's Bedchamber. O'Neile had
loyally adhered to Charles during his exile, had attended his Sovereign
on his visit to Scotland, had been banished that kingdom, and in
connection with his banishment had achieved a singular distinction. He
had given a written undertaking consenting to his own death if he ever
returned.
Even at a rent of L21,500, as the Court had doubtless by this time
learned, the Post Office was not a bad investment. O'Neile, like
Bishopp, was to enjoy a monopoly of the carrying of letters, and to make
what he could out of it; but he was rigidly to adhere to the rates of
postage prescribed by the Act, charging neither more nor less. Old posts
were not to be altered nor new posts erected, without the sanction of
the Secretary of State; and the Secretary of State was to possess a veto
on appointments and, as occasion might require, to "have the survey and
inspection of all letters." To these conditions was afterwards added
another. This was that no postmaster or other officer was to remain in
the service who should not within six months obtain and forward to the
postmaster-general a certificate, under the hand and seal of the Bishop
of the diocese, to the effect that he was "conformable to the discipline
of the Church of England."
In 1667, O'Neile's lease having expired, Lord Arlington, Secretary of
State in the Cabinet known as the Cabal, was appointed postmaster-general;
and, after a while, the office was again let out to farm, this time at a
rent of L43,000 a year. Rapidly as the rent had grown, the public
demands had grown more rapidly still, and little, if any, effort had
been made to satisfy them. How inadequate the posts were, about this
time, to meet the public requirements may be judged from a circumstance
connected with Bishopp's appointment. The letters patent appointing him
were to take effect from the 25th of June 1660, but their validity was to
depend on an Act of Parliament, the Act reconstituting the General Post
Office, which did not pass until some months afterwards. Meanwhile a whole
crop of posts had sprung up between London and the country, which could
not be suppressed until the Act was passed. As compensation for the loss
he sustained by this encroachment on his monopoly between the 25th of June
and the 29th of September Bishopp claimed and received no less than L500.
There is preserved in the Guildhall Library a letter from the Duke of
Buckingham, to which the following note is appended:--"The great fire of
London broke out on the 2nd of September 1666. It is seen by the date of
this letter that the Duke of Buckingham, at that time in the highest
position at Court and in the zenith of his power, was at Worthing, and
did not receive intelligence of the awful calamity until after the city
had been burning for five days." We do not know by what means the Duke
was informed of the calamity, nor is it material to our present purpose
that we should do so. All we desire now to observe is that if, as is not
improbable, he was informed of it by letter, the letter--as we proceed
to shew--reached him in due course of post. The fire broke out at
midnight on the 2nd of September, and the 2nd of September was a
Saturday, after which, except to the Downs and to places abroad, there
was no post out of London until Tuesday the 5th, or rather, as the mails
started after midnight, until early in the morning of Wednesday the 6th.
Arundel was then the post-town for Worthing, and for the first part of
the distance the course of post was, as it continued to be until the day
of railways, through Tooting, Ewell, Epsom or Ebbesham as it was still
called, Leatherhead, and Dorking. Continuing thence, not, as in later
times, through Horsham, but through the hamlet of Coldharbour, the
post-road skirted the foot of Leith Hill and passed through Stone
Street, Billinghurst, and Amberley to Arundel, which would be reached
late in the afternoon of Wednesday. Between Arundel and Worthing the
distance is ten miles, and the postmaster would not, at the earliest,
take out the letter for delivery until the morning of Thursday the 7th,
or five days after the fire had broken out. Indeed, it may be permitted
to us to doubt whether the letter, if letter there was, would have been
delivered as early as the 7th, had it been for a less important
personage.
Meagre as the means of communication were in those days, even such means
as existed were not matter of common knowledge. The Post Office did not
advertise its wares; and no newspapers then existed to do for the Post
Office what the Post Office omitted to do for itself. What towns
possessed post-houses of their own, and how these towns stood in
relation to other towns which did not enjoy the same advantage, might
well be considered essential information; yet even of this no public
announcement was given. Blome, in his _Britannia_, printed in 1671,
remarks upon this defect, and for the benefit of his readers proceeds to
supply it. After commenting upon the convenience which the Post Office
affords, and lamenting that this convenience is not more generally
known, he gives a list of the post towns which each county possesses,
and supplements it with a series of county maps, so that, as he
explains, persons desirous of writing to any particular place may be
able to find out for themselves where the nearest post-house stands. As
late as the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth
centuries separate maps appear to have been published with the same
object, as a matter of private enterprise. In these maps the post towns
are indicated by a castle surmounted by the royal standard.
But it was within the metropolis itself that the public need was
greatest. Between London and the country posts went at unequal intervals
indeed, and at intervals in some cases unduly long, and yet with
regularity. To Kent and the Downs there was a post daily; to other parts
of England and to Scotland a post every other day; and to Wales and to
Ireland a post twice a week. But between one part of London and another
there was no post at all. A resident in London having a letter for
delivery within the metropolitan area had only one choice, to take the
letter himself or to send it by another. And let the bearer of a letter
be who he might, there was an inconvenience to which he was constantly
exposed. The houses were not numbered, and were mainly to be recognised
by the signs they bore. Later on, men who delivered letters over the
same ground day after day complained that it was not always easy to find
the address. Without local knowledge it must have been sometimes
impossible.
Happily, in England the spirit of enterprise is such that an
acknowledged want affecting any considerable section of the public is
seldom suffered to endure very long. And so it proved in the present
instance. The man who now undertook to relieve the capital from the
intolerable inconvenience under which it laboured was William Dockwra, a
merchant of the city of London. Dockwra had been a sub-searcher in the
Custom House, and through some little interest he possessed at Court had
been allowed to dispose of his place. The idea of the penny post is said
indeed to have originated with Robert Murray, an upholsterer in
Paternoster Row; but, be that as it may, to Dockwra belongs the credit
of giving it practical shape. A man of less resolution or less convinced
of the inherent merits of his undertaking might well have been daunted
by the difficulties he had to encounter. The undertaking had been
conceived in so bold a spirit that to carry it out would involve an
expense which Dockwra's unaided resources were altogether unable to
bear. A difficulty still greater than the want of funds was the
determined opposition of the Duke of York. In 1663 the profits of the
Post Office had been settled on the Duke for his support and
maintenance, and, with an eye ever intent on his own interests, he
discerned or thought he discerned in the new project an infringement of
his rights.
Undeterred by these difficulties, Dockwra persevered in the task he had
taken in hand. At length the appointed day arrived. On the 1st of April
1680,[9] London, which had hitherto had no post at all, suddenly found
itself in possession of one in comparison with which even the post of
our own time is cast into the shade. For the purposes of the undertaking
London and its suburbs were divided into seven districts with a sorting
office in each. From Hackney in the north to Lambeth in the south, from
Blackwall in the east to Westminster in the west, there was not a point
within the bills of mortality which the new post did not reach. Between
four and five hundred receiving offices were opened in a single morning.
Placards were distributed and advertisements inserted in the public
intelligences announcing where these offices were. Messengers called
there for letters every hour. These, if for the country, were carried to
the General Post Office, and if for the town, to the respective sorting
offices. From the sorting offices, after being sorted and entered in
books kept for the purpose, they were sent out for delivery, to the Inns
of Court or places of business ten or twelve times a day, and to other
places according to distance from four to eight times. Nor was the
service confined to letters. It extended also to parcels, the only
condition being that neither parcel nor letter should exceed one pound
in weight,[10] or ten pounds in value. Subject to these limitations the
charge between one part of London and another was one penny. An
exception indeed was made in the case of Hackney, Islington, Newington
Butts, and Lambeth, which were then separate towns. There one penny
carried only to the receiving office, and for delivery at a private
house the charge was one penny more. Delivery in the street was not
allowed.
[9] Curiously enough, the Post Office Report for 1854 gives the year as
1683; but this is an error.
[10] Here also the Post Office Report for 1854 is in error. It says that
at first there was no limit to the weight of a packet.
But it was not only in the matter of weight and frequency of delivery
that the new undertaking was conceived in the most liberal spirit.
Provided a letter or parcel was securely tied and sealed and its
contents endorsed on the outside, the charge of one penny covered not
only cost of conveyance but insurance as well, up to a limit of ten
pounds. That is to say, subject to this limit, if a parcel or a letter
or its contents were lost, Dockwra would, the conditions being observed,
make the value good.
There is yet another novelty which Dockwra introduced. As a check upon
his messengers he supplied the seven sorting offices with stamps bearing
their own initial letters and denoting the several hours of the day.
With one of these stamps all letters and parcels were impressed as they
passed through the post, and if in the busy parts of the capital they
were not delivered within little more than an hour from the time denoted
by the impression, the public were encouraged to complain. The following
are specimens of the stamps which Dockwra used:--
[Illustration: Three stamps]
This was the introduction of postmarks. In the first and last
impressions Mor. 8 signifies of course 8 o'clock in the morning, and Af.
4, 4 o'clock in the afternoon. In the second or middle impression the
initial letter L signifies Lyme Street, where the principal office of
the penny post was held at Dockwra's private dwelling-house, formerly
the dwelling-house of Sir Robert Abdy.
The General Post Office, until lately in Bishopsgate Street, stood at
this time in Lombard Street, where it occupied a site on part of which
the branch office now stands. There the persons employed, all told,
numbered 77. In the country and dependent on the chief office were 227
postmasters, viz. 182 in England and Scotland and 45 in Ireland. Twelve
persons were also employed in the office in Dublin. Altogether and
throughout the whole of the kingdom the General Post Office, in 1680,
gave employment to 316 persons, a number very much less than that which
Dockwra employed in London alone.
On Saturday nights the penny post closed, in winter at six, and in
summer at seven. On other nights of the week, Sundays excepted, it must
have remained open to at least 9 o'clock, for at that hour the country
letters were collected from the receiving offices and carried to the
General Post Office. Besides Sundays, there were eight days in the year
on which the post did not go, viz. three days at Christmas, two days at
Easter, two days at Whitsuntide, and also the 30th of January, the
anniversary of the death of King Charles the First.
In spite of the enormous advantages it conferred, the penny post was not
at first received with unqualified satisfaction. Some fanatics denounced
it as a Popish contrivance; and Lord Macaulay tells us how the porters
complained that their interests were attacked, and tore down the
placards on which the scheme was announced to the public. Even
unprejudiced persons and persons who had no interests to protect
complained that a large number of things were posted and not delivered.
This Dockwra himself admitted, explaining that it was due to the
illegible writing of the address or to the omission of some important
particular by which the persons addressed might be identified, the
omission of their trade, or of the signs which their houses bore, or of
some well-known place or object in their vicinity. The manifest utility
of the enterprise, however, soon bore down all opposition; and in little
more than a year from its introduction the penny post, though weighted
with a scheme of insurance, was very nearly paying its own expenses.
The establishment of the penny post had one effect which had probably
not been contemplated. It increased largely the number of letters for
the country. Every man had now a post office at his own door. It is true
that Dockwra's four or five hundred receiving offices were intended
primarily for town letters; but country letters might be posted there,
and, as we have seen, were collected at a stated hour every evening.
Hitherto the case had been very different. Up to the 1st of April 1680,
incredible as it may appear, the General Post Office in Lombard Street
was the only receptacle for letters in the whole of London. There and
nowhere else could letters be posted. Little wonder if, before 1680,
persons whom the cost of postage might not deter from writing were yet
deterred by their distance from the Post Office.
Dockwra might reasonably now expect to reap some of the rewards of
success. A small band of citizens who had joined in the original venture
had afterwards deserted him, and for six months he had carried it on at
his sole charge. Others had then come to his aid, and a fresh
partnership had been formed. The undertaking prospered, became
self-supporting, and at length gave promise of large returns. This very
promise excited the greed of the Duke of York. So long as the outgoings
exceeded the receipts Dockwra remained unmolested; but no sooner had the
balance turned than the Duke complained of his monopoly being infringed,
and the Courts of Law decided in his favour. Not only was Dockwra cast
in damages, but the undertaking which he had impoverished himself to
establish was wrested out of his hands, and the penny post, in less than
five years from its introduction, was incorporated into the General Post
Office.[11]
[11] The exact date of incorporation is uncertain. The decision in the
Court of King's Bench was given in Michaelmas term 1682; but the first
public advertisement of the penny post does not appear to have been
issued by the Postmaster-General until the 11th of March 1684/5.
Generosity formed no part of James's character, and, so long as he sat
on the throne, Dockwra's services remained without the slightest
recognition. In 1690, however, upon an address from the House of
Commons, William and Mary granted him a pension of L500 for seven years,
and in 1697 the grant was renewed for three years longer. In the same
year as the renewal of the grant, but a little earlier, he was appointed
comptroller of the penny post at a salary of L200, and this appointment
he retained until 1700. Then, both appointment and grant came to an
abrupt termination together, for, on charges brought against him by his
own subordinates, Dockwra, like Witherings, was dismissed. Such was the
tribute paid to the man who had conferred on his country benefits which
he never tired of predicting would endure to all posterity.
Of the charges against Dockwra two deserve special notice, as shewing
that the penny post, after its acquisition by the State, continued to be
conducted on the same principles as before. These two charges were--1st,
that, contrary to his duty, he "forbids the taking in any band-boxes
(except very small) and all parcels above a pound"; and 2nd, that he
takes money out of letters and "makes the office pay for it," thereby
clearly indicating that at that time the State carried on a parcel post
and continued the practice of making losses good. A third charge, the
truth of which it is more easy to credit, imputed to Dockwra that he
spoke and acted as if his object were to get the penny post into his own
hands again. It is worthy of remark, as characteristic of the times in
which he lived, and may perhaps be regarded as affording some
presumption of his innocence, that Dockwra appears to have been at less
pains to refute the charges than to prove that he had taken the oath of
supremacy, or the oath which had been recently substituted for it, and
that he had received the Holy Sacrament.
We have said that to us who live at the end of the nineteenth century it
may appear incredible that up to April 1680 the General Post Office in
Lombard Street was the only receptacle for letters in the whole of
London. But it is by no means certain that our descendants may not think
it more incredible still that London, with all its boasted progress, has
only now recovered a post which, in point of convenience and cheapness,
at all approaches that which an enterprising citizen established more
than two hundred years ago. When and under what circumstances this post
lost its original features will have to be considered hereafter.