LOMBARD STREET AND ST. MARTIN'S
LE GRAND
Nothing will give the reader a better idea of the advances made by the
Post Office during the last two hundred years than a comparison of the
various buildings which have from time to time been the home of the
General Post Office in London. The story of the buildings is one of
continued growth and expansion right down to the present day. The
General Post Office is always becoming too small and inconvenient for
its work. And there has scarcely been any period when it was not
necessary to rent overflow premises to meet the growing needs of the
times.
As I have already pointed out, the system of posts in the time of the
Tudors was used chiefly for the conveyance of Government despatches. The
Master of the Posts was a Court official, and there was no need for a
public office in London. The extension of postal business, especially
between London and the Continent, required, however, in the later years
of the sixteenth century, an office in the City of London, and according
to _Stow's Survey_ a post office was first established in Cloak Lane,
near Dowgate Hill. This is the hill on which Cannon Street Station now
stands, and it was also the centre of Roman London. The necessity of the
foreign post was one of the reasons for the creation of the office, and
it is a link between this time and our own that the continental mail
train now starts from Cannon Street Station. Scarcely anything is known
of this post office except the bare fact of its existence.
From Dowgate Hill the General Post Office was removed, at some date in
the first half of the seventeenth century, to the sign of the Black Swan
in Bishopsgate. These were most probably what we now call licensed
premises: at any rate Pepys has recorded that on one occasion he went
“to the musique-meeting at the Post Office.” Then happened the Great
Plague of 1664-1665, and we have the benefit of a report from the senior
officer as to the way in which the visitation affected the Post Office.
“That dureing the late dreadfull sickness when many of the members of
the office desert the same and that betweene 20 and 30 of the members
dyed thereof, your petitioner, considering rather the dispatch of your
Majesty's service than the preservation of himself and family, did
hazard them all, and continued all that woefull tyme in the said office
to give dispatch and conveyance to your Majesty's letters and pacquetts,
and to preserve your revenue arising from the same.” The writer was
evidently a pushful official who expected recognition of his services,
and in yet a fuller petition for a reward for keeping the Post Office
open during the Plague he begs that he may have an order to the
Commissioners of Prizes to deliver to him some brown and white sugar
granted to him by His Majesty from the ship _Espérance_ of Nantes,
condemned as a prize at Plymouth. I hope he obtained his sugar: in our
days we should have made him a K.C.B. Then came the Great Fire of 1666,
and the Post Office was burnt out. In an old newspaper of 1666 may be
seen this advertisement: “The General Post Office is for the present
held at the Two Black Pillars in Bridges Street over against the Fleece
Tavern, Covent Garden, till a more convenient Place can be found in
London.”
As soon as the City was rebuilt “the more convenient Place” was found in
a house in Lombard Street, and by the year 1680, if not earlier, the
General Post Office moved into its new premises. The house had been the
private residence of Sir Robert Viner, a city dignitary who had been
Lord Mayor of London, and it was rented from him. This was the home of
the Head Office for nearly 150 years. Comparatively little is known of
the history of this office, and a writer to whom I am indebted for much
of my information writes justly “that one cannot escape a feeling half
of wonder and half of shame that so few records should remain of an
office where possibly Milton and certainly Dryden posted their letters.”
But what we do know about this office is exceedingly interesting.
There were officials occupying positions which go by the same name as at
the present day. There were the Postmasters-General, a dual office which
in the early part of the eighteenth century was non-political, and the
Postmasters-General were entitled to live at the General Post Office and
to have free coals, candles, and tinware. There was a Receiver-General
with a salary of £150, an Accountant-General with a salary of £200, a
Comptroller of the Inland Office, six Clerks of the Roads, a Secretary
to the Postmaster-General, and a Postmaster-General's Clerk. Positions
which are not known in these days were Windowman and Alphabet
Keeper—this man handed out letters to callers, and his other title
probably referred to the pigeon-holes in which the letters were kept.
There was a “Mail Maker”—a maker of leather bags for letters—the Stores
Department in its early beginnings—and there were three Letter Bringers.
One official known as the Ratcatcher received £1 a year for his useful
services, another man described as a “Scavenger” received £3, 6s. a year
and was in charge of the drainage, which was probably below suspicion.
But perhaps the difference between these times and our own is most
directly marked by two entries in the accounts of the period. There were
two allowances of £30 each for beer for clerks and sorters, and once a
year at least £20 was allowed for a feast for the resident clerks. This
was usually held on the King's Birthday, and “the musique-meeting” at
the Post Office which Pepys attended may have been one of these feasts.
In an old newspaper of 1708 there is an account of one of the feasts,
and the text of one of the songs is given. The writer says: “Some of the
songs were made up as letters, and the Postboy blowing his horn rode
into the Hall to the surprise of all that were present and distributed
his letters from Parnassus. Indeed the people might very well be
surprised, it being a country where hardly any one could think we held
any correspondence. At the same time that the boy sounded his horn, Mr.
—— rose up and sung the song.” The author of the particular song,
extracts from which we give, was stated to hold “a very genteel place in
the General Post Office relating to the Foreign letters, being master of
several languages.” Truth, however, compels us to state his salary was
only £40 a year. Here are two verses of “A Song Performed at the Post
Office Feast on Her Majesty's Birthday 1708. Written by Mr. Motteux, set
by Mr. Leveridge:”—
“Room, room for the Post, who with zeal for the Queen
Like Pegasus flies, tho' his scrub is but lean,
Tho' dirty or dusty,
Tho' thirsty yet trusty,
The restless knight-errant,
While Anna's his warrant,
(True knight of the road) of high honours can boast,
The greatest of subjects give way to the post.
_Chorus_
With a twee-we-we, twee-we-we think it no scorn,
Cits, soldiers, and courtiers give way to the horn.
The secrets we hand, of the fair and the great,
And join, spite of distance, each region and state,
All nations and quarters,
Dutch, Irish, and Tartars,
The bonny North Briton,
And more I can't hit on.
Of all our Queen's subjects none serve her so fast,
For still in her service we're all in post haste.
_Chorus_
With a twee-we-we, twee we-we, &c.”
In a little book entitled _A Picture of London in 1808_ I have found the
following delightful passage relating to the London Post Office: “It is
the most important spot on the surface of the globe. It receives
information from the Poles.” This is rather wide of the mark, seeing
that both Poles were then undiscovered. The next statement may have been
nearer the truth: “It distributes instructions to the Antipodes.” And we
seem to get out of our depth farther on: “It is in the highest degree
hitherto realised the seat of terrestrial perceptions and volition. It
is the brain of the whole earth.” But all this tall language was used
for a purpose. The object was to draw attention to a public scandal and
to bring before the notice of people the miserable accommodation which
the State provided for her wise and brainy servants. For the writer asks
us to look on the other side of the picture. “The building is hidden in
a narrow alley, misshapen even to deformity, and scarcely accessible to
the very mail coaches which collect there for their nightly freights.”
It was indeed the introduction of the mail coach which made the Lombard
Street office unsuitable for its purpose. The coaches were obliged to
stand in the street itself, and only two or three could be in place at
the same time. Various sites were suggested for the new office, and as
increased space was the great necessity, it was decided to clear away
the rookeries which existed in the liberty of St. Martin's and to build
there. The district had deteriorated lamentably since the days of the
College of St. Martin's le Grand which stood there for several
centuries, and which has an interesting and distinguished history. The
district has older associations still, and during the clearing of the
sites for the Post Office buildings many interesting remains of the
Roman occupation of London were found. In 1818 a very ancient vaulted
chamber, built in part of Roman materials, which had been previously
concealed beneath the more modern houses, was exposed to view. Sections
of the Roman wall have also been discovered, and many other remains,
probably of a later date, built out of Roman materials. The College of
St. Martin's le Grand possessed the privilege of sanctuary, and this
fact may have explained the evil repute of the neighbourhood. It became
a rogues' quarter, and great must have been the relief of Londoners when
a statute of James I. abolished all privileges of sanctuary. Yet the
inhabitants seem to have been able to retain many privileges. They
retained their own court for the trial of minor offences: they could
keep the place as filthy as they liked until it became a breeding-place
for the plague, which regularly broke out at intervals during the
seventeenth century, and they appointed their own police or watchmen.
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[Illustration: St. Martin's le Grand]
A street at St. Martin's le Grand before the clearances were
made for the General Post Office. The district originally
possessed the privilege of sanctuary, and was, in the early
part of the nineteenth century, one of the most disreputable
localities in London.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The site was purchased by the City with duties levied on coals brought
into London. And the Government obtained the property from the City at a
cost of £240,000.
It is amusing to notice, in the report of the Committee which considered
the question of the new building, how afraid its members were that in
the desire for beauty of style the question of utility would be
neglected. Post Office architects have seldom needed this caution.
“Ornamental decorations introduced for the mere purpose of
embellishment, and unconcerned with utility, while they prodigiously
enhance the cost, rarely produce an effect in point of elegance and
grandeur which can compensate for it.” And yet again, “an office for the
receiving and delivery of letters which should be concealed behind a
front fit for a palace, and flanked by triumphal arches, would present
an incongruity no less offensive to good taste than inconsistent with
rational economy.” Here speaks the voice which in the early years of the
nineteenth century produced so many evil results in street architecture.
The architect of the new building was Mr. Smirke, and it is certainly to
his credit that he was not unduly influenced by the recommendations of
the Committee. The site covered two acres, and the clearance displaced a
thousand inhabitants. It swept away numbers of alleys and courts, and
when the building itself was opened in 1829 it at once took its place as
a great addition to the architectural beauty of the City of London.
Everybody who has visited London must be familiar with at least the
exterior of the building. It was designed to meet the needs of the mail
coach service, yet no sooner was the building opened than the sound of
railways began to be heard in the land. But for nearly ten years the
mail coaches started from St. Martin's le Grand, and traces of this era
can be seen in the drive which goes round the building with an open
courtyard at the north end. The Bull and Mouth Yard where the coaches
were made up was opposite.
One of the features of the building was a lofty central hall, and
through it was a public thoroughfare to Foster Lane. The letters were
posted in this hall, and the scene at six o'clock was always one of
great animation. Little by little as the needs of the service became
different and more pressing, the internal architecture of St. Martin's
le Grand was altered almost beyond recognition. The great hall was
closed, and the space thrown into the Sorting Office. “No indignity that
can possibly be heaped on the poor old thing can add to its
disfigurement,” wrote Mr. R. W. Johnston, an admirer of the original
building. And he added: “The place has been practically disembowelled,
and what has been taken out of the bottom has been placed on the top,
with the result that an absolutely pure design has been converted into a
nondescript of the most extraordinary character.” This was inevitable
from the point of view of utility, but the constant patching up could
not go on indefinitely. In later years the letter and newspaper branches
of the service monopolised the whole of the old building, but in its
early days it took in practically the whole of the Head Office. Here
worked Colonel Maberley, who had been Sir Rowland Hill's chief official
opponent; here worked later the two men together rather uncomfortably,
and with little in common.
Just as in the case of Lombard Street, the story of St. Martin's le
Grand would be incomplete without some attempt to realise the human
elements which went to make up its life during the years of its prime.
The Post Office has always suffered in reputation both in the eyes of
the public and of the Treasury from the accepted idea that its duties
are mainly confined to sorting letters. Gentlemen high up in the
Secretarial Department have sometimes been asked seriously by their
friends whether they had noticed some particular letter in the course of
its transmission through the post. The public scarcely realise the
amount of financial and technical knowledge required on the part of men
who have to organise the service, to enter into contracts with railways
and steamship companies, or to preserve the discipline of the vast staff
in town and country. This was the kind of work done at St. Martin's le
Grand, and the men of the early and mid-Victorian period were workers in
the full sense of the word.
The old riddle, “Why are Civil Servants like the fountains in Trafalgar
Square?” with the answer, “Because they play from ten to four,” has
never applied to the Post Office. The needs of the service forbade any
slackness, and punctuality has always been a realised ideal. West End
offices have frequently looked on aghast at the zeal and industry of St.
Martin's le Grand. I remember a post office clerk telling me one day of
an official call he had to make at the Colonial Office in the days
before Mr. Chamberlain put new life into that Department. “I arrived
there at a quarter to eleven, and found the door shut, and as I was
hunting around to find the visitors' bell, a milkman bore towards me and
said, 'I don't think they're up yet, sir,' so I took a turn round the
Park and at ten minutes past eleven I went back again, and finding the
charwoman had just started work, I explained to her my errand, and asked
her to tell the Secretary of State that I was on the mat. ‘Oh,’ said
she, ‘I don’t think anybody's come yet. We don't begin till eleven.’ But
I merely ventured to point out that the Horse Guards’ clock was nearly a
quarter past eleven. Then this pampered menial drew herself up, and with
a look of scorn, replied, daresay you are right, young man, but the
gentlemen in this orfis don’t bind theirselves to be ’ere on the stroke
of the hour.’ That was the difference between the City and the West End;
the gentlemen of the Post Office bound themselves to be at their posts
at the hour, and to come early and to stay late.
Officials have worked at St. Martin's le Grand who were men of letters
in two senses of the word. Anthony Trollope began his career as a post
office clerk here, and the insistence on punctuality was his chief
difficulty. He could not be punctual, and though he said he could write
official letters rapidly, correctly, and to the purpose, the steady,
young, punctual but much less efficient clerk was usually preferred
before him. But Trollope was a very difficult official to deal with. He
says in his _Autobiography_: “I have no doubt that I made myself
disagreeable. I know that I sometimes tried to be so.” And yet for many
years he was an exceedingly useful public servant, and was frequently
engaged on special work for the department. An old colleague of his has
described Trollope's method of doing his official work. “I have seen him
slogging away at papers at a stand-up desk with his handkerchief stuffed
into his mouth and his hair on end, as though he could barely contain
himself.” He was very overbearing and intolerant in his manner, and was
certainly not popular at the Post Office. There is on record, however,
one occasion when he must have been unusually pleasant. He was the clerk
in waiting one evening, and a message came to him that the Queen of
Saxony wanted to see the night mails sent out by the mail coaches. This
was one of the sights of London at the time, and Trollope acted the part
of showman. When he had finished he was handed half-a-crown by one of
the suite. This, he said, was a bad moment for him.
“Why don't you pay an old woman sixpence a week to fret for you?” he
said to a postmaster who came to him with grievances. The postmaster
left his presence with an additional grievance that Mr. Trollope was a
brute.
Sir Rowland Hill might have agreed with this postmaster, for he could
never get on with Trollope. We can scarcely be surprised. In his
_Autobiography_, Trollope says of Sir Rowland that “it was a pleasure to
me to differ from Sir Rowland Hill on all occasions, and looking back
now, I think that in all such differences I was right.” Such a
confession explains much of Trollope's unpopularity. There is no place
where omniscience is less appreciated than in a Government office. Mr.
O'Connor Morris, who was the Postmaster-General of Jamaica when Trollope
visited the island in 1858, has left on record this judgment on the
novelist's official conduct to him. “I believe Mr. Trollope had a
thousand good qualities of head and heart, which were disguised in a
most unfortunate and repelling manner.”
Edmund Yates also worked at St. Martin's le Grand, and he has described
very graphically the kind of scene which usually took place when
Trollope was interviewing Sir Rowland Hill. “Trollope would bluster and
rave and roar, blowing and spluttering like a grampus, while the pale
old gentleman opposite him, sitting back in his arm-chair and regarding
his antagonist furtively under his spectacles, would remain perfectly
quiet until he saw his chance, and then deliver himself of the most
unpleasant speech he could frame in the hardest possible tone.”
There is a good story told of Yates himself. The Post Office Library was
founded in 1858. There were many unredressed grievances among the
clerical staff in those days, and when Mr. Rowland Hill undertook to
give a lecture on astronomy to the Library subscribers, a practical if
somewhat unfair opportunity seemed given to the clerks to bring their
necessities before the chief. Mr. Hill asked for a shilling from his
audience in order to illustrate an eclipse. He wished to pass it between
the eye and a lamp. Busy fingers went diving into purses and pockets for
moons. After two or three minutes waiting Mr. Hill beheld an array of
blank faces and shaking heads, and he naturally looked puzzled. Then
Edmund Yates arose. “I beg to explain, sir, that we are all very anxious
to try the experiment which you suggest, but unfortunately we cannot
find a shilling among us.” On the whole we may wonder what type of man
Sir Rowland Hill found the most trying to deal with at the Post Office,
the man of genius or the hidebound official.
In the days before competitive examinations and the abolition of
patronage, there were more “characters” and “individualities” in the
Post Office service than in these degenerate days. St. Martin's le Grand
has had its share of officials who were men of the world, men of
letters, and eccentric men. Frank Ives Scudamore, the author of _Day
Dreams of a Sleepless Man_ and much light verse, will always be
remembered at the Post Office as a chief who did everything
magnificently and on the grand scale: even in his failures he was great.
And everybody who worked under him seemed to catch his enthusiasm for
work.
But we must leave these personal matters and get back to the buildings.
With the acquirement of the telegraphs by the State, and the necessity
for devoting an entire building to the London Postal Service, the
erection of another big office became imperative. The building known as
G.P.O. West was completed in 1873, and for a long time it provided
accommodation for the Secretary's, Solicitor's, Engineer-in-chief's, and
Central Telegraph Offices, together with a portion of the Receiver and
Accountant Generals' Department.
In twenty years the need for extension became again pressing, and in
1895 the huge building known as G.P.O. North was opened. G.P.O. West was
then given up to the Telegraph Service, and all the administrative
offices were transferred to G.P.O. North. But these three immense
buildings even in 1894 were by no means large enough to hold all the
activities of the Post Office. The Parcel Post, the Money and Postal
Order Departments, and the Post Office Savings Bank Department were all
housed in other parts of the City of London, and there were overflow
premises in streets near St. Martin's le Grand.
In this chapter we are only concerned with St. Martin's le Grand, and it
is not without regret for the severance of old ties that Londoners
witnessed in 1910 the closing of Smirke's fine post office, and the
migration of the staff to King Edward's Building, henceforth to be the
home of the London Postal Service. Not a hundred years had passed since
the move from Lombard Street, and the Post Office had become a small
nation of itself. And this body of men and women has for years regarded
St Martin's le Grand as the metropolis of their nation, and when they
have stood under the big clock which has seen so many mails arrive and
depart, they have felt that they were citizens of no mean city.