Sir Rowland Hill; the story of a great reform

SIR ROWLAND HILL

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SIR ROWLAND HILL

THE STORY OF A GREAT REFORM

TOLD BY HIS DAUGHTER

FACSIMILE OF THE
ORIGINAL SKKTCH FOR
THE POSTAGE STAMP

T. FISHER UNWIN

MCMV

SIR ROWLAND HILL, K.C.H., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.A.S.

' RUC.

SIR ROWLAND HILL

THE STORY OF A GREAT REFORM

TOLD BY HIS DAUGHTER

FACSIMILE OF THE
ORIGINAL SKETCH FOR
THE POSTAGE STAMP

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN

ADELPHI TERRACE
MCMVII

[All rights reserved.}

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
ROWLAND HILL AND CAROLINE PEARSON

(Born December 3, 1795, (Born November 25, 1796,

Died August 27, 1879) Died May 27, 1881)

THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN

BY

THEIR LAST REMAINING IMMEDIATE DESCENDANT
ELEANOR C. SMYTH

" A fond desire to preserve the memory of those we love from oblivion is an almost
universal sentiment,"

— (Lord Dufferin on his mother — Songs, Poems, and
Verses. By HELEN, LADY DUFFERIN.)

"Reform does not spell ruin, lads — remember Rowland Hill!"

— (Punch on the Postal Reform Jubilee, 1890.)

PREFACE

IN Gladstone's " ' musings for the good of man,''
writes John Morley in his Life of the dead states-
man (ii. 56, 57), the " Liberation of Intercourse, to
borrow his own larger name for Free Trade, figured
in his mind's eye as one of the promoting condi-
tions of abundant employment. ... He recalled the
days when our predecessors thought it must be for
man's good to have ' most of the avenues by which
the mind and also the hand of man conveyed
and exchanged their respective products ' blocked or
narrowed by regulation and taxation. Dissemination
of news, travelling, letters, transit of goods, were all
made as costly and difficult as the legislation could
make them. ' I rank/ he said, * the introduction of
:heap postage for letters, documents, patterns, and
>rinted matter, and the abolition of all taxes on
minted matter, in the catalogue of free legislation,
'hese great measures may well take their place
beside the abolition of prohibitions and protective
duties, the simplifying of revenue laws, and the repeal
of the Navigation Act, as forming together the great

x PREFACE

code of industrial emancipation." To the above the
biographer adds that in Gladstone's article in the
Nineteenth Century on Free Trade, Railways, and
Commerce, he divided the credit of our material
progress between the two great factors, the Liberation
of Intercourse and the Improvement of Locomotion.

In view of the occasional attempts to revive the
pernicious franking privilege, and of the frequently
recurring warfare between Free Trade and the rival
system, whose epitaph we owe to Disraeli, but whose
unquiet spirit apparently declines to rest within its
tomb, the present seems a fitting time to write the
story of the old reform to which Gladstone alluded—
" the introduction of cheap postage for letters," etc.,
the narrative being prefaced by a notice of the
reformer, his family, and some of his friends who are
not mentioned in later pages.

My cousin, Dr Birkbeck Hill's " Life of Sir
Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage" is an
elaborate work, and therefore valuable as a source of
information to be drawn upon by any future historian
of that reform and of the period, now so far removed
from our own, which the reformer's long life covered.
Before Dr Hill's death he gave me permission to take
from his pages such material as I cared to incorporate
with my own shorter, more anecdotal story. This has
been done, but my narrative also contains much that

PREFACE xi

has not appeared elsewhere, because, as the one of
my father's children most intimately associated with
his home life, unto me were given opportunities of
acquiring knowledge which were not accessible to
my cousin.

Before my brother, Mr Pearson Hill, died, he read
through the greater portion of my work ; and although
since then much has been remodelled, omitted, and
added, the narrative ought to be substantially correct.
He supplied sundry details, and more than one
anecdote, and is responsible for the story of Lord
Canning's curious revelation which has appeared in
no previous work. In all that my brother wrote his
actual words have been, as far as possible, retained.
The tribute to his memory in the first chapter on the
Post Office was written after his decease.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE ix

INTRODUCTORY . I

I. THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 39

II. SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 7O

III. THE PLAN 92

IV. EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 119

V. AT THE TREASURY 148

VI. THE STAMPS 185

VII. AT THE POST OFFICE . .211

viii. AT THE POST OFFICE (Continued} 245

IX. THE SUNSET OF LIFE 286

APPENDIX— RESULTS OF POSTAL REFORM .... 306

INDEX 311

ami

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SIR ROWLAND HILL (Portrait by Rajori) . . . Frontispiece

FIRST SKETCH OF POSTAGE STAMP Title-page

ROWLAND HILL'S BIRTHPLACE, KIDDERMINSTER . To face p. 7

BRUCE CASTLE SCHOOL ....... „ 14

THOMAS WRIGHT HILL „ 17

JOSEPH PEARSON (Bust by Chantrey) .... ,,26

SIR ROWLAND HILL (Photo by the London Stereo-
scopic Co.) „ 49

FACSIMILE OF ROWLAND HILL'S WRITING „ 96

No. 2 BURTON CRESCENT ,,109

CAROLINE PEARSON, LADY HILL ..... „ 141

No. i ORME SQUARE . . . . . . . „ 148

AN OLD POST OFFICE „ 157

THE MULREADY ENVELOPE ,,204

SIR ROWLAND HILL (Photo by Maull &> Poly blank) . „ 211

EARLY TRAVELLING POST OFFICE WITH MAIL-BAGS

EXCHANGE APPARATUS „ 239

PEARSON HILL „ 244

SIR ROWLAND HILL ("Graphic" portrait] ... „ 286

THE STATUE, KIDDERMINSTER „ 301

xv

SIR ROWLAND HILL

INTRODUCTORY

THE earliest of the postal reformer's forefathers to
achieve fame that outlives him was Sir Rowland Hill,
mercer, and Lord Mayor of London in 1549, a native
of Hodnet, Shropshire, who founded a Grammar School
at Drayton, benefited the London Blue Coat School,
was a builder of bridges, and is mentioned by John
Stowe. From his brother are descended the three
Rowland Hills famous in more modern times — the
preacher, the warrior, and the author of Penny Postage.
Some of the preacher's witticisms are still remembered,
though they are often attributed to his brother cleric,
Sydney Smith; Napier, in his " Peninsular War,"
speaks very highly of the warrior, who, had Wellington
fallen at Waterloo, would have taken the Duke's place,
and who succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief when,
in 1828, Wellington became Prime Minister. A later
common ancestor of the three, a landed proprietor,
married twice, and the first wife's children were thrown
upon the world to fight their way as best as they could,
my paternal grandfather's great-grandfather being one
of the dispossessed. But even the blackest cloud has

I A

2 SIR ROWLAND HILL

its silver lining ; and ihe fall, by teaching the young
people seli-he'^p, probably brought out the latent good
stuff that was in them. At any rate, family tradition
preserves memory of not a few men and women —
Hills, or of the stocks with which they married — of
whom their descendants have reason to be proud.

There was, for example, John Hill, who serve*
among "the twelve good men and true" on a certaii
trial, was the only one of them who declined to accept
a bribe, and, the fact becoming known, was handsomeb
complimented by the presiding judge. Thenceforth,
whenever the Assizes in that part of the country came
round again, John used to be asked after as "the
honest juror." At least two of my father's forebears,
a Symonds and a Hill, refused to cast their political
votes to order, and were punished for their sturdy
independence. The one lived to see a hospital erected
in Shrewsbury out of the large fortune, for some two
hundred years ago of ;£ 30,000. which should have come
to his wife, the testator's sister ; the other, a baker an<
corn merchant, son to "the honest juror," saw
supply of fuel required to bake his bread cut off b]
the local squire, a candidate for Parliament, for whoi
the worthy baker had dared to refuse to vote. Oven<
then were heated by wood, which in this case cam<
from the squire's estate. When next James Hill mad<
the usual application, the faggots were not to be had.
He was not discouraged. Wood, he reflected, wa<
dear ; coal — much seldomer used then than now — wa<
cheap. He mixed the two, and found the plan succeed,
lessened the proportion of wood, and finally dispense<
with it altogether. His example was followed by othei

INTRODUCTORY 3

people : the demand for the squire's firewood languished,
and the boycotted voter was presently requested to
purchase afresh. "An instance," says Dr Birkbeck
Hill, " of a new kind of faggot vote."

Another son of "the honest juror" was the first
person to grow potatoes in Kidderminster. Some two
centuries earlier "the useful tuber" was brought to
England ; but even in times much nearer our own,
so slowly did information travel, that till about 1750
the only denizen of that town who seems to have known
of its existence was this second John Hill. When the
seeds he sowed came up, blossomed, and turned to
berries, these last were cooked and brought to table.
Happily no one could eat them ; and so the finger of
scorn was pointed at the luckless innovator. The
plants withered unheeded ; but later, the ground being
wanted for other crops, was dug up, when, to the
amazement of all beholders and hearers, a plentiful
supply of fine potatoes was revealed.

On the spindle side also Rowland Hill's family
could boast ancestors of whom none need feel ashamed.
Among these was the high-spirited, well -dowered
orphan girl who, like Clarissa Harlowe, fled from home
to escape wedlock with the detested suitor her guardians
sought to force upon her. But, unlike Richardson's
pless heroine, this fugitive lived into middle age,
aintained herself by her own handiwork — spinning —
.ever sought even to recover her lost fortune, married,
left descendants, and fatally risked her life while pre-
paring for burial the pestilence - smitten neighbour
whose poor remains his own craven relatives had aban-
doned. Though she perished untimely, recollection

4 SIR ROWLAND HILL

of her married name was preserved to reappear in
that of a great-grandson, Matthew Davenport Hill.
The husband of Mrs Davenport's only daughter,
William Lea, was a man little swayed by the supersti-
tions of his time, as he showed when he broke through
a mob of ignorant boors engaged in hounding into a
pond a terrified old woman they declared to be a
witch, strode into the water, lifted her in his arms,
and, heedless of hostile demonstration, bore her to
his own home to be nursed back into such strength
and sanity as were recoverable. A son of William
Lea, during the dreadful cholera visitation of 1832,
played, as Provost of Haddington, a part as fearlessly
unselfish as that of his grandmother in earlier days,
but without losing his life, for his days were long in
the land. His sister was Rowland Hill's mother.

On both sides the stocks seem to have been of
stern Puritan extraction, theologically narrow, inflexibly
honest, terribly in earnest, of healthy life, fine physique
— nonagenarians not infrequently. John Symonds, son
to him whose wife forfeited succession to her brother,
Mr Millington's fortune, because both men were
sturdily obstinate in the matter of political creed, was,
though a layman, great at extempore prayer and
sermon-making. When any young man came a-woo-
ing to one of his bonnie daughters, the father would
take the suitor to an inner sanctum, there to be tested
as to his ability to get through the like devotional
exercises. If the young man failed to come up to the
requisite standard he was dismissed, and the damsel
reserved for some more proficient rival — James Hill
being one of the latter sort. How many suitors of the

INTRODUCTORY • 5

present day would creditably emerge from that
ordeal ?

Through this sturdy old Puritan we claim kin-
ship with the Somersetshire family, of whom John
Addington Symonds was one, and therefore with the
Stracheys ; while from other sources comes a collateral
descent from " Hudibras " Butler, who seems to have
endowed with some of his own genuine wit certain
later Hills; as also a relationship with that line of
distinguished medical men, the Mackenzies, and with
the Rev. Morell Mackenzie, who played a hero's part
at the long-ago wreck of the Pegasus.

A neighbour of James Hill was a recluse, who,
perhaps, not finding the society of a small provincial
town so companionable as the books he loved, forbore
" to herd with narrow foreheads," but made of James
a congenial friend. When this man died, the task fell
to his executors, James Hill and another, to divide his
modest estate. Among the few bequests were two
books to young Tom, James's son, a boy with a
passion for reading, but possessed of few books, one
being a much-mutilated copy of " Robinson Crusoe,"
which tantalisingly began with the thrilling words,
"more than thirty dancing round a fire." The fellow
executor, knowing well the reputation for uncanny
ways with which local gossip had endowed the
deceased, earnestly advised his colleague to destroy
the volumes, and not permit them to sully young
Tom's mind. "Oh, let the boy have the books," said
James Hill, and straightway the legacy was placed
in the youthful hands. It consisted of a " Manual of
Geography " and Euclid's " Elements." The effect of

6 SIR ROWLAND HILL

their perusal was not to send the reader to perdition,
but to call forth an innate love for mathematics, and,
through them, a lifelong devotion to astronomy, tastes
he was destined to pass on in undiminished ardour
to his third son, the postal reformer.

Thomas Wright Hill was brought up in the
straitest-laced of Puritan sects, and he has left a
graphic description of the mode in which, as a small
boy of seven, he passed each Sunday. The windows
of the house, darkened by their closed outside shutters,
made mirrors in which he saw his melancholy little
face reflected ; his toys were put away ; there were
three chapel services, occupying in all some five and
a half hours, to which he was taken, and the intervals
between each were filled by long extempore prayers
and sermon-reading at home, all week-day conversa-
tion being rigidly ruled out. The sabbatical observ-
ance commenced on Saturday night and terminated on
Sunday evening with "a cheerful supper," as though
literally " the evening and the morning were the first
day" — an arrangement which, coupled with the habit
of bestowing not Christian but Hebrew names upon
the children, gives colour to the oft - made allegation
that our Puritan ancestors drew their inspiration from
the Old rather than from the New Testament. The
only portion of these Sunday theological exercises
which the poor little fellow really understood was the
simple Bible teaching that the tenderly-loved mother
gave to him and to his younger brother. While as
a young man residing in Birmingham, however, he
passed under the influence of Priestley, and became
one of his most devoted disciples, several of whom, at

By permission of the Proprietors of the ^Illustrated London News."

ROWLAND HILL'S BIRTHPLACE, KIDDERMINSTER.

To face p. 7.

INTRODUCTORY 7

the time of the disgraceful "Church and King" riots
of 1791, volunteered to defend the learned doctor's
house.1 But Priestley declined all defence, and the
volunteers retired, leaving only young Tom, who would
not desert his beloved master's threatened dwelling.
The Priestley family had found refuge elsewhere, but
his disciple stayed alone in the twilight of the barred
and shuttered house, which speedily fell a prey to
its assailants. Our grandfather used often to tell us
children of the events of those terrible days when
the mob held the town at their mercy, and were
seriously opposed only when, having destroyed so
much property belonging to Nonconformity, they next
turned their tireless energy towards Conformity's pos-
sessions. His affianced wife was as courageous as he,
for when while driving in a friend's carriage through
Birmingham's streets some of the rioters stopped
the horses, and bade her utter the cry " Church and
King," she refused, and was suffered to pass on un-
molested. Was it her bravery or her comeliness,
or both, that won for her immunity from harm ?

The third son of this young couple, Rowland,
the future postal reformer, first saw the light in a
house at Kidderminster wherein his father was born,
which had already sheltered some generations of
Hills, and whose garden was the scene of the potato

1 Another volunteer was a young man named Clark, one of whose
sons afterwards married T. W. Hill's elder daughter. An acquaint-
ance of Clark's, politically a foe, sought to save his friend's house from
destruction by writing upon it the shibboleth, " Church and King."
But like Millais' Huguenot knight, Clark scorned to shelter himself
or property under a false badge, and promptly effaced the kindly-
intentioned inscription.

8 SIR ROWLAND HILL

story. The child was weakly, and, being threatened
with spinal trouble, passed much of his infancy in
a recumbent position. But the fragile form held a
dauntless little soul, and the almost abnormally large
brain behind the too pallid forehead was a very active
one. As he lay prone, playing with the toys his
mother suspended to a cord stretched within easy
reach above him ; and, later, working out mental
arithmetical problems, in which exercise he found
delight, and to the weaving of alluring daydreams,
he presently fell to longing for some career — what
it should be he knew not — that should leave his
country the better for his having lived in it. The
thoughts of boys are often, the poet tells us, "long,
long thoughts," but it is not given to every one
to see those daydreams realised. Though what is
boy (or girl) worth who has not at times entertained
healthily ambitious longings for a great future ?

As he grew stronger he presently came to help
his father in the school the latter had established at
Birmingham, in which his two elder brothers, aged
fifteen and fourteen, were already at work. The
family was far from affluent, and its young members
were well aware that on their own exertions depended
their future success. For them there was no royal
road to learning or to anything else ; and even as
children they learned to be self-reliant. From the
age of twelve onwards, my father, indeed, was self-
supporting. Like Chaucer's poor parson, the young
Hill brothers learned while they taught, even some-
times while on their way to give a lesson, as did my
father when on a several miles long walk to teach

INTRODUCTORY 9

an equally ignorant boy the art of Navigation ; and
perhaps because life had to be taken so seriously, they
valued the hardly- acquired knowledge all the more
highly. Their father early accustomed his children to
discuss with him and with each other the questions of
the time — a time which must always loom large in the
history of our land. Though he mingled in the talk,
"it was," my Uncle Matthew said, "a match of mind
against mind, in which the rules of fair play were
duly observed ; and we put forth our little strength
without fear. The sword of authority was not thrown
into the scale. . . . We were, "added the writer, "born
to a burning hatred of tyranny."1 And no wonder,
for in the early years of the last century tyranny was
a living, active force.

If, to quote Blackstone, "punishment of unreason-
able severity " with a view to "preventing crimes and
amending the manners of a people" constitute a
specific form of tyranny, the fact that in 1795, the
year of Rowland Hill's birth, the pillory, the stocks,
and the whipping-post were still in use sufficiently
attests this " unreasonable severity." In March 1789,
less than seven years before his birth, a yet more
terrible punishment was still in force. A woman —
the last thus "judicially murdered" — was burnt at the
stake; and a writer in Notes and Queries, of 2ist
September 1851, tells its readers that he was present
on the occasion. Her offence was coining, and she was
mercifully strangled before being executed. Women
were burnt at the stake long after that awful death
penalty was abolished in the case of the more favoured
1 " Remains of T. W. Hill." By M. D. Hill, p. 124.

io SIR ROWLAND HILL

sex. The savage cruelty of the criminal code at this
time and later is also indicated by the fact that
over 150 offences were punishable by death. Even
in 1822, a date within the recollection of persons still
living, and notwithstanding the efforts made by Sir
Samuel Romilly and others to humanise that code,
capital punishment was still terribly common. In that
year, on two consecutive Monday mornings, my father,
arriving by coach in London from Birmingham, passed
within sight of Newgate. Outside its walls, on the
first occasion, the horrified passengers counted nine-
teen bodies hanging in a row ; on the second, twenty-
one.

During my father's childhood and youth this
country was almost constantly engaged in war.
Within half a mile of my grandfather's house the
forging of gun barrels went on all but incessantly,
the work beginning before dawn and lasting till long
after nightfall. The scarcely - ending din of the
hammers was varied only by the occasional rattle
from the proof shed ; and the shocks and jars had
disastrous effect upon my grandmother's brewings of
beer. Meanwhile " The Great Shadow," graphically
depicted by Sir A. Conan Doyle, was an actual dread
that darkened our land for years. And the shadow
of press-gang raids was a yet greater dread alike
to the men who encountered them, sometimes to
disappear for ever, and to the women who were
frequently bereft of their bread-winners. It is,
however, pleasant to remember that sometimes the
would-be captors became the captured. A merchant
vessel lying in quarantine in Southampton Water,

INTRODUCTORY n

her yellow flag duly displayed, but hanging in the
calm weather so limply that it was hardly observable,
was boarded by a press-gang who thought to do a
clever thing by impressing some of the sailors.
These, seeing what was the invaders' errand, let
them come peaceably on deck, when the quarantine
officer took possession of boat and gang, and
detained both for six weeks.

For those whose means were small — a numerous
class at that time — there was scant patronage of public
conveyances, such as they were. Thus the young
Hill brothers had to depend on their own walking
powers when minded to visit the world that lay beyond
their narrow horizon. And to walking tours, often of
great length, they were much given in holiday time,
tours which took them to distant places of historic
interest, of which Rowland brought back memorials
in his sketch book. Beautiful, indeed, were the then
green lanes of the Midlands, though here and there
they were disfigured by the presence of some lonely
gibbet, the chains holding its dismal " fruit" clank-
ing mournfully in windy weather. Whenever it was
possible, the wayfarer made a round to avoid passing
the gruesome object.

One part of the country, lying between Birming-
ham and Wolverhampton, a lonely heath long since
covered with factories and houses, known as the
" Lie Waste," was also not pleasant to traverse, though
the lads occasionally had to do so. A small collection
of huts of mud-and- wattle construction sheltered some
of our native savages — for they were nothing else —
whose like has happily long been " improved off the

12 SIR ROWLAND HILL

face " of the land. These uncouth beings habitually
and literally went "on all fours." Whether the atti-
tude was assumed in consequence of the low roofs of
their dwellings, or the outcasts chose that mode of
progression in imitation of the animals which were
their ordinary companions, history does not say, but
they moved with wonderful celerity both in and out
of doors. At sight of any passer-by they were apt
to "rear," and then oaths, obscene language, and
missiles of whatever sort was handy would be their
mildest greeting, while more formidable attack was
likely to be the lot of those who ventured too near
their lairs. Among these people the Hill boys often
noticed a remarkably handsome girl, as great a savage
as the rest.

As the three elder brothers grew well into their
teens, much of the school government fell to their
lot, always with the parental sanction, and ere long
it was changed in character, and became a miniature
republic.1 Trial by jury for serious offences was
instituted, the judge being my grandfather or one
of his sons, and the jury the culprit's fellow-pupils.
Corporal punishment, then perhaps universal in
schools, was abolished, and the lads, being treated
as reasonable creatures, early learned to be a self-
respecting because a self-governing community. The
system, which in this restricted space cannot be
described in detail, was pre - eminently a success,

1 "Six years have now elapsed," wrote my father in 1823, "since
we placed a great part of the government of the school in the hands
of the boys themselves ; and during the whole of that time the head-
master has never once exercised his right of veto upon their
proceedings."

INTRODUCTORY 13

since it turned out pupils who did it and themselves
credit. " All the good I ever learned was learned at
Hazel wood," I once heard say a cheery old clergy-
man, probably one of the last surviving "boys." The
teaching was efficiently carried on, and the develop-
ment of individual talent was wisely encouraged, the
pupils out of school hours being allowed to exercise
the vocation to which each was inclined, or which,
owing to this practice, was discovered in each.
Thus in boyhood Follet Osier, the inventor of
the anemometer and other scientific instruments, was
enabled to bring to light those mechanical abilities
which, till he exhibited their promise during his
hours of voluntary work, were unsuspected even by
his nearest of kin. Again, Thomas Creswick, R.A.,
found an outlet for his love of art in drawing, though,
being a very little fellow when he began, some of
these studies — of public buildings in Birmingham —
were very funny, the perspective generally having
the "Anglo-Saxon" peculiarities, and each edifice
being afflicted with a "list" out of the perpendicular
as pronounced as that of Pisa's leaning tower — or
nearly so.

The fame of the " Hazelwood system" spread
afar, and many of our then most distinguished fellow-
countrymen visited the school. Among the rest,
Bentham gave it his hearty approval ; and Captain
Basil Hall, the writer of once popular books for boys,
spoke of the evident existence of friendly terms
between masters and pupils, declared the system to
be "a curious epitome of real life," and added that
the boys were not converted into little men, but

14 SIR ROWLAND HILL

remained boys, only with heads and hands fully
employed on topics they liked.

Visitors also came from foreign lands. Berna-
dotte's son, Prince Oscar, afterwards first king of
Sweden of that name, travelled to Hazel wood,
examined the novel system, and, later, established
at Stockholm a " Hillska Scola." From France,
among other people, came M. Jullien, once secretary
to Robespierre — what thrilling tales of the Great
Revolution must he not have been able to tell ! —
and afterwards a wise philanthropist and eminent
writer on education, He sent a son to Hazelwood.
President Jefferson, when organising the University
of Virginia, asked for a copy of " Public Education,"
the work describing the system and the joint pro-
duction of Rowland, who found the ideas, Matthew,
who supplied the composition, and, as regards a few
suggestions, of a younger brother, Arthur. Greece,
Spain, far-off Mexico even, in course of time sent
pupils either to Hazelwood or to Bruce Castle,
Tottenham, to which then picturesque and some-
what remote London suburb the school was ulti-
mately transferred. " His Excellency, the Tripolitan
Ambassador," wrote my father in his diary of 1823,
"has informed us that he has sent to Tripoli for six
young Africans ; and the Algerine Ambassador, not
to be outdone by his piratical brother, has sent for
a dozen from Algiers."2 Happily, neither contingent

1 Its full title was " Plans for the Government and Liberal
Education of Boys in Large Numbers," and the work speedily went
into a second edition.

2 Algeria was not conquered by France till 1830; and until the
beginning of the nineteenth century our shores were still liable to

INTRODUCTORY 15

put in an appearance. In both cases the enthusiasm
evoked seems to have been short-lived.

An old Hazelwood pupil, Mr E. Edwards, in his
written sketch of "Sir Rowland Hill," said of the
school that no similar establishment "in the world,
probably at that time, contained such an array of
costly models, instruments, apparatus, and books.
There was an observatory upon the top of the house
fitted with powerful astronomical instruments. The
best microscopes obtainable were at hand. Models
of steam and other engines were all over the place.
Air - pumps and electrical machines were familiar
objects. Maps, then comparatively rare, lined the
walls. Drawing and mathematical instruments were
provided in profusion. Etching was taught, and a
copper press was there for printing the pupils' efforts
in that way. A lithographic press and stones of
various sizes were provided, so that the young artists
might print copies of their drawings to send to their
admiring relatives. Finally, a complete printing press
with ample founts of type was set up to enable
the boys themselves to print a monthly magazine
connected with the school and its doings." Other
attractions were a well fittedTup carpenter's shop ;
a band, the musicians being the pupils ; the training
of the boys in vocal music ; a theatre in which the

piratical raids. One such (in Norway) is introduced in Miss
Martineau's story, " Feats on -the Fiords." The pirates, during
hundreds of years, periodically swept the European coasts, and
carried off people into slavery, penetrating at times even so far
north as Iceland. What was the condition of these North African
pirate States prior to the French conquest is told by Mr S. L. Poole
in "The Barbery Corsairs" ("Story of the Nations" series).

16 SIR ROWLAND HILL

manager, elocution teacher, scene painter, etc., were
the young Hill brothers, the costumier e their sister
Caroline, and the actors the pupils ; the control of
a sum of money for school purposes ; and the use
of a metallic coinage received as payment for the
voluntary work already mentioned, and by which
certain privileges could be purchased.1

My grandfather inspired his sons and pupils with
a longing to acquire knowledge, at the same time so
completely winning their hearts by his good comrade-
ship, that they readily joined him in the long and
frequent walks of which he was fond, and in the course
of which his walking stick was wont to serve to make
rough drawings of problems, etc., in road or pathway.
"His mathematical explanations," wrote another old
pupil in the "Essays of a Birmingham Manufacturer"
(W. L. Sargent), " were very clear ; and he looked
at the bearings of every subject irrespective of its
conventionalities. His definition of a straight line
has been said to be the best in existence." 2

1 It was a visit paid to Bruce Castle School which caused De
Quincey, in that chapter of his " Autobiographic Sketches " entitled
" My Brother," to write : " Different, O Rowland Hill, are the laws
of thy establishment, for other are the echoes heard amid the ancient
halls of Bruce. There it is possible for the timid child to be happy,
for the child destined to an early grave to reap his brief harvest
in peace. Wherefore were there no such asylums in those days?
Man flourished then as now. Wherefore did he not put forth his
power upon establishments that might cultivate happiness as well as
knowledge." The stories of brutalities inflicted upon weakly boys in
some of our large schools of to-day might tempt not a few parents to
echo De Quincey 's pathetic lament, though perhaps in less archaic
language.

I i 2 It is as follows : — "A straight line is a line in which, if any two
points be taken, the part intercepted shall be less than any other line
in which these points can be found."

By permission of Messrs. Thos. De La Rue.

THOMAS WRIGHT HILL

To face p. 17.

INTRODUCTORY 17

In my father's "Life," Dr Birkbeck Hill, when
writing of his recollections of our grandfather, said
that it seemed " as if the aged man were always seated
in perpetual sunshine. How much of the brightness
and warmth must have come from his own cheerful
temperament? ... His Sunday morning breakfasts
live in the memory like a landscape of Claude's." At
these^ entertainments the old man would sit in his easy-
chair, at the head of the largest table the house could
boast, in a circle of small, adoring grandchildren, the
intervening, severe generation being absent ; and of
all the joyous crowd his perhaps was the youngest
heart. There were other feasts, those of reason and
the flow of soul, with which he also delighted his
young descendants : stories of the long struggle in the
revolted "American Colonies,1' of the Great French
Revolution, and of other interesting historical dramas
which he could well remember, and equally well
describe.

His old pupils would come long distances to see
him ; and on one occasion several of them subscribed
to present him with a large telescope, bearing on it
a graven tribute of their affectionate regard. This
greatly prized gift was in use till within a short time
of his last illness.

Young Rowland had a strong bent towards art,
as he showed when, at the age of thirteen, he won the
prize, a handsome box of water-colour paints, offered
by the proprietor of the London School Magazine for
"the best original landscape drawing by the youth of
all England, under tue age of sixteen." He painted
the scenery for the school theatre, and made many

i8 SIR ROWLAND HILL

water-colour sketches in different parts of our ^land,
his style much resembling that of David Cox. He
was an admirer of Turner long before Ruskin " dis-
covered " that great painter ; and, as his diary shows,
marvelled at the wondrous rendering of atmospheric
effects exhibited in his idol's pictures. Nearly all my
father's scenery and sketches perished in a fire which
partially burnt down Hazelwood School ; and few are
now in existence. After the age of seventeen he
gave up painting, being far too busy to devote time
to art, but he remained a picture-lover to the end of
his days. Once during the long war with France he
had an adventure which might have proved serious.
He was sketching Dover Castle, when a soldier came
out of the fortress and told him to cease work. Not
liking the man's manner, the youthful artist went on
painting unconcernedly. Presently a file of soldiers,
headed by a corporal, appeared, and he was peremp-
torily ordered to withdraw. Then the reason for the
interference was revealed : he was taken for a spy.
My father at once laid aside his brush ; he had no
wish to be shot.

In 1835 Rowland Hill resigned to a younger
brother, Arthur,1 the head-mastership of Bruce Castle
1 He was an ideal schoolmaster and an enthusiastic Shakespearean,
his readings from the bard being much in the same cultured style as
those of the late Mr Brandram. Whenever it was bruited about the
house that " Uncle Arthur was going * to do ' Shakespeare," there
always trooped into the room a crowd of eager nieces, nephews, and
others, just as in a larger house members troop in when a favourite
orator is "up." At his own request, a monetary testimonial raised
by his old pupils to do him honour was devoted to the purchase of
a lifeboat (called by his name) to be stationed at one of our coast
resorts.

INTRODUCTORY 19

School, and accepted the post of secretary to the
Colonisation Commissioners for South Australia,
whose chairman was Colonel Torrens.1 Another
commissioner was John Shaw Lefevre, later a famous
speaker of the House of Commons, who, as Lord
Eversley, lived to a patriarchal age. But the prime
mover in the scheme for colonising this portion of
the " Island Continent" was that public-spirited man,
Edward Gibbon Wakefield. William IV. took much
interest in the project, and stipulated that the chief
city should bear the name of his consort — Adelaide.

The Commissioners were capable men, and were
ably assisted by the South Australian Company,
which much about the same time was started mainly
through the exertions of Mr G. F. Angas. Among
the many excellent rules laid down by the Com-
missioners was one which insisted on the making of

1 Colonel Torrens, after whom a river and a lake in South
Australia were named, had a distinguished career. For his spirited
defence in 1811 of the island of Anholt he was awarded a sword of
honour. But he was much more than a soldier, however valorous
and able. He was a writer on economics and other important
problems of the day ; was one of the founders of the Political
Economy Club, and of the Globe newspaper, then an advocate
of somewhat advanced views; and interested himself in several
philanthropic movements. His son, Sir Robert Torrens, sometime
M.P. for Cambridge, lived for many years in South Australia, and
was its first Premier. While there he drew up the plan of " The
Transfer of Land by Registration," which became an Act bearing his
name, and is one of the measures sometimes cited as proof that the
Daughter States are in sundry ways well ahead of their Mother. In
consequence of the good work the plan has accomplished in the
land of its origin, it has been adopted by other colonies, and is a
standard work on the list of Cobden Club publications. Colonel
Torrens's eldest granddaughter married Rowland Hill's only son.

20 SIR ROWLAND HILL

a regular and efficient survey both of the emigrant
ships and of the food they carried. As sailing vessels
were then the only transports, the voyage lasted
several months, and the comfort of the passengers
was of no small importance. " When," said rny father
in his diary, " defects and blemishes were brought to
light by the accuracy of the survey, and the stipu-
lated consequences enforced, an outcry arose as if the
connection between promise and performance were
an unheard-of and most unwarrantable innovation.
After a time, however, as our practice became recog-
nised, evasive attempts grew rare, the first expense
being found to be the least." He often visited the
port of departure, and witnessed the shipping off of
the emigrants — always an interesting occasion, and
one which gave opportunities of personal supervision
of matters. Being once at Plymouth, my mother and
he boarded a vessel about to sail for the new colony.
Among the passengers was a bright young Devonian,
apparently an agriculturist ; and my father, observing
him, said to my mother : "I feel sure that man will do
well." The remark was overheard, but the Devonian
made no sign. He went to Australia poor, and
returned wealthy, bought an estate close to his birth-
place which was in the market, and there settled.
But before sailing hither, he bought at one of the
Adelaide banks the finest one of several gold nuggets
there displayed, and, armed with this, presented him-
self at my father' s house, placed his gift in my
mother's hand, and told how the casual remark
made forty years before had helped to spur him on
to success.

INTRODUCTORY 21

The story of Rowland Hill and a mysteriously
vanished rotatory printing press may be told
here.

In 1790 Mr William Nicholson devised a scheme
for applying to ordinary type printing the already
established process of printing calico by revolving
cylinders. The impressions were to be taken from
his press upon successive sheets of paper, as no means
of producing continuous rolls had as yet been invented ;
but the machine worked far from satisfactorily, and
practically came to nothing. A quarter of a century
later Mr Edward Cowper applied Nicholson's idea to
stereotype plates bent to a cylindrical surface. But
till the advent of " Hill's machine " (described at the
Patent Office as "A.D. 1835, No. 6762") all plans for
fixing movable types on a cylinder had failed. It is
therefore incontestable that the first practical scheme
of printing on a continuous roll of paper by revolving
cylinders was invented and set to work by Rowland
Hill in the year named. The machine was intended
mainly for the rapid printing of newspapers, but the
refusal of the Treasury to allow an arrangement by
which the Government stamp could be affixed by
an ingenious mechanical device as the scroll passed
through the press — a refusal withdrawn later — de-
ferred for many years the introduction of any rotatory
printing machine.

The apparatus was kept at my Uncle Matthew's
chambers in Chancery Lane, and was often shown to
members of the trade and others. Although driven
by hand only, it threw off impressions at the rate of
7,000 or 8,000 an hour, a much higher speed than

22 SIR ROWLAND HILL

that hitherto attained by any other machine. But
from 1836 onwards my father's attention was almost
wholly taken up with his postal reform, and it was
only after his retirement from the Post Office in 1864
that his mind reverted to the subject of the printing
press. Several years before the latter date his brother
had left London ; but of the rotatory printing machine,
bulky and ponderous as it was, a few small odds and
ends — afterwards exhibited at the Caxton Exhibition
in 1877 — alone remained.

In 1866 the once well-known "Walter Press" was
first used in the Times office. Of this machine my
father has said that " except as regards the apparatus
for cutting and distributing the printed sheets, and
excepting further that the * Walter Press ' (entered
at the Patent Office as "A.D. 1866, No. 3222") is
only adapted for printing from stereotype plates, while
mine would not only print from stereotype plates,
but, what is more difficult, from movable types also,
the two machines are almost identical." He added
that " the enormous difficulty of bringing a complex
machine into practical use — a difficulty familiar to
every inventor — has been most successfully over-
come by Messrs Calverley and Macdonald, the
patentees."

By whom and through what agency the machine
patented in 1835 was apparently transported from
Chancery Lane to Printing House Square is a
mystery which at this distant date is hardly likely
to be made clear.

It has always been a tradition in our family that
the courtship between Rowland Hill and Caroline

INTRODUCTORY 23

Pearson began when their united ages amounted to
eleven years only, the boy being by twelve months the
elder. The families on both sides lived at the time
at Wolverhampton, and the first kiss is said to have
been exchanged inside a large culvert which crossed
beneath the Tettenhall Road in the neighbourhood
of the Hills' house, and served to conduct a tiny
rivulet, apt in wet weather to become a swollen
stream, into its chosen channel on the other side the
way. The boy delighted to creep within this shelter —
often dry in summer — and listen to the rumbling over-
head of the passing vehicles. Noisy, ponderous wains
some of these were, with wheels of great width and
strength, and other timbers in like proportion ; but
to the small listener the noisier the more enjoyable.
These wains have long vanished from the roads they
helped to wear out, the railway goods trains having
superseded them, although of late years the heavy
traction engines, often drawing large trucks after them,
seem likely to occupy the place filled by their forgotten
predecessors. Little Rowland naturally wished to
share the enchanting treat with " Car," as he gener-
ally called his new friend, and hand in hand the " wee
things " set off one day to the Tettenhall Road.
Many years later the elderly husband made a senti-
mental journey to the spot, and was amazed at the
culvert's apparent shrinkage in size. Surely, a most
prosaic spot for the beginning of a courtship !

The father of this little girl was Joseph Pearson,
a man held in such high esteem by his fellow-
citizens that after the passing of the great Reform
Bill in 1832 he was asked to become one of

24 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Wolverhampton's first two members.1 He was, how-
ever, too old for the wear and tear of Parliamentary
life, though when the General Election came on he
threw himself with all his accustomed zeal into the
struggle, and was, as a consequence, presently laid
up with a temporary ailment, which caused one of
his political foes to declare that " If Mr Pearson's
gout would only last three weeks longer we might
get our man in." These words coming to Mr
Pearson's ears, he rose from his sick-bed, gout or
no gout, and plunged afresh into the fray, with so
much energy that "we" did not "get our man in,"
but the other side did.

1 The candidates ultimately chosen were the Hon. Charles
Pelham Villiers, who represented the constituency for sixty-three
years — from January 1835 till his death in January 1898 — and
Mr Thomas Thornley of Liverpool. Both men, as we shall see,
served on that select Committee on Postage which sat to enquire as
to the merits of my father's plan of postal reform, and helped to
cause its adoption. The two men were long known locally as
"Mr Pearson's members." Mr Villiers will be remembered as the
man who, for several years in succession, brought in an Annual
Motion on behalf of Free Trade, and as being for a longer while,
perhaps, than any other Parliamentarian, " the Father of the House " ;
but the fact is not so well known that he came near to not repre-
senting Wolverhampton at all. The election agent who " discovered "
him in London described him in a letter to my grandfather (who was
chairman of the local Liberal Association) as "a young gentleman
named Villiers, a thorough free-trader, of good connexions, and
good address." Thus his advent was eagerly looked for. Always
given to procrastination, the candidate, however, was so long in
making his appearance or communicating with the constituents,
that his place was about to be taken by a more energetic person
who went so far as to issue his address and begin his canvass. Only
just in time for nomination did Mr Villiers drive into Wolver-
Jiampton, Whereupon Mr Throckmorton gracefully retired.

INTRODUCTORY 25

" He was," once said a many years old friend,
" conspicuous for his breadth of mind, kindness of
heart, and public spirit." He hated the cruel sports
common in his time, and sought unceasingly to put
them down. One day, while passing the local bull-
ring, he saw a crowd of rough miners and others
preparing to bait a bull. He at once strode into
their midst, liberated the animal, pulled up or broke
off the stake, and carried it away on his shoulder.
Was it his pluck, or his widespread popularity
that won the forbearance of the semi-savage by-
standers? At any rate, not a hostile finger was
laid upon him. Meanwhile, he remembered that if
brutalising pastimes are put down, it is but right that
better things should be set in their place. Thus the
local Mechanics' Institute, British Schools, Dispensary,
and other beneficent undertakings, including rational
sports for every class, owed their origin chiefly to
him ; and, aided by his friend John Mander, and
by the Rev. John Carter, a poor, hard - working
Catholic priest, he founded the Wolverhampton Free
Library.

Joseph Pearson was one of the most hospitable
and genial of men, and, for his time, a person of
some culture. He detested cliques and coteries, those
paralysing products of small provincial towns, and
would have naught to do with them. Men of great
variety of views met round his dinner-table, and
whenever it seemed necessary he would preface the
repast with the request that theology and politics
should be avoided. With his Catholic neighbours —
Staffordshire was a stronghold of the " Old Religion "

26 SIR ROWLAND HILL

— the sturdy Nonconformist was on the happiest of
terms, and to listen to the conversation of the often
well - travelled, well - educated priests was to him a
never-failing pleasure. For Catholic Emancipation
he strove heartily and long. With all sects he was
friendly, but chiefly his heart went out to those who
in any way had suffered for their faith. One effect
of this then not too common breadth of view was
seen when, after his death, men of all denominations
followed him to his grave, and the handsomest of the
several journalistic tributes to his memory appeared
in the columns of his inveterate political and theo-
logical opponent, the local Tory paper. A ward in
the Hospital and a street were called after the
whilom "king of Wolverhampton."1

He had three daughters, of whom my mother
was the eldest. His wife died young, and before
her sixteenth year Caroline became mistress of his
house, and thus acquired the ease of manner and
knowledge of social duties which made of her the
charming hostess who, in later years, presided over
her husband's London house. She will make a brief
reappearance in other pages of this work.

Joseph Pearson's youngest daughter, Clara, was a
beautiful girl, a frequent " toast " at social gatherings
in the three counties of Stafford, Warwick, and
Worcester — for toasts in honour of reigning belles
were still drunk at festivities in provincial Assembly
Rooms and elsewhere, what time the nineteenth
century was in its teens. When very young she

1 He died in July 1838, in the midst of the agitation for the
postal reform, in which he took an enthusiastic interest.

From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co.

Ihe bust was the Zo.st u-or7c of Sir Franc's Chantry.

JOSEPH PEARSON.

To face p. 26.

INTRODUCTORY 27

became engaged to her cousin, Lieutenant (after-
wards Captain) Alexander Pearson, R.N., who at
the time of Napoleon's sojourn at St Helena was
stationed there, being attached to the man-of-war
commanded by Admiral Plampin. One gift which
Lieutenant Pearson gave my aunt she kept to the end
of her life — a lock of Napoleon's hair. Lieutenant
Pearson often saw the ex- Emperor, and, many years
after, described him to us children — how, for instance,
he would stand, silent and with folded arms, gazing
long and fixedly seaward as though waiting for the
rescue which never came. The lieutenant was one
of the several young naval officers who worshipped
at the shrine of the somewhat hoydenish Miss
" Betsy " Balcombe, who comes into most stories of
St. Helena of that time. Wholly unabashed by
consideration of the illustrious captive's former
greatness, she made of him a playmate — perhaps a
willing one, for life must have been terribly dreary
to one whose occupation, like that of Othello, was
gone. Occasionally she shocked her hearers by
addressing the ex-Emperor as " Boney," though it
is possible that the appellation so frequently heard
in the mouths of his British enemies had no osseous
association in his own ears, but was accepted as an
endearing diminutive. One day, in the presence of
several witnesses, our cousin being among them,
she possessed herself of a sword, flourished it play-
fully before her, hemmed Napoleon into a corner,
and, holding the blade above his head, laughingly
exclaimed : " Main tenant j'ai vaincu le vanqueur du
monde ! " But there was no answering laugh ; the

28 SIR ROWLAND HILL

superstitious Corsican turned pale, made some short,
unintelligible reply, left the room, and was depressed
and taciturn for the rest of the day. It was surmised
that he took the somewhat tactless jest for an omen
that a chief who had been beaten by a woman
would never again lead an army of men.

During Rowland Hill's prime, and until the final
breakdown of his health, our house was a favourite
haunt of the more intimate of his many clever friends.
Scientific, medical, legal, artistic, literary, and other
prominent men met, exchanged views, indulged in
deep talk, bandied repartee, and told good stories
at breakfast and dinner parties ; the economists
mustering in force, and plainly testifying by their
bearing and conversation that, whatever ignorant
people may say of the science they never study, its
professors are often the very reverse of dismal. If
Dr Southwood Smith1 and Mr (later Sir Edwin)
Chadwick's talk at times ran gruesomely on details
of "intramural interment," the former, at least, had
much quaint humour, and was deservedly popular ;
while Dr Neil Arnott, whose chief hobbies were
fabled to be those sadly prosaic things, stoves, water-
beds, and ventilation, but who was actually a dis-
tinguished physician, natural philosopher, author, and
traveller, was even, when long past sixty, one of the
gayest and youngest of our guests : a mimic, but
never an ill-natured one, a spinner of amusing yarns,
and frankly idolised by the juvenile members of the
family whose minds he mercifully never attempted
to improve.

1 Grandfather to Miss Octavia Hill.

INTRODUCTORY 29

Charles Wentworth Dilke,1 founder of the
Athenczum newspaper, a famous journalist and
influential man of letters, at whose house one met
every writer, to say nothing of other men and
women, worth knowing, was another charming old
man, to listen to whose talk was a liberal educa-
tion. Did we walk with him on Hampstead Heath,
where once he had a country house, he became an
animated guide-book guiltless of a dull page, telling
us of older times than our own, and of dead and
gone worthies who had been guests at " Went worth
House." On this much worn, initial-carven, wooden
seat used often to sit Keats listening to the nightin-
gales, and, maybe, thinking of Fanny Brawne. At
another spot the weakly-framed poet had soundly
thrashed a British rough who was beating his wife.
Across yonder footpath used to come from Highgate
"the archangel a little damaged," as Charles Lamb
called Coleridge. At that road corner, in a previous
century, were wont to gather the visitors returning
from the Well Walk "pump-room," chalybeate spring,
and promenade, till they were in sufficient force to be
safe from highwaymen or footpads who frequented
the then lonely road to London. In a yet earlier
century certain gallant Spanish gentlemen attached
to Philip and Mary's court, rescued some English
ladies from molestation by English ruffians ; and
memorials of this episode live in the still traceable
circle of trees whose predecessors were planted by

1 His son was one of the Commissioners who aided Prince
Albert to inaugurate the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was created
a baronet in recognition of his services.

30 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the grateful ladies, and in the name of the once quaint
old hostelry hard by, and of the road known as the
Spaniards.

Another wanderer about Hampstead's hills and
dales was the great Thackeray, who was often
accompanied by some of the family of Mr Crowe,
a former editor of the Daily News, and father to
Eyre Crowe, R.A., and Sir Joseph Archer Crowe.
These wanderings seem to have suggested a few of
the names bestowed by Thackeray on the characters
in his novels, such as "Jack Belsize " and " Lord
Highgate," while the title of " Marquess of Steyne "
is reminiscent of another Thackerayan haunt — " Dr"
Brighton. Hampstead still better knew Dickens,
who is mentioned later in these pages. The two
writers are often called rivals ; yet novels and men
were wholly unlike. Each was a peerless genius in
his own line, and each adorned any company in
which he moved. Yet, while Dickens was the life
and soul of every circle, Thackeray — perhaps the
only male novelist who could draw a woman absolutely
true to life * — always struck us as rather silent and
self-absorbed, like one who is studying the people
around him with a view to their reproduction in
as yet unwritten pages. His six feet of height
and proportionate breadth, his wealth of grey hair,
and the spectacles he was said never to be seen
without, made of him a notable figure everywhere.
Yet, however outwardly awe-inspiring, he was the

1 What other man ever depicted a Becky Sharpe, a Beatrix
Esmond, a Mrs Bute Crawley, or a Lady Kew — to say nothing
of minor characters?

INTRODUCTORY 31

kindliest of satirists, the truest of friends, and has
been fitly described as "the man who had the heart
of a woman." At the Athenaeum Club he was often
seen writing by the hour together in some quiet
corner, evidently unconscious of his surroundings, at
times enjoying a voiceless laugh, or again, perhaps
when telling of Colonel Newcome's death, with " a
moisture upon his cheek which was not dew."

Another literary friend — we had many — was
William Henry Wills, also mentioned later : a kind
friend to struggling authors, who did not a little to
start Miss Mulock on her career as authoress, and
who made her known to us. He once told us a
curious story about an old uncle with whom as a
lad he used to stay in the days before the invasion
of the west country by railways with their tendency
to modernisation of out-of-the-way places. This
ancient man lived in a large ancestral mansion, and
literally "dined in hall" with his entire household.
There was a sanded floor — formerly, no doubt, rush-
strewn — and the family and their "retainers" sat
down together at a very long table to the midday
repast, the servants taking their place literally " below
the salt," which was represented by a large bowl filled
with that necessary concomitant. In how many other
country houses did this mediaeval custom last into the
first third of the nineteenth century ? 2 Mrs Wills —
only sister to the Chambers brothers, William and
Robert, who, together with our other publisher friend,

1 " Thackeray's London." By W. H. Rideing.

2 Less than half a century before the time described by Mr
Wills, the mother of Sir Humphrey Davy left the fact on record

32 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Charles Knight, did so much to cheapen the cost
and in every way to raise the tone of literature —
was, in addition to possessing great charm of manner,
an admirable amateur actress, and an unrivalled singer
of Scottish songs.

Hampstead, midway in the nineteenth century,
was still a picturesque little town, possessed of several
stately old houses — one known as Sir Harry Vane's —
whose gardens were in some cases entered through
tall, wide, iron gates of elaborate design which now
would be accounted priceless. It was still the resort of
artists, many of whom visited the pleasant house of
Edwin Wilkins Field, conspicuous among the public-
spirited men who rescued from the builder-fiend the
Heath, and made of it a London " lung " and a joy for
ever ; himself a lawyer, the inspirer of the Limited
Liability Act, and an accomplished amateur water-
colour painter. His first wife was a niece of Rogers,
the banker -poet, famous for his breakfast parties
and table talk. At Mr Field's house we came first
to know Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., the famous sea-
scape painter, and his family, who were musical as well
as artistic, and gave delightful parties. It was said
that Stanfield was familiar with the build and rig of a
ship down to its minutest detail, because he and his
lifelong friend and fellow Royal Academician, David
Roberts, ran away from school together to sea at a
time when life on the ocean wave seemed to most
that in Penzance, a town of 2,000 inhabitants, there were but
one cart, one carpet, no such thing as a silver fork, no merchandise
brought to the place save that carried by pack-horses, and every
one who travelled went on horseback. On this state of things
Palmer's mail coaches had a most rousing effect.

INTRODUCTORY 33

boys the ideal existence. To the last, Stanfield
looked like an old sea-dog, and was bluff, hearty
and genial. Hampstead still remembers him with
pride ; and " Stanfield House," wherein the first
really good local Free Library was sheltered, is so
called because for nearly twenty years it was his
dwelling.

At the Fields' house, among other celebrities,
artistic, literary and legal, we also met Turner ;
and it was to " Squire's Mount," and at a crowded
evening party there that a characteristic anecdote of
this eccentric, gifted painter belongs. The taciturn,
gloomy-looking guest had taken an early farewell of
host and hostess, and disappeared, only to return some
minutes later, wonderfully and fearfully apparelled,
and silently commence a search about the drawing-
room. Suddenly he seemed to recollect, approached
a sofa on which sat three handsomely-attired ladies,
whose indignant countenances were a sight for gods
and men when the abruptly-mannered artist called on
them to rise. He then half dived beneath the seat, drew
forth a dreadfully shabby umbrella of the "Gamp"
species, and, taking no more notice of the irate three
than if they had been so many chairs, withdrew —
this time for good. Turner had a hearty contempt
for the Claude worship, and was resolved to expose its
hollowness. He bequeathed to the nation two of his
finest oil paintings on condition that they were placed
in the Trafalgar Square Gallery beside two of Claude's
which already hung there, and to this day act as foils.
A custodian of the Gallery once told me that he was

present when Turner visited the room in which were

c

34 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the two Claudes, took a foot-rule from his pocket
and measured their frames, doubtless in order that
his own should be of like dimensions.

Other artists whom we knew were Mulready,
Cooke — as famous for his splendid collection of old
Venetian glass as for his pictures — Creswick and
Elmore ; but much as Rowland Hill loved art, the
men of science, such as Airy, the Astronomer Royal ;
Smyth, the " Astronomical Admiral " ; Wheatstone,
Lyell ; Graham, the Master of the Mint ; Sabine, the
Herschels, and others were to him the most congenial
company. After them were counted in his regard the
medical men, philosophers and economists, such as
Harley, Coulson, Fergusson, the Clarkes, Sir Henry
Thompson — the last to die of his old friends — and
Bentham, Robert Owen, James and John Stuart Mill
— these last four being among the earliest great
men he knew, and counting in some ways as his
mentors.

Of his literary friends no two held a higher place
in his esteem than Maria Edgeworth and Harriet
Martineau. Of the latter and of her able, untiring
help in promoting the cause of Penny Postage, mention
will appear later. The former, my father, and his
brother Arthur, as young men, visited at her Irish
home, making the pilgrimage thither which Scott and
many other literary adorers had made or were destined
to make, one of the most interesting being that of Mrs
Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, of which
she tells us in her editorial preface to a recent edition
of " Castle Rackrent." The two brothers had looked
forward to meet a charming woman, but she exceeded

INTRODUCTORY 35

their expectations, and the visit remained in the
memory of both as a red-letter day.1

Among literary men, besides those already men-
tioned, or to be named later, were Leigh Hunt, De
Quincey — who when under the influence of opium
did the strangest things, being one day discovered by
my father and a friend hiding in some East End slum
under the wholly erroneous impression that " enemies "
were seeking to molest him — Sir John Bowring, Dr
Roget, author of " The Thesaurus," and the King-
lakes. " Eothen," as the writer of that once famous
book of travels and of " The Invasion of the Crimea,"
was habitually called by his friends, was a delightful
talker ; and his brother, the doctor, was equally
gifted, if less fluent, while his sister was declared by
Thackeray to be the cleverest woman he ever met.

Dr Roget was a most cultivated man, with the
exquisite polish and stately bearing of that now wholly
extinct species, the gentlemen of the old school. He
was one of the many tourists from England who,
happening to be in France after the break-up of the
short-lived Peace of Amiens, were detained in that
:ountry by Napoleon. Though a foreigner, Dr Roget
lad lived so long in England, and, as his book
>roves, knew our language so well, that he could
tsily have passed for a native of these isles ;
and thus readily fell a victim to the Corsican's

1 When Miss Edgeworth's father in 1804 wrote the preface to her
"Popular Tales," he quoted Burke as saying that in the United
Kingdom one person in every hundred could read, and added that
he hoped his daughter's works would attract the attention of a good
many "thousands." Millions of readers were probably undreamed
of, The schoolmaster has made some progress since those days.

36 SIR ROWLAND HILL

unjustifiable action. Happily for himself, Dr Roget
remembered that Napoleon had recently annexed
Geneva to France ; and he therefore, as a Genevese,
protested against his detention on the ground that the
annexation had made of him a French subject. The
plea was allowed ; he returned to England, and finally
settled here ; but the friend who had accompanied
him on the tour, together with the many other
detenus, remained in France for several years.

Political friends were also numerous, some of
whom will be mentioned in later pages. Of others.,
our most frequent visitors were the brilliant talker
Roebuck, once known as " Dog Tear 'Em" of the
House of Commons ; the two Forsters, father and
son, who, in turn and for many years, represented
Berwick-upon-Tweed ; J. B. Smith (Stockport) ; and
Benjamin Smith (Norwich), at whose house we met
some of the arctic explorers of the mid-nineteenth
century, congenial friends of a descendant of the
discoverer of Smith's Sound, and with whose clever
daughters, Madame Bodichon being the eldest, we of
the younger generation were intimate. At one time
we saw a good deal also of Sir Benjamin Hawes, who,
when appointed Under- Secretary to the Colonies in
Lord John Russell's Administration of 1846, said to
my parents : " Heaven help the Colonies, for I know
nothing at all about them ! " — an ignorance shared by
many other people in those days of seldom distant
travel.

My father's legal friends included Denman, Wilde,
Mellor, Manning, Brougham, and others ; and racy
was the talk when some of these gathered round " the

INTRODUCTORY 37

mahogany tree," for the extremely small jokes which
to-day produce " roars of laughter " in Court were then
little in favour, or failed to reach the honour of
reproduction in print.

Quite as interesting as any of the other people we
mingled with were the foreign political exiles who
became honoured guests in many households ; and
some of these terrible revolutionists were in reality the
mildest mannered and most estimable of men. Herr
Jansa, the great violinist, was paying a visit to this
country in 1849, and out of pure kindness of heart
volunteered to play at a concert at Willis's rooms got
up for the benefit of the many Hungarian refugees
recently landed here. For this " crime " the then
young Emperor Francis Joseph caused the old man
to be banished ; though what was Austria's loss was
Britain's gain, as he spent some years among us
respected and beloved by all who knew him. We
met him oftenest at the house of Sir Joshua Walmsley,
where, as Miss Walmsley was an accomplished pianist,
very enjoyable musical parties were given. The
Hungarian refugees, several of whom were wonderful
musicians, were long with us ; and some, like Dr
Zerffi, remained here altogether. The Italian exiles,
Mazzini, Rufini, Gallenga, Panizzi — afterwards Sir
Antonio, Principal Librarian at the British Museum,
and planner of the Reading Room there — and others
came to speak and write English better than many
English people. Poerio, Settembrini, and other
victims of King " Bomba " — whose sufferings inspired
Gladstone to write his famous " Two Letters " — were
not here long ; Garibaldi was an infrequent bird of

38 SIR ROWLAND HILL

passage, as was also Kossuth. Kinkel, the German
journalist, a man of fine presence, had been sentenced
to lifelong incarceration at Spandau after the Berlin
massacre— from which Dr Oswald and his sister with
difficulty escaped — but cleverly broke prison and took
refuge in England ; Louis Blanc, historian and most
diminutive of men, made his home for some years
among us ; and there were many more. Quite a
variety of languages was heard in the London drawing-
rooms of that time, conversation was anything but
commonplace ; and what thrillingly interesting days
those were !

The story of my father's connection with the
London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, and of
that portion of his life which followed his retirement
from the Post Office, will be alluded to later in
this work.

As it is well not to overburden the narrative with
notes, those of mere reference to volume and page
of Dr Hill's "Life" of my father are generally
omitted from the present story ; though if verification
of statements made be required, the index to my
cousin's book should render the task easy, at least
as regards all matter taken from that " Life."

CHAPTER I

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM

" Postage is one of the worst of our taxes. Few taxes, if any,
have so injurious a tendency as the tax upon the communication
by letters. I cannot doubt that a taxation upon communication by
letters must bear heavily upon commerce ; it is, in fact, taxing the
conversation of people who live at a distance from each other. The
communication of letters by persons living at a distance is the same
as a communication by word of mouth between persons living in the
same town. You might as well tax words spoken upon the Royal
Exchange as the communications of various persons living in
Manchester, Liverpool, and London." — Lord ASHBURTON, a con-
servative peer.

" We build National Galleries, and furnish them with pictures ;
we propose to create public walks for the air and health and exercise
of the community at the general cost of the country. I do not think
that either of these, useful and valuable as they are to the community,
and fit as they are for Government to sanction, are more conducive
to the moral and social advancement of the community than the
facility of intercourse by post." — SAMUEL JONES LOYD (Lord
OVERSTONE), banker and financier.

" It is commercial suicide to restrict the free transmission of
letters." — (Sir) WILLIAM BROWN, a Liverpool merchant.

" We are cut off from our relatives by the high rates of postage."
— G. HENSON, a working hosier of Nottingham.

IN a short sketch of the postal reform written by my
brother,1 in the year of the late Queen's first jubilee —

1 "The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago." By Pearson Hill.
Cassell & Co. (1887).

39

40 SIR ROWLAND HILL

which was also the jubilee of the publication of our
father's " Post Office Reform," the pamphlet that
swept away the old system — the following passage
from Miss Martineau's " History of the Thirty Years'
Peace, 1815-1845" is quoted with excellent effect.
From a novel point of view, and in somewhat startling
colours, it presents us with a picture of the state of
things which, under that old system, existed in our
country through four-tenths (less one year) of the
nineteenth century, and is therefore within the
recollection of people still living.

We look back now, Miss Martineau says,1 with a
sort of amazed compassion to the old crusading days
when warrior husbands and their wives, grey-headed
parents and their brave sons parted, with the know-
ledge that it must be months or years before they
could hear even of one another's existence. We
wonder how they bore the depth of silence, and we
feel the same now about the families of polar
voyagers;2 but till the commencement of Her
Majesty's reign it did not occur to many of us how
like to this was the fate of the largest classes in our
own country. The fact is that there was no full and
free epistolary intercourse in the country except for
those who, like Members of Parliament, had the
command of franks. There were few families in the
wide middle class who did not feel the cost of

1 As the passage is slightly condensed, quotation marks are not
employed. The words generally — whole sentences sometimes — are,
however, Miss Martineau's own.

2 Written while yet the fate of the Franklin Expedition was an
unsolved mystery.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 41

postage to be a heavy item in their expenditure ;
and if the young people sent letters home only once
a fortnight, the amount at the year's end was a rather
serious matter. But it was the vast multitude of the
poorer classes who suffered, like the crusading families
of old, and the geographical discoverers of all time.
When the young people went out into the world
the separation between them and those left behind
was almost like that of death. The hundreds of
thousands of apprentices, of shopmen, of governesses,
of domestic servants, were cut off from family
relations as effectually as if seas or deserts divided
them (vol. iv. p. 1 1 ).

Yet it was not so much the number of miles of
severance or the paucity of means of communication
that raised walls of oblivion between members of
those poorer families which form the large majority
of our race; for by 1840 — the year when the postal
reform was established — communication between even
distant places was becoming comparatively easy.
Separation was mainly caused by dear postal charges.
Fourpence carried a letter 1 5 miles only ; the
average rate, even taking into account the many
penny letters circulated by the local town-posts —
which, it is said, numbered some two hundred, the
greater part being very profitable undertakings — was
6-^d.1 Mr Brewin of Cirencester, in his evidence

1 The two sorts of post were kept quite distinct, the business of
the general post and that of the local posts being carried on in separate
buildings and by different staffs. It was not till the postal reform
had been established some years that Rowland Hill was able to
persuade the authorities of the wisdom of that amalgamation of the
two which formed an important feature of his plan.

42 SIR ROWLAND HILL

before the Parliamentary Committee of 1838 (Third
Report), put the case with startling effect when he
said : " Sixpence is a third of a poor man's daily
income. If a gentleman whose fortune is a thousand
a year, or £3 a day, had to pay one-third of his daily
income — a sovereign — for a letter, how often would
he write letters of friendship ? "

But Mr Brewin's illustration, admirable as it is,
did not cover the entire case. And, first, it is worth
pointing out that the " poor man's daily income " was
not only actually smaller, but, generally speaking, it
had also smaller purchasing power in the 'thirties than
it came to have later in the century when freer trade
and lighter taxation prevailed. The real hardship,
however, was that too often the man " whose fortune
is a thousand a year" — and sometimes much more
— was, unlike his poorer brother on is. 6d. a day,
exempt altogether from postal charges.

For the franking system is a hoary iniquity. It
dates back considerably more than two hundred years.
To such an extent was the practice, legally or illegally,
carried, that, as Mr Joyce, in his " History of the
Post Office," tells us : " In Great Britain alone the
postage represented by the franked letters, excluding
those which were, or which purported to be, 'On His
Majesty's Service,' amounted in 1716 to what was,
for that time relatively to the total Post Office
revenue, the enormous sum of ,£17,500 a year"
(p. 142). By 1838 the number of franked missives
was some 7,000,000 a year. Of these, rather less
that 5,000,000 were "double" letters, about 2,000,000
eight-fold letters, and some 77,000 thirteen-fold letters,

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 43

free carriage of which caused a loss to the revenue
during the twelvemonths of about ;£ 1,065,000.

The franking privilege — which enabled its pos-
sessor to write his name outside a letter, thereby
rendering it exempt from postal charge — was in
vogue long before it received formal recognition by
Parliament, and is indeed said to have been given
by way of bribe to the Commons what time the Post
Office became a Crown monopoly. The first intention
was that franking should be enjoyed only by Members
during each session ; but later it was practised in and
out of session. When the measure came before the
House, a few Members condemned it as "shabby,"
"a poor mendicant proviso," etc. But the Bill was
passed. The Upper House rejected it. Then the
Commons, with a knowledge of human nature credit-
able to their understanding if to nothing else, inserted
a clause providing that the Lords' letters should also
be franked ; whereupon the Bill became an Act.

The old system worked with great tenderness
towards the " haves," and with corresponding harsh-
ness towards the "have nots." It enabled some
members of the favoured classes to send by post free
of charge such things as fifteen couples of hounds, two
maid servants, a cow, two bales of stockings, a deal
case containing flitches "of bacon, a huge feather-bed,
and other bulky products, animate and inanimate.
" The ' Ambassador's bag,' " said Mr Roebuck one
night in the House of Commons, "was often unduly
weighted. Coats, lace, boots, and other articles were
sent by it ; even a pianoforte, and a horse ! "
1 " Hansard," cxlvi. 189.

44 SIR ROWLAND HILL

On the other hand, the unfavoured many were
heavily taxed for the transmission of missives often
smaller, easier of carriage, and lighter of weight ;
and were so taxed to make up for the immunity
enjoyed by the favoured few, since the revenue, at
all costs, must be maintained. Thus to Rowland
Hill's parents, and to many thousands more, in those
days of slender income and heavy taxation, the post-
man's knock was a sound of dread. The accepted
letter might prove to be a worthless circular or other
useless sheet, on which the too-trusting recipient had
thrown away the money needed for necessary things
whose purchase must be deferred.

Incredibly high the postal rates sometimes were.
A packet weighing 32 oz. was once sent from Deal
to London. The postage was over £6, being, as
Rowland Hill's informant remarked, four times as
much as the charge for an inside place by the coach.1
Again, a parcel of official papers, small enough to
slip inside an ordinary pocket, was sent from Dublin
to another Irish town addressed to Sir John
Burgogne. By mistake it was charged as a letter
instead of as a parcel, and cost £n\ For that
amount the whole mail-coach plying between the
two towns, with places for seven passengers and
their luggage, might have been hired. Extreme
cases these perhaps, but that they could and did

1 Travelling as well as postage has cheapened. A fourth part of
£6 is 305. — the price of each " inside place." To-day a first-class
railway return ticket between Deal and London costs less than
half 303.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 45

happen argued something rotten in the state of —
the old system.

The peers of the realm and the Members of
Parliament could not only frank their own letters,
but those also of their friends, who, perhaps, in nine
cases out of ten could well afford to do without such
help. The number of franks which privileged people
could write was limited by law,1 but was frequently
exceeded if a donor hated to say " No," or found
that compliance with requests enhanced his popularity,
or was to his advantage. Members of Parliament
sometimes signed franks by the packet, and gave
them to constituents and friends. It was an easy,
inexpensive way of making a present, or of practising
a little bribery and corruption. The chief offenders
were said to be the banker Members, who, in one
day (of 1794), sent 103,000 franked letters through
the London Post Office alone. No wonder a
" banker's frank " came to be a byword. Franks
were also sometimes given to servants instead of,
or to eke out, their wages ; and the servants, being
then as a rule illiterate, sold the franks again.

Forgery of franks was extensively practised, since
to imitate a man's writing is not difficult. Mr Joyce
tells us that, under the old system, the proportion of
counterfeit to genuine franks varied from half to
three-quarters of the entire number. Why forgery
should be resorted to is easy to understand. The
/^privileged nursed a natural grudge against the
privileged, and saw no harm in occasionally enjoying
a like immunity from postal charges. Prosecutions

1 Fourteen franks a day was the number each M.P. could issue.

46 SIR ROWLAND HILL

availed little as deterrents. Even the fate of the
Rev. Dr Dodd, hanged at Tyburn in 1771 for the
offence, could not check the practice.

The strictness of the rules against forging the
frank on a letter, so long a capital offence, contrasted
strangely with the extraordinary laxity of those
relating to the franking of newspapers. To pass
freely through the post, a newspaper, like a letter,
had to be franked by a peer or a Member of Parlia-
ment. But no pretence was ever made that the
signatures were genuine ; and not only was anybody
at liberty to write the name of peer or Member, but
the publishers themselves were accustomed to issue
the newspapers with their customer's name and
address, and the franking signature already printed
on each cover! Indeed, were this useless form to
be disregarded, the paper was counted as an unpaid
letter, and became liable to a charge of perhaps
several shillings.

The cost of conveying newspapers by post was
practically covered by the duty stamp. Yet "No
newspaper could be posted in any provincial town
for delivery within the same, nor anywhere within
the London District (a circle of 12 miles radius
from the General Post Office) for delivery within
the same circle, unless a postage of id., in
addition to the impressed newspaper stamp, were
paid upon it — a regulation which, however, was
constantly evaded by large numbers of newspapers
intended for delivery in London being sent by
newsagents down the river to be posted at
Gravesend, the Post Office then having the trouble

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 47

of bringing them back, and of delivering them with-
out charge."1

The newspaper duty at its lowest charge was
id., and at its highest 4d., and varied with the
varying burden of taxation. Thus during the long
period of George III.'s almost incessant wars it
rose from the lower to the higher figure. Before a
word could be printed on any newspaper the blank
sheet had to be taken to the Stamp Office to
receive the impress of the duty stamp, and there-
fore prepayment of newspaper postage was secured.
It may be that when the stamp duty rose to 3d.
and 4d., the official conscience was satisfied that
sufficient payment had been made ; and thus the
franking signature became an unnecessary survival,
a mere process of lily-painting and refined gold-gild-
ing, which at some future time might be quietly got
rid of. If so, the reason becomes evident why the
forgery of franks on newspapers was viewed with
leniency, the authorities having, by means of the
stamp, secured their "pound of flesh." But no duty
stamp was ever impressed on letters which were
treated altogether differently, prepayment in their
case being, if not actually out of the question, so
rare as to be practically non-existent.

The duty on newspapers was an odious "tax on
knowledge," and rendered a cheap Press impossible.
Only the well-to-do could indulge in the luxury of
a daily paper ; and recollection of childish days brings
back a vision of the sheet passing through a succession
of households till its contents had become "ancient
1 " The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago," p. 6.

48 SIR ROWLAND HILL

history," and it ended its existence in tatters. The
repeal of the stamp duty and of that other "tax
unwise," the paper duty, changed all this, and gave
rise to the penny and halfpenny Press of modern
times and the cheap and good books that are now
within the reach of all. The fact is worth recording
that yet another — perhaps more than one other -
article of daily use did duty in a plurality of households
during those far-off days of general dearness. This
was tea, then so costly that it was a common practice
for poor people to call at the houses of the well-
to-do, and ask for the used leaves, though not to
cleanse carpets and glassware as we do at the present
day, but to infuse afresh.

The making of exemptions is a huge mistake ; and,
according to the cynic, a mistake is more reprehensible
than a crime. Exemptions create discontent, and
justly so. Peel, inimical as he was to the postal
reform, was well aware of the evils of the franking
system, and said that " were each Government Depart-
ment required to pay its own postage, much would
done towards checking the abuse." *

It was Rowland Hill's wish that franking should b<
totally abolished. But vested interests — that worst
bar to all social progress — proved stronger than th<
reformer ; and his plan, in that and some other details,
was not carried out in its entirety. Franking was
enormously curtailed, but it was a scotching rather thai
a killing process ; and after his retirement the evil

1 "Life," i. 135. Peel voted against the Penny Postage Bill
and even that kindly friend to the poorer classes, the " good " Lor
Shaftesbury — then Lord Ashley — followed Sir Robert's example.

From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Co.

To face p. 49.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 49

thing slowly but steadily increased. Nor does the
tendency at the present day give sign of abatement.

As some of that increasingly large portion of the
public which knows nothing of the old postal system
are under the erroneous impression that others than
Rowland Hill suggested the use of postage stamps for
letters, it is well to point out that the employment
of such stamps before 1840, so far from cheapening
or rendering easier the payment of postal charges,
must have made them considerably dearer, and
have yet further complicated the process of letter-
" taxing."1

Postage stamps, like railway tickets, are mere tokens
of prepayment, and, however mentally hazy on the
subject of the origin of postage stamps some of us
may be, we can all easily understand how absurd,
indeed impossible, introduction of the tickets would
have been in the dark ages before railway trains began

run. Equally impossible would have been the
imployment, or even the suggestion, of stamps when
letters were posted unpaid. Under the old system
the letters of the unprivileged classes were rated,
primarily, according to the distance travelled, though
not necessarily the distance actually separating writer
and recipient, because, although before 1840 railways
existed, no close network of lines covered our land,
providing, as it does to-day, direct and plentiful means
of inter-communication ; and therefore the Post Office,
to suit its own convenience, often obliged some of its
mail matter to perform very circuitous routes, thereby

1 That is, of calculating the amount of postage to be levied on
each letter.

D

50 SIR ROWLAND HILL

not only retarding delivery, but rendering still greater
the already great variability of rates. " Thus, for
example, letters from Loughton to Epping (places
only 2 or 3 miles apart) were carried into London
and out again, and charged a postage of yd. — that
being the rate under the old system for letters between
post towns ranging from 30 to 50 miles apart." l
That this circumambulatory practice was responsible
for waste of time as well as increase of cost is shown
by the fact that of two letters, the one addressed to
Highgate, and the other to Wolverhampton (120 miles
further along the same coach road), and both posted in
London at the same hour, the Highgate letter would
be delivered last. As regards cost, an anomaly quite
as absurd as the two foregoing existed in the case
of letters between Wolverhampton and Brierley Hill
which were carried by a cross-post passing through
Dudley. If a letter went the whole way, the
postage was id. ; but if it stopped short at Dudley,
4d. was charged. Of the letters which performed
circuitous routes, Scott, in the fortieth chapter ol
" Guy Mannering," humorously remarks that, " There
was a custom, not yet wholly obsolete, of causing
a letter from one town to another, perhaps within the
distance of 30 miles, to perform a circuit of 200 miles
before delivery ; which had the combined advantage oi
airing the epistle thoroughly, of adding some pence to
the revenue of the Post Office, and of exercising the
patience of the correspondents."

The question of charge was still further complicated,

because, secondarily, there existed "single," "double,"

1 " The Origin of Postage Stamps," p. 17. By Pearson Hill.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 51

" treble," and yet heavier rates of postage ; as when
the treble rate was passed, further increase was
reckoned by weight, the charge being quadrupled
when the letter weighed an ounce, rising afterwards by
a " single " postage for every additional quarter ounce.
It was as well, perhaps, that the people who lived
before the 'forties did not lead the feverish life of
to-day. Otherwise, how would the post officials, to
say nothing of the public, have remembered these
positively bewildering details ?

A "single" letter had to be written on a single
sheet of paper, whose use probably gave rise to the
practice of that now obsolete " cross " writing which
often made an epistle all but illegible, but to which
in those days of dear postage recourse was unavoid-
able when much matter had to be crammed into the
limited compass of that single sheet. If a second sheet,
or even the smallest piece of paper, were added to the
first, the postage was doubled. The effect of fasten-
ing an adhesive stamp on to a single letter would
therefore have been to subject the missive to a double
charge ; while to have affixed a stamp to an envelope
containing a letter would have trebled the postage.
In other words, a man living, say, 400 miles from
his correspondent, would have to pay something
like 43. for the privilege of receiving from him
a single sheet of paper carried in a wholly
unnecessary cover bearing an equally unnecessary,
because entirely useless, adornment in the shape of
an adhesive stamp. For obvious reasons, therefore
neither "the little bags called envelopes," as in his
pamphlet Rowland Hill quaintly described these

52 SIR ROWLAND HILL

novel adjuncts, nor the stamps, were, or could be,
in use.1

One veracious anecdote will suffice to show what
came of evasion, wilful or unintentional, of a hard and
fast postal rule. A letter was once sent from London
to Wolverhampton, containing an enclosure to which
a small piece of paper had been fastened. The process
called " candling" showed that the letter consisted of
three parts ; and the single postage being iod., a
charge was made of 2s. 6d.2

1 A recent discussion in Notes and Queries (Tenth Series,
vol. i.) has shown that envelopes are mentioned by Swift and later
writers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They are
sometimes called "envelopes" and sometimes "covers." Their use
must have been exceedingly limited, and still more limited, perhaps,
is the number of people who have actually seen them. They
were probably square sheets of paper used to enclose a number of
missives addressed to one person or several persons living in the
same neighbourhood ; and were, most likely, better known to the race
of letter smugglers (about whom see further) than to any one else.
An obituary notice in the Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury of
23rd May, 1906, on the late Mr J. D. Tyson, "a notable Liverpool
insurance broker," shows how new the use of envelopes as we now
understand them was more than half a century ago. The writer
says : " Even the introduption of the envelope was greatly opposed
by most of the old firms ; and for fear the envelope would be thrown
away and all traces of posting be lost, the juniors were instructed to
pin the envelope to the letter. This had soon to give way when
the usefulness of the envelope became so pronounced."

2 The neat and rapid folding of the large sheets of paper on
which single letters were written was regarded as one of the fine
arts ; and lessons in it were sometimes given to boys at school. I
have a distinct recollection of seeing a number of people seated
round a table and practising letter-folding, and of my begging to
be allowed to join the circle and try my diminutive 'prentice hand
at the game. A dignified and elaborate process was the sealing
of the folded letter, impressing much the juniors of the family,

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 53

It will thus be seen that in reckoning the postage
on a letter, distance, the number of enclosures (if
any), and, finally, weight had to be taken into con-
sideration. Nor should it be forgotten that of single
inland letters the variations of charge amounted to
over forty. Under so complicated a system, it was,
save in very exceptional circumstances, far easier to
collect the postage at the end of the letter's journey
than at its beginning ; and, in the absence of prepay-
ment, of what possible use could stamps have been, or
what man in his senses would have proposed them ? 1
Had later-day ignorance of the actual state of things
under the old postal system been less widespread
than it is, any claim to authorship of postage stamps
before reform of that system was attempted or achieved

who looked on admiringly, while the head thereof performed the
ceremony, the only drawback being the odious smell of the un-
necessarily large, old-fashioned "lucifer" match employed to light
the candle. When one of the seals hanging to the broad silken
strap showing below the paternal or grand-paternal waistcoat was
pressed upon the bountifully spread, hot wax till a perfect impres-
sion was left, the letter thus completed would be held up for all
to see. What would those stately, leisurely-mannered gentlemen
of the olden time, who, perhaps, took five or more minutes over
the fastening of a letter, have said to our present style of doing
things — especially to the far from elegant mode of moistening the
gummed envelope flap which has superseded the cleanly spreading
of the scented wax and application of the handsome seal of armorial
bearings carved on a precious stone and set in a golden shield ?

i According to an extract taken from the " New Annual Directory
for 1800," in the Guildhall Library, prepayment might be made
in the case of the local "penny" (afterwards " twopenny") post.
That this fact should need an advertisement seems to argue that,
even as regards the local posts, prepayment was not a common
practice.

54 SIR ROWLAND HILL

would, for lack of the credulous element among the
public, scarcely have been hazarded.

The "candling" of letters was practised to
ascertain whether single, double, treble, or still
heavier postage should be charged. The missive was
carried into a darkened room, and held up against a
strong artificial light. This process not only gave
the examining official some idea of the number of
enclosures, if any, but often revealed their character.
It was to defeat temptation to dishonesty caused by
this scrutiny that the practice, not yet obsolete, was
adopted of cutting a banknote in two before posting
it, and keeping back the second half till receipt of the
first had been acknowledged.

Single letter postage between London and
Edinburgh or Glasgow cost is. 3^d., between London
and Aberdeen is. 4^d., and between London and
Thurso is. 5^d., the odd halfpenny being the duty
exacted in protectionist days to enable the epistle to
cross the Scottish border. A letter to Ireland via
Holyhead paid, in addition to ordinary postage,
steamer rates and toll for using the Menai and Conway
bridges. Or, if a letter took the southerly route to
Ireland, the extra charge was levied at Milford.
Single letter postage to Londonderry was is. 5d.
To the many other more distant Irish towns it was
still heavier.

These single charges — enforced, too, at a time
when the nation, wearied out with many years of
almost incessant war, was poorer far than it is now—
seem to us exorbitant. When, therefore, we think of
them as doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and so forth,

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 55

it is easy to understand why to all but the rich letter-
writing became an almost lost art ; and we realise
more clearly the truth of Miss Martineau's word-
picture which a superficial reader might be inclined
to pronounce overdrawn.

The rates had been oppressive enough in 1801
when, in order to swell the war-tax, a further contribu-
tion to the Exchequer of ^i 50,000 was enforced. But
in 1812 a yet further contribution of ,£200,000 was
required ; and these higher rates — the highest ever
reached — were maintained for a quarter of a century
after the peace of 1815 : that is, till Rowland Hill's
reform swept the old system away.

In order to increase the postal revenue, the screw
had been tightened in a variety of ways, even to the
arresting of further progress in Ralph Allen's much-
needed "cross-posts" reform.1 As Mr Joyce puts it:
11 In 1695 a circuitous post would be converted into
a direct one, even though the shorter distance carried
less postage; in 1813 a direct post in place of a
circuitous one was constantly being refused on the
plea that a loss of postage would result."2 In the
latter year all sorts of oppressive and even bewilder-
ing new regulations were enforced whose tendency
was to make of the Post Office a yet harsher tax-
raising machine. One new charge was of "an
additional penny on each letter for the privilege of

1 This was he who did "good by stealth, and blushfed] to find
it fame." Out of his contract with the Post Office he made the
large income, for that time, of ;£i 2,000 a year, and spent the greater
part of it in those acts of beneficence which, aided by Pope's famous
lines, have preserved for him well-deserved, lasting fame.

* " History of the Post Office," p. 357.

56 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the mail-coach passing through " l certain towns ; and
other rules were equally vexatious.

The lowest single postage to Paris was is. 8d. ;
and in the case of foreign letters partial prepayment
was the rule. For instance, when a letter travelled
from London to Paris, the writer paid iod.,
which freed it as far as Calais only, its recipient
paying the other iod. on its delivery in the
French capital. Collection of postage at the end of
the entire journey would have been contrary to
regulation.

The lowest single postage to Gibraltar was
2s. iod. ; and to Egypt, 33. 2d. When a letter
crossed the Atlantic to Canada or the United States
an inland rate at each end of the transit was charged
in addition to the heavy ocean postage. A packet
of manuscript to either of those countries cost £$
under the old system. But at this " reduced " (!) rate
only a 3-lb. packet could be sent. Did one weigh the
merest fraction of a pound over the permitted three,
it could not go except as a letter, the postage upon
which would have been ^22, os. Sd.2 One can hardly
expect the public of to-day to believe that rates such
as these were ever in force. They sufficiently explain
why it was that the ill - to - do relatives of equally
ill-to-do people who emigrated to the Colonies or
foreign countries often lost all trace of them.

In the Morning Chronicle of 22nd August 1837,
appeared an announcement that, " Henceforth postage
on letters to the Mediterranean will be at the rate

1 "History of the Post Office," p. 357.

2 "The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago," p. 13.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 57

of only i os. an ounce" -showing that even as
regards countries nearer home than America postal
charges rendered letter-writing an expensive occupa-
tion even to the well-to-do if they had a large foreign
correspondence. To - day " a letter can be sent
from London westward to San Francisco or eastward
to Constantinople or Siberia for a less amount of
postage than was charged in 1836 on one going
from Charing Cross to Brompton."1 And in the
future the cost is likely to become less.

The old postal rates being so burdensome, it was
inevitable that tricks and evasions of many sorts
should be practised, notwithstanding the merciless
penalties that were inflicted on delinquents detected in
the act.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that
hundreds, if not thousands, of newspapers were
annually posted which no one particularly cared to
read. Yet it is certain that many a recipient eagerly
welcomed the paper sent him even though he might
rarely unfold its pages. As newspapers went free —
or nominally did so, for after all the postage was
indirectly taken out of the pocket of the man who
invested 5d. in every copy of his "daily" — and
letters, except those which passed between members
of the privileged classes, did not, the newspaper came
to be a frequent bearer of well-disguised messages
from one member of the unprivileged classes to
another. The employment of inks of different colours,
of variations in modes of writing names, callings, and

1 "The Jubilee of the Uniform Penny Postage," p. 22. By
Pearson Hill.

58 SIR ROWLAND HILL

addresses, and even peculiar flourishes executed by
the pen, conveyed valuable information to him who
received the paper, and enabled many tradesmen to
keep up a brisk correspondence without contributing a
farthing to the revenue.

How, for example, should the uninitiated postal
authorities know that the innocent-looking superscrip-
tion on a newspaper sent from London to " Mr John
Smith, Grocer, Tea-dealer, etc, No. i High Street
Edinburgh," conveyed to Mr Smith the assurance that
on Tuesday the price of sugar was falling, and that
the remittances he had sent in discharge of his
indebtedness had been received ? Yet so it was, for
however fictitious the name and address, the case is
genuine, the conspiring pair of correspondents having
come forward during the agitation for penny postage
as voluntary witnesses to the necessity for the reform,
their evidence being the revelation of their fraud made
on condition that they should be held exempt from
prosecution. There were six different modes of
writing Mr Smith's name, one for each working day
of the week ; and the wording of his trade varied still
oftener, and served to give him the latest news of the
market. If Mr Smith's fellow-tradesman (and fellow-
conspirator) in London wrote the address immediately
after the name, omitting all mention of Mr Smith's
calling, the latter knew that the goods he had sent
had reached their destination. Variations rung upon
the locality name, such as High Street (without the
number), High St., i High Street, i High St., No. i
High Street, or No. i High St., related to pecuniary
matters. For while we have seen how satisfactory

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 59

was the news conveyed in " No. i High Street,"
"High St.," on the contrary, told Mr Smith that the
bills he sent had been dishonoured.

But Mr Smith and colleague were by no means
the only correspondents who deliberately plotted to
defraud the revenue ; for, under the old system, it
seemed to be each person's aim to extract the cost of
postage on his own letters out of the pocket of some
other person. In this achievement, however, there can
be little doubt that, as a rule, the well-to-do made the
most successful score.

The story told by Mr Bertram in " Some Memories
of Books " about the apprentice to a printing firm is
another instance of evasion. The young man was
frequently in want of clothing, and made known his
need to those at home with as little outlay as though
he had been a member of Parliament or peer of the
realm. He printed small slips of paper bearing such
legends as " want trousers," "send new coat," etc.,
pasted them into newspapers, and sent these to his
parents.

At the present day indulgence in a practice of this
sort would seem contemptible, a fraud to which only the
meanest of mankind would resort. But had we too
lived when postage was charged on a fourth part only
of the entire mail, and when the writers of the letters
forming that fourth part, and we among them, were
taxed to make up the loss on the franked three-
quarters, perhaps even we, immaculate as we believe
ourselves to be, might have been tempted to put our
scruples into our pocket to keep company with our
slender purse, and have taken to " ways that are

60 SIR ROWLAND HILL

dark," though, if less astute than Mr John Smith and
his London correspondent, possibly also to " tricks
that are vain" — with unpleasant consequences to
ourselves.

There is an oft-quoted story about Coleridge, who,
one day while wandering through the Lake District,
saw a poor woman refuse a letter which the postman
offered her. The kindly poet, in spite of the woman's
evident reluctance to accept the gift, paid the money
she could not raise ; but when the letter was opened,
it was seen to be a blank sheet of paper not intended
for acceptance, but sent by her son according to
preconcerted agreement as a sign that he was well.1
This, then, is not only yet another illustration of the
frauds to which the " have nots " were driven to resort,
but, further, shows how profitless, even costly, was the
labour imposed upon the Post Office by the system to
which the authorities clung with so unaccountable
an affection. For an unaccepted sheet of paper does
not travel from London to the Lake District for
nothing ; and when we multiply- one unaccepted letter
by many thousands, one may form some idea of the
amount of fruitless trouble as well as fruitless outlay
which was incurred by the Department.

The enforced silence between severed relations
and friends was therefore rendered yet more painful

1 " Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge,"
ii. 114. In different versions of the story the absent relative is
described as father, husband, or brother ; and in not a few cases
the hero's action, through a mistake made by Miss Martineau when
writing the History already alluded to, has been claimed for Rowland
Hill, who is further supposed — quite erroneously — to have been then
and there inspired with the resolve to undertake postal reformation.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 61

when the letters — genuine letters too, not dummies —
got as far as the post office nearest to their intended
destination, or even to the door of the poor dwellings
to which they were addressed, yet failed to cross the
threshold because their should-be recipients were too
poverty-stricken to "take them up." In many in-
stances mothers yearning to hear from absent children
would pawn clothing or household necessaries rather
than be deprived of the letters which, but for that
sacrifice, must be carried back to the nearest post
office to await payment. One poor woman, after
striving for several weeks to make up the money to
redeem a longed-for letter from her granddaughter in
London, went at last to the local office with the
shilling which a pitying lady gave her, only to find
that the letter had been returned to town. She never
received it. Another poor woman begged a local
postmaster's daughter to accept a spoon by way of
pledge till the ninepence charged upon a letter await-
ing payment at the office could be raised. A labouring
man declined an eightpenny letter though it came
from a far-off daughter because the price meant one
loaf the less for his other children. It was much
harder for the poorest classes to find pence enough
to lavish on postage in those yet earlier and often
hungrier nineteenth century decades than even the
"Hungry Forties"; during which years a man had
sometimes to spend more than eightpence — more
occasionally than double that sum — on his children's
loaf.

The refused missives, after waiting a while at the
local office for the chance of redemption, went back

62 SIR ROWLAND HILL

to the chief office, were consigned to the " dead "
department, and were there destroyed, thus costing
the Service — meaning, of course, the public — the use-
less double journey and the wasted labour of not a
few officials.

Sometimes a kind - hearted postmaster would
advance the sum due for a letter out of his own
pocket, taking his chance of being repaid. But
not every postmaster could afford to take such risks,
nor was it desirable that they should be laid upon
the wrong shoulders.

In 1837 the Finance Account showed a profitless
expenditure of ;£i 22,000 for letters "refused, mis-sent,
re-directed, and so forth." This loss of revenue was,
of course, quite distinct from that already mentioned
as caused by the use of franks fictitious and genuine.
Truly, the unprivileged paid somewhat dearly for th(
advantages enjoyed by the privileged, since it lay wit
the former both to make good the loss and to provide
the required profit.

Under the old system the postman would oftei
be detained, sometimes as much as five minutes, at
each house at which he called while he handed in hi<
letters, and received the money due upon them, li
business quarters this sort of thing had long beei
found intolerable, and therefore, by private arrange-
ment with the merchants, the postman, on the first
and by far the heaviest, delivery of the day, did IN
wait for his money. But after the second delivei
he had to call at every house where he had left lettei
earlier in the day and collect the postage : a procei
which often made the second delivery lengthy an<

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 63

wearisome. A test case showed that while it took a
man an hour and a half to deliver 67 letters for which
he waited to receive payment, half an hour sufficed
for the delivery of 570 letters for which he did not
wait to be paid.1

Another evil of the old system was the temptation
to fraud which it put in the way of the letter-carriers.
When a weak or unscrupulous man found a supply of
loose cash in his pocket at the end of his delivery, his
fingers would itch — and not always in vain — to keep it
there. Again, an honest man, on his way back to the
office with the proceeds of his round upon him, was
not safe from attack if his road was lonely or the
streets ill-lighted or deserted. The old foot and horse
posts were often robbed. Murders even, Mr Joyce
reminds us, were not infrequent, and executions failed
to check them.

The system of account-keeping was "an exceed-
ingly tedious, inconvenient, and, consequently, ex-
pensive process."2 The money which the recipient
of a letter paid to the postman passed to the local
postmaster, who sent it on to the head office. It went
through many hands, and peculation was rife. "The

1 " Eighteenth Report of the Commissioners of Revenue
Inquiry," pp. 621, 622. Now, if 570 letters, payment for which
had not to be waited for, could be delivered in half an hour, it
follows that in the hour and half consumed in delivering those
67 other letters, three times 570, or 1710, prepaid letters might
have been distributed. This one small fact alone furnishes proof
of the necessity for prepayment, for this test delivery was made
in the heart of the city of London, where prompt delivery and
common-sense postal regulations are of paramount importance to
business men.

2 " Post Office Reform," p, 29.

64 SIR ROWLAND HILL

deputy postmasters could not be held to effectual
responsibility as regards the amounts due from them
to the General Office ; and as many instances of
deficit came at times to light, sometimes following
each other week after week in the same office, there
can be no doubt that the total annual loss must have
reached a serious amount."1

On the arrival of the mails at the General Post
Office, the clerks were required to see that the charge
entered upon every letter had been correctly made,
and that each deputy postmaster had debited himself
with the correct amount of postage ; to stamp the
letters — that is, to impress on them the date when
they were posted ; to assort them for delivery, in
which work the letter-carriers assisted ; to ascertain
the amount of postage to be collected by each letter-
carrier, and to charge him therewith. In addition to
all this, another detail must not be forgotten — that
in the London Office alone there were daily many
thousands of letters which had to undergo the
4 'candling" process.

For the outgoing mails the duties were some-
what similar, and quite as complicated, and some
seven hundred accounts had to be made out against
as many deputy postmasters.

Simplification of account-keeping under the old
system, however much needed, seemed hopeless of
attainment.

Even in England, the most prosperous "partner"
of the United Kingdom, there were at the time of
the late Queen's accession, districts larger than
1 " Post Office Reform," p. 29.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 65

Middlesex, within whose borders the postman never
set foot. Of the 2,100 Registrar's districts into
which England and Wales were divided, 400 districts,
each containing on the average about 20 square miles
and some 4,000 inhabitants — making in all a popula-
tion of about a million and a half — had no post office
whatever. The chief places in these districts, con-
taining about 1,400 inhabitants each, were on the
average some 5 miles, and in several instances as
much as 1 6 miles, from the nearest post office.1

The 50,000 Irish, or immediate descendants of
Irish in Manchester, said Cobden in his evidence
before the Parliamentary Committee of 1838, were
almost as completely cut off from communication
with their relatives in Ireland as though they were
in New South Wales.2 And .when he drew this
comparison, it counted for much more than it would
do to-day. Great Britain and Australia were then
practically much further asunder than they are now,
sailing vessels at that time taking from four to six
months to do the single, and sometimes nearly twelve
the double voyage. A good many years had yet
to elapse before the Indian Ocean was bridged by
the fast steamships which have reduced that several
months' journey to one of a few weeks only.

The great free-trader's calico printing works were
situated at a little town or village, of some 1,200
inhabitants, called Sabden, 28 miles from Manchester.
Although a manufacturing centre, it had no post
office, and nothing that did duty for one.

1 " The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago," p. 12.

2 "Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage," p. 22.

66 SIR ROWLAND HILL

In the opening paragraph of the twenty-seventh
chapter of "The Heart of Midlothian/' Scott says
that in 1737 " So slight and infrequent was the
intercourse betwixt London and Edinburgh, that
upon one occasion the mail from the former city
arrived at the General Post Office in Scotland with
only one letter in it. The fact is certain. The
single epistle was addressed to the principal director
of the British Linen Company."

In "Her Majesty's Mails" Mr Lewins says that:
"About the same time the Edinburgh mail is said
to have arrived in London containing but one letter
addressed to Sir William Pulteney, the banker"

(p. 85).

The old system being at once clumsy, irrational,
irritating, and unjust, little wonder need be felt that
when Queen Victoria's reign began, each inhabitant
of England and Wales received on an average one
letter in three months, of Scotland one in four months,
and of Ireland one a year.1

Until 1748 there were but three posts a week
between London and Birmingham. In that year the
number was doubled. The notice making known this
improvement contains denunciations of the people
who were in " any way concerned in the illegal col-
lecting or delivery of Letters or Packets of Letters."
The fines for the offence were " £$ for every letter,
and ;£ioo for every week this practice is continued."
But fines could not arrest the smuggling, because
the practice was remunerative to the smugglers, and
popular among those who employed them, and who
1 " The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago," p. 14.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 67

thus enjoyed cheap rates of postage. Therefore the
illegal traffic went on growing, till by the time the
old system came to an end it had assumed vast
proportions.

Publishers and other business men wrote letters
on one large sheet of paper for different people living
in the same district. On reaching its destination
the sheet was divided into its separate parts, each
of which being then delivered by hand or local post.
A similar practice in respect of money payments
prevailed.1 One publisher and bookseller said he
was "not caught" till he had thus distributed
some 20,000 letters. Several carriers made the
collection and distribution of letters their only
business, and in the collecting process women and
children were employed. In one district the illegal
practice was more than fifty years old, and in at
least another, as we see by the notice quoted in the
preceding paragraph, its age must have exceeded a
century. In one then small town the daily average
of smuggled letters amounted to more than 50,
and on one occasion rose above 150. The Mr
Brewin of Cirencester already mentioned said he
knew two carriers who conveyed four times as many
letters as did the mail.2 One carrier confessed to
having smuggled about 60 letters a day. On another
carrier's premises a bag was seized containing 1,100
letters. Twelve walking carriers between Birming-
ham and Walsall were employed exclusively in
conveying letters at a charge of a penny apiece.

1 "Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage," p. 12.
* Ibid. pp. 13, 14.

68 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Five Glasgow merchants illegally transmitted letters
at the rate severally of three, eighteen, sixteen, eight,
and fifteen to one that went legally. Five-sixths of
the Manchester letters contributed nothing whatever to
the postal revenue.1 Nor does the list of delinquencies
end here.

Letters were also smuggled in warehousemen's
bales and parcels ; among manufacturers' patterns and
other things which coach proprietors, on payment
of a trifle for booking, carried free of charge ; in
weavers' bags, in farmers' " family boxes," and in
other ways.1

Even the mail-coach drivers and guards engaged
in the unlawful traffic, though in many instances
letters were sent in coach parcels not so much to save
postage as to facilitate transmission and ensure early
delivery.

Mr Maury, of the American Chamber of Commerce,
assured the Select Committee that when regular
steam communication between Liverpool and New
York was established, the first steamer carried Jive
letters in the large bag provided in expectation of
a heavy dispatch. Ten thousand letters were, how-
ever, placed in another bag sent to the care of the
consignee of the same vessel ; and Mr Maury himself
contributed some 200 free letters to this second bag.
Every ten days a steamer left this country for America
each carrying some 4,000 smuggled letters — a fact
of which the postal authorities were well aware ; and
almost every shipbroker hung a bag in his office

1 "Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage," pp.

THE OLD POSTAL SYSTEM 69

for the convenience of those who sent letters otherwise
than through the post. Letters so collected by one
broker for different ships in which he was interested
were said to be sometimes "enough to load a cab."
In in packages containing 822 newspapers sent
in the course of five months to America, 648 letters
were found concealed. The postmaster of Margate
reported that in the visitors' season the increase of
population there made no proportionate increase of
postage, a fact which he attributed to the illegal con-
veyance of letters by steamers. The growing facilities
for travel caused a corresponding growth of letter-
smuggling. At the same time, the more general
establishment of local penny posts tended to secure
to the Post Office the conveyance of letters between
neighbouring towns and villages ; 1 and undoubtedly
did much to recoup that extensively swindled Depart-
ment for its loss of revenue caused by franking,
evasions like those of Mr John Smith and others,
and letter-smuggling.

As usual, the people who practised the deception
were scarcely so much to blame as those who, spite
of every effort at reform, persisted in maintaining a
system which created favouritism, hampered trade,
severed family ties, and practically created the
smuggling offence which scandalised the official
conscience. Had the rates been less exorbitant, and
had they fallen impartially on rich and poor, these
dishonest practices might have had little or no
existence. They ceased only when at last the old
order changed, and, happily, gave place to new.
1 "Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage," pp. 15-30.

CHAPTER II

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS

IN Mr Joyce's already quoted and exhaustive work
upon the Post Office as it existed before 1840 an
interesting account is given of the reformers who,
long before Rowland Hill's time, did so much to
render the service efficient, and therefore to benefit
the nation. As pioneers in a good cause, they deserve
mention in another volume dealing with the same
public Department ; and their story is perhaps the
better worth repeating because it shows how curi-
ously similar is the treatment meted out to those
who are rash enough to meddle with a long-estab-
lished monopoly, no matter how greatly it may stand
in need of reform. In every instance the reformer
struggled hard for recognition of the soundness of
his views, toiled manfully when once he had acquired
the position he deserved to hold, was more or less
thwarted and harassed while he filled it, and, precisely
as if he had been a mischievous innovator instead of
a public benefactor, was eventually got rid of.

As regards the Post Office, each of the best-known
reformers was handicapped by the fact that, with one
notable exception, he was that unwelcome thing, an
outsider. Murray was an upholsterer, or, according
to another account, a clerk in the Assize Office ;

70

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 71

Dockwra was a sub-searcher at the Custom House ;
and Palmer was the proprietor of the Bath theatre.
My father, as has been shown, had been a school-
master, a rotatory printing press inventor, and a
member of the South Australian Commission. Even
when his plan was accepted by the Government, he
had yet to set foot within the Post Office, though not
for want of trying to enter, because while collecting
material for his pamphlet in 1836 he had applied to
the authorities for permission to inspect the working
of the Department, only to meet with a refusal.

The one notable exception was Ralph Allen, Pope's
41 humble Allen," and, as mentioned in the previous
chapter, the author of the cross-posts. The original
of Fielding's " Squire Allworthy" had, Mr Joyce tells
us, "been cradled and nursed in the Post Office,"
and his grandmother was postmistress at St Columb,
Cornwall. Here he kept the official accounts in so
neat and regular a manner that he attracted the
attention of the district surveyor, and, later, was
given a situation in the Bath Post Office, eventually
becoming its chief official.1

Mr Joyce's narrative, as we have seen, is brought
down only to the end of the old postal system. To
that which superseded it he makes but brief allusion,
because the subject had already been dealt with in
the two volumes edited and added to by Dr Birkbeck
Hill.

In the present work the story will be carried less
than thirty years beyond the time at which Mr Joyce's
narrative ends — that is, so far as postal reform is
1 " History of the Post Office," p. 146,

72 SIR ROWLAND HILL

concerned. The later history of the Post Office,
which would easily make a volume as large as Mr
Joyce's, has yet to find an author, and to rank worthily
beside his should be written with a corresponding care
and accuracy of detail.

One chapter only need be devoted here to the
most prominent early postal reformers, and their story
shall begin with Witherings (1635). Speaking of his
work, Mr Joyce says, "This was the introduction
of postage."1 To Witherings, therefore, must be
awarded the merit of having furnished cause for a
new meaning of the word "post," whose earlier
usage still survives in some provincial hotel notices
announcing "posting in all its branches."2

In Witherings' time the postal rates were, for
single letters, "under 80 miles, 2d. ; under 140 miles,
4d. ; over 140 miles, 6d. — for until 1840 the charges
were calculated according to distance. For double

1 "History of the Post Office," p. 18.

2 The word " postage," we are told, was originally applied to the
hire of a horse for "posting," and was extended to letters in com-
paratively recent times only. It is therefore well when meeting with
the word in other than modern documents not to conclude too
hastily that it relates to epistolary correspondence. An Act of 1764
is said to be the first in which was used " postage " in the sense of a
charge upon letters. But in 1659 the item, "By postage of letters
in farm, ,£14,000, " appears in a "Report on the Public Revenue
in the Journals of the House of Commons," vii. 627. The fact
likewise seems well worth recalling that in the translation of the
Bible of 1611 the words "post" and "letters" are connected, not-
ably in " 2 Chronicles," xxx. 6, and in "Esther." Chapter xvii. of
Marco Polo's travels, by the by, contains an interesting description
of the horse and foot posts in the dominions of Kubla Khan, which
were so admirably organised that the journeys over which ordinary
travellers spent ten days were accomplished by the posts in two.

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 73

letters double rates were, of course, exacted. If
" bigger" than double, the postage became 6d.,
9d. and is. Single postage to and from Scotland
was 8d., to and from Ireland gd. These were
heavy rates at a time when the country was far
less wealthy and the relative value of money
higher than is now the case. But at least service
was rendered for the heavy rates, as " Hence-
forth the posts were to be equally open to all ; all
would be at liberty to use them ; all would be
welcome." l

Witherings especially distinguished himself in the
management of the foreign postal service, which he
accelerated and made more efficient. In 1637 he was
appointed " Master of the Posts," and was thus the
only reformer from outside who, withinside, rose to
become supreme head of the Department. The office
was given to enable him to undertake, unhindered,
the improvements he proposed to make in the inland
posts. Three years later he was dismissed, and an
end put to " the career of one who had the sagacity to
project and the energy to carry out a system, the
main features of which endure to the present day."2

In 1643 the postal revenue amounted to some
,£5,000 a year only. By 1677 the Department's
profits were farmed at .£43,000 a year, and the
officials consisted of one Postmaster - General and
seventy-five employees. A writer of the day tells
us that "the number of letter missives is now pro-
digiously great."

1 "History of the Post Office," p. 18.

2 Ibid. p. 21.

74 SIR ROWLAND HILL

In 1658 John Hill, a Yorkshire attorney, did
good work, and tried to accomplish more. He already
supplied post horses between York and London,
undertook the conveyance, at cheap rates, of parcels
and letters, and established agencies about the country
for the furtherance of a scheme to greatly reduce
the postal charges throughout the kingdom ; his pro-
posal being a penny rate for England and Wales, a
twopenny rate for Scotland, and a fourpenny rate for
Ireland. But the Government declined to consider
the merits of the plan.

When Dockwra — who gave practical shape to the
scheme which Murray had assigned to him — estab-
lished his reform of a penny post, London had no
other post office than the general one in Lombard
Street,1 and there was no such thing as a delivery
of letters between one part of London and another.
Thus, if any Londoner wished to write to any other
Londoner, he was obliged to employ a messenger
to convey his missive to its destination ; and as the
houses then had no numbers, but were distinguished
only by signs, the amateur letter-carrier must have
been often puzzled at which door to knock.

Dockwra soon put his great scheme into working
order. He divided city and suburbs into districts—
in that respect forestalling a feature of Rowland Hill's
plan — seven in number, each with a sorting office ;
and in one day opened over four hundred receiving
offices. In the city letters were delivered for id.,
in the suburbs for 2d. It must have been quite

1 In George I.'s reign, besides London, Chester is said to have
been the only town in England which possessed two post offices,

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 75

as epoch-making a reform to the Londoners of the
seventeenth century, as was the far wider-reaching,
completer scheme established a hundred and sixty
years later to the entire nation. For Dockwra's,
though for its time a wonderful advance, was but a
local institution, the area served being "from Hackney
in the north to Lambeth in the south, and from
Blackwall in the east to Westminster in the west."1
He also introduced a parcel post.

The local penny posts — for they were afterwards
extended to many other towns — have given some
people the erroneous impression that Rowland Hill's
plan of penny postage was simply an elaboration
and a widening of Dockwra's older system. Things
called by a similar name are not necessarily identical.
Indeed, as we have seen, the word "postage" had
formerly quite a different meaning from that it now
has ; and, although Dockwra's " penny post " and
Rowland Hill's "penny postage" related equally to
postage in its modern interpretation of the word, that
the system established in 1840 materially differed
from preceding systems will be shown in the suc-
ceeding chapter.2

Dockwra's reform was inaugurated in 1680, proved
of immense benefit to the public, was intended to last
for ever, and did last for a hundred and twenty-one
years. In 1801 the charges on the local — to say
nothing of those on the general — post were raised

1 "History of the Post Office," p. 37.

2 " The ancient penny post resembled the modern penny post
only in name," says Justin M'Carthy in "A History of Our Own
Times," chap. iv. p. 99.

76 SIR ROWLAND HILL

from id. and 2d. to 2d. and 3d., while its area,
which in Queen Anne's reign had been extended
to from 1 8 to 20 miles beyond London, shrank into
much narrower limits.1 The increase of charge was
due to that augmented contribution, on the part of
the Post Office, to the war - tax which has been
already mentioned. During the last twenty-five of
the years 1801-1840 the country was at peace, but
the tendency of " temporary " war-taxes is to become
permanent, or to die a very lingering death ; and, as
has been shown, no diminution was made in postal
rates ; and letter - writing in thousands of homes
practically ceased to be.

In 1663 the entire profits of the Post Office had
been settled on James, Duke of York ; and Dockwra's
reform, like other large measures, being costly to
establish, he had to seek financial help outside the
Department, the requisite money being furnished by
a few public-spirited citizens of London. The under-
taking was a losing speculation at first, but presently
began to prosper ; and the Duke's jealousy was at
once roused. " So long," says Mr Joyce, "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 was wrested out of his hands."2

1 The " New Annual Directory for 1800 " (see Guildhall Library),
speaking of the " Penny Post," defines its area as " the cities of
London [and] Westminster, the borough of Southwark and their
suburbs."

2 " History of the Post Office," pp. 37-40.

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 77

During James's reign this eminent public servant
met with no recognition of his valuable work ; but
under William and Mary he was granted a pension,
and after some delay was reinstated as comptroller
of the penny post. But in 1700 both situation and
pension came to an end ; and the man who had
conferred so signal a benefit upon his fellow-citizens
was finally dismissed.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the
posts in Ireland were few and far between. Carrick-
on-Shannon was the only town in County Leitrim
which received a mail, and that not oftener than
twice a week. Several districts in Ireland were
served only at the cost of their inhabitants.

Besides London, Bath alone — favoured by its
two distinguished citizens, Ralph Allen and John
Palmer --had, before 1792, more than one letter-
carrier ; and many important centres of population,
such as Norwich, York, Derby, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
and Plymouth, had none at all — the postmaster, and
in some instances a single assistant, constituting the
entire staff, no sort of duty outside the official walls
being undertaken. The Channel Islands were treated
as though they had been in another planet. Before
1794 they had no postal communication with the rest
of the United Kingdom, though for some years local
enterprise had provided them with an inter-insular
service. When Palmer appeared on the scene, the
number of towns in the British Isles which received
mails increased rapidly, while those already served
two or three times a week began to receive a post
daily.

78 SIR ROWLAND HILL

In no respect, perhaps, has greater progress been
made than in the matter of mail conveyance, both as
regards acceleration and safety, and in other ways.
In Witherings' time about two months were required
for a letter and its answer to pass between London
and Scotland or London and Ireland. Exchange of
correspondence between the three kingdoms was,
strange to say, far less expeditiously carried on than
that between London and Madrid. But when it is
remembered how direful was the condition of our
thoroughfares in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the impossibility of anything like swift
progress becomes evident. Ruts there were, says
Arthur Young, which measured 3 feet in depth, and
in wet weather were filled to the brim with water ;
while in "Guy Mannering" Scott speaks of districts
"only accessible through a succession of tremendous
morasses." In "Waverley" (temp. 1745) is described
the " Northern Diligence, a huge, old-fashioned tub
drawn by three horses, which completed the journey
from Edinburgh to London ('God willing,' as the
advertisement expressed it) in three weeks." Twenty
years later, even, the coaches spent from twelve to
fourteen days upon the journey, and went once a
month only. In some places the roads were so bad
that it was necessary to erect beacons alongside them
to keep the travelling public after dark from falling
into the ponds and bogs which lined the highways
and sometimes encroached upon them. Elsewhere,
the ponderous " machines " groaned or clattered over
rocky and precipitous ways, rolling and pitching like
a vessel on an angry sea. Not even by the more

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 79

lightly-freighted men on foot and boys mounted on
the wretched steeds provided for the Post Office
service could swifter progress be made. No wonder
that letter and answer should travel but slowly.

In 1784, when Palmer proposed the abolition of
these slow-moving and far from trustworthy mail-
carriers,1 and the substitution in their place of the
existing stage-coaches,2 great were the scorn and
indignation of the postal authorities. Seven miles an
hour instead of three and a half! And coaches instead
of post-boys ! Were ever such mad proposals heard
of! The officials were " amazed that any dissatisfac-
tion, any desire for change should exist." Not so
very long before, they had plumed themselves on the
gratifying fact that " in five days an answer to a letter
might be had from a place distant 200 miles from
the writer." And now, even in face of that notable
advance, the public wanted further concessions ! One
prominent official " could not see why the post should
be the swiftest conveyance in England." Another

1 Or, in his own words, mails trusted to " some idle boy without
a character, mounted on a worn-out hack, who, so far from being
able to defend himself against a robber, was more likely to be in
league with one." Apparently, the people of this class had no
better name in France, and probably other countries, to judge by a
fragment of conversation taken from Augier, and chronicled in
Larousse's " Dictionnairc du XIXe Siecle" xii. 1497 : — " La poste
est en retard." " Oui, d'une heure a peu pres. Le pieton prend
courage a tous les cabarets."

2 As a contemporary of Palmer, Scott was never guilty of an
anachronism not unknown to present-day authors who sometimes
cause the puppet men and women of their romances to travel before
1784 in wa/7when they really mean stage coaches. The terms are
too often taken to be synonymous.

8o SIR ROWLAND HILL

was sure that if travelling were made quicker, the
correspondence of the country would be thrown into
the utmost confusion. But he thought — and perhaps
the parentage of the thought was not far to seek — that
to expedite the mails was simply impossible. The
officials, indeed, were " unanimously of opinion that
the thing is totally impracticable."1 And, doubtless,
Palmer was set down as "a visionary" and " a
revolutionist" — names to be bestowed, some fifty-
three years later, upon another persistent reformer.
A second Committee, formed to consider Palmer's pro-
posals, reported that it had ''examined the oldest and
ablest officers of the Post Office, and they had no con-
fidence whatever in the plan." "It is always," said
Brougham, when, in the Upper House, he was advocat-
ing adoption of the later reform, " the oldest and ablest,
for the Committee considered the terms synonymous."'

Thus does history repeat itself. As it was with
Palmer, so, before him, it was with Witherings
and Dockwra ; and, after him, with Rowland Hill.
The unforgivable offence is to be wiser than one's
opponents, and to achieve success when failure has
been predicted.

But worse things than prophecy of failure accom-
pany reforms, attempted or accomplished, and act like
a discordant chorus striving to drown sweet music.
Prophecy of dire results, such as ruin of society,
disruption of the Empire, etc., are sometimes raised,
and carry dismay into the hearts of the timid.
My father, who was born less than forty-three years

1 " Report of the Committee of Inquiry (1788)."

2 "Hansard," xxxix. 1201, etc.

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 81

after " the change of style," as a child often heard old
people, in all seriousness, lament the loss of "our
eleven days, "and declare that since it was -made every-
thing in this country had gone wrong.1 I too, when
young, have heard aged lips attribute the awful cholera
visitation of 1832 to our sinfulness in passing the
Catholic Emancipation Bill ; and the potato disease
and consequent Irish famine in the mid 'forties to
interference with the sacred Corn Laws. We laugh
at this sort of thing to-day, but are we much wiser
than our forebears ?

Although these great reforms differ widely in
character, the gloomy predictions concerning them are
substantially alike. The terrible things prophesied
never come to pass ; and of the reforms when once
established no sane person wishes to get rid.

When at last Palmer had borne down opposition

1 For nearly two centuries the change was opposed here, partly*
perhaps chiefly, because it was inaugurated on the Continent by a
Pope, Gregory XIII. Common-sense and the noblest of all sciences
were on the side of His Holiness ; but religious bigotry was too
strong even for that combination ; and for those many years
religious bigotry held the field. Opposition did not cease even
when the correction was made ; and grave divines preached against
the wickedness of an Act which, they said, brought many millions
of sinners eleven days nearer to their graves; and in one of
Hogarth's series of Election Pictures, a man is seen bearing a
placard on which is inscribed the words, " Give us back our eleven
days." Most of us, too, are familiar with the cruel story of the witch
mania which was shared by men as excellent as Sir Matthew Hale
and John Wesley. To-day, we are glad that old, friendless men and
women, to say nothing of their harmless, necessary cats, are
permitted to die peacefully. Are there any now among us who
would restore the Act, JDe Comburendo Heretico, expunged from the
Statute Book in William's III.'s reign — a removal which doubtless
scandalised not a few sincerely devout persons ?

82

SIR ROWLAND HILL

and been placed in authority, he set to work in a
far-reaching, statesmanlike manner. The old, worth-
less vehicles which, owing to their frequent habit of
breaking down on the road, had become a constant
source of complaint, were gradually got rid of ; and
by 1792 all his mail-coaches were new. He was a
born organiser, and insisted on the introduction and
maintenance of business-like methods. Unnecessary
stoppages along the road were put an end to, and
necessary stoppages shortened ; the mail-bags to be
taken on were made up before the coaches appeared,
the mail-bags to be taken off were ready to the guard's
hand ; and strict punctuality was enforced. The
guards and coachmen were armed, and no one unskilled
in the use of firearms was employed in either capacity.
The harness and other accoutrements were kept in
good repair, the coaches were well-horsed, and the
relays were made with reasonable frequency.1

Palmer had calculated that sixteen hours ought to
suffice for the London and Bath coach when cover-
ing the distance between the two cities. The time
usually spent on the road was thirty-eight hours. The
first mail-coach which started from Bath to London
under his auspices in 1784 performed the journey
in seventeen hours, proving with what nearness to
absolute accuracy he had made his calculations. For
a while seventeen hours became the customary time-
limit. Not long after this date mail - coaches were
plying on all the principal roads.

1 In the oldest days of coaching, the horses which started with
the vehicle drew it to the journey's end. Relays of horses were a
happy afterthought.

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 83

Before the first of Palmer's coaches went to
Liverpool, that seaport was served by one letter-
carrier. Ten years later, six were needed. One
postman had sufficed for Edinburgh ; now four were
required. Manchester till 1792 had but one letter-
carrier, and its postal staff consisted of an aged
widow and her daughter. Previous to 1794 the
Isle of Wight was served by one postmaster and
one letter-carrier only.

Before Palmer took over the management of the
coaches they were robbed, along one road or
another, at least once a week. It was not till his
rule was ten years old that a coach was stopped
or robbed ; and then it was not a highwayman, but
a passenger who did the looting. Before 1784 the
annual expenditure incurred through prosecution of
the thieves had been a heavy charge on the service,
one trial alone — that of the brothers Weston, who
figure in Thackeray's " Denis Duval "- —having cost
,£4,000. This burden on the Post Office revenue
henceforth shrank into comparatively insignificant
dimensions.

Palmer traversed the entire kingdom along its
coach routes, making notes of the length of time
consumed on each journey, calculating in how much
less time it could be performed by the newer
vehicles, and always keeping an observant eye on
other possible improvements.

Before the end of the eighteenth century
Dockwra's London penny post1 had fallen upon

1 Dublin became possessed of a local. penny post before 1793 ;
but not until that date, or a hundred and thirteen years after

84

SIR ROWLAND HILL

evil days. Neglect and mismanagement had been
its lot for many years ; there was a steady diminu-
tion of its area, and no accounts were kept of its
gains. Palmer looked into the condition of the
local post, as, in addition to the mail conveyance,
he had already looked into the condition of the
newspaper post and other things which stood in
need of rectification ; and, later, the old penny post,
now transformed into a twopenny post, was taken
in hand by Johnson, who, from the position of
letter-carrier, rose, by sheer ability, to the office of
" Deputy Comptroller of the Penny Post."

As a rule, Palmer was fortunate in choosing
subordinates, of whom several not only accomplished
useful work long after their chief had been dismissed,
but who introduced reforms on their own account.
Hasker, the head superintendent of the mail-coaches,
kept the vehicles, horses, accoutrements, etc., to say
nothing of the officials, quite up to Palmer's level.
But in another chosen man the great reformer was
fatally deceived, for Bonner intrigued against his
benefactor, and helped to bring about his downfall.

One reform paves the way for succeeding reforms.
Palmer's improved coaches caused a marked increase
of travelling ; and the establishment of yet better
and more numerous vehicles led to the making of

the establishment of Dockwra's reform in London, was it considered
worth while to extend the boon to Manchester — which had now dis-
placed Bristol as the second town in the kingdom — or to the last-
named city and to Birmingham. At this time, too, it was still
customary to address letters bound for the centre of the cutlery
industry to " Sheffield, near Rotherham," the latter being the more
important town.

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 85

better roads. By this time people were beginning
to get over the ground at such a rate that the late
Lord Campbell, when a young man, was once, in
all seriousness, advised to avoid using Palmer's
coaches, which, it was said, owing to the speed at
which they travelled between London and Edinburgh,
and elsewhere, had caused the death of several
passengers from apoplexy ! " The pace that killed "
was 8 miles an hour. By the time the iron
horse had beaten the flesh - and - blood quadruped
out of the field, or rather road, the coaches were
running at the rate of 12 miles an hour.

Everywhere the mails were being accelerated
and increased in number. For now the science of
engineering was making giant strides ; and Telford
and his contemporary MacAdam — whose name has
enriched our language with a verb, while the man
himself endowed our thoroughfares with a solid
foundation — were covering Great Britain with high-
ways the like of which had not been seen since
the days of the Roman Conquest.

And then arrived the late 'twenties of the nine-
teenth century, bringing with them talk of railways
and of steam - propelled locomotives whose speed,
it was prophesied by sanguine enthusiasts, might
some day even rival that of a horse at full gallop.
The threatened mail-coaches lived on for many a
year, but from each long country highway they dis-
appeared one after another, some of them, it is said,
carrying, on their last journey, the Union Jack at
half-mast ; and, ere long, the once busy roadside
inn-keepers put up their shutters, and closed the

86

SIR ROWLAND HILL

doors of their empty stables. More than half a
century had to elapse before the hostelries opened
again to the cyclists and motorists who have given
to them fresh life and energy.

And thus passed away the outward and visible
witnesses to Palmer's great reform, not as many
things pass because they have reached the period
of senile decay, but when his work was at the high
water - mark of efficiency and fame. Perhaps that
singular fact is suggestive of the reason why the
disappearance of the once familiar pageant gave rise
to a widespread regret that was far from being mere
sentimentality.

When they were in their prime, the " royal mail-
coaches " made a brave display. Ruddy were they
with paint and varnish, and golden with Majesty's
coat-of-arms, initials, etc. The driver and guard
were clad in scarlet uniforms, and the four fine
horses — often increased in a " difficult" country to
six or more — were harnessed two abreast, and went
at a good, swinging pace. Once upon a time a
little child was taken for a stroll along a suburban
highroad to watch for the passing of the mail-
coaches on their way from London to the north—
a literally everyday pageant, but one unstaled by
custom. In the growing dusk could be distinguished
a rapidly-moving procession of dark crimson and
gold vehicles in single file, each with its load of
comfortably wrapped-up passengers sitting outside,
and each drawn by four galloping steeds, whose
quick footfalls made a pleasant, rhythmic sound.
One heard the long, silvern horns of the guards,

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 87

every now and then, give notice in peremptory tones
to the drivers of ordinary conveyances to scatter to
right and left, and one noted the heavy cloud of dust
which rolled with and after the striking picture. A
spectacle it was beside which the modern railway
train is ugly, the motor-car hideous : which rarely
failed to draw onlookers to doorways and windows,
and to give pedestrians pause ; and which always
swept out of sight much too quickly. The elderly
cousin accompanying the child drew her attention
to the passing procession, and said that her father
was doing something in connection with those
coaches — meaning, of course, their mails — something
that would make his country more prosperous and
his own name long remembered. The child listened
in perplexity, not understanding. In many noble
arts — above all, in the fashioning of large, square
kites warranted, unlike those bought at shops, to
fly and not to come to pieces — she knew him to be
the first of men. Yet how even he could improve
upon the gorgeous moving picture that had just
flashed past it was not easy to understand.

In the days when railways and telegraphs were
not, the coach was the most frequent, because the
fastest, medium of communication. It was therefore
the chief purveyor of news. On the occurrence of
any event of absorbing interest, such as the most
stirring episodes of the twenty-years-long war with
France, or the trial of Queen - Consort Caroline,
people lined the roads in crowds, and as the coach
swept past, the passengers shouted out the latest
intelligence. Even from afar the waiting throngs

88

SIR ROWLAND HILL

in war time could always tell when the news was

of victories gained, or, better still, of peace, such

as the short-lived pact of Amiens, and the one of

long duration after June 1815. On these occasions

the vehicle was made gay with flags, ribbons, green

boughs, and floral trophies ; and the passengers

shouted and cheered madly, the roadside public

speedily becoming equally excited. It fell one day

to Rowland Hill's lot, as a lad of nineteen, to meet

near Birmingham an especially gaily-decked coach,

and to hurry home with the joyful intelligence of

the "crowning mercy" — at one stage of the battle,

'tis said, not far from becoming a defeat — of Waterloo.

The once celebrated Bianconi was known as " the

Palmer of Ireland." Early in the nineteenth century

he covered the roads of his adopted country with an

admirably managed service of swift cars carrying

mails and passengers ; and thus did much to remedy

postal deficiencies there, and to render imperative the

maintenance in good order of the public highways.

Once, if not oftener, during his useful career, he

came to the Post Office on official business, and

"interviewed" Rowland Hill, who found him an

interesting and original - minded man, his fluent

English, naturally, being redolent of the Hibernian

brogue. Bianconi's daughter, who married a son of

the great O'Connell, wrote her father's "Life"; and,

among other experiences, told how on one occasion

he was amazed to see a Catholic gentleman, while

driving a pair of horses along the main street of

an Irish town, stopped by a Protestant who coolly

detached the animals from the carriage, and walked

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 89

off with them. No resistance could be offered, and
redress there was none. The horses were each
clearly of higher value than the permitted £$
apiece, and could therefore legally become the
property of any Protestant mean enough, as this
one was, to tender that price, and (mis)appropriate
them. When Catholic Emancipation — long promised
and long deferred — was at last conceded, this
iniquitous law, together with other laws as bad or
worse, was swept away.1

With the advent of railways the "bians" gradually
disappeared, doing so when, like the mail-coaches, they
had reached a high level of excellence, and had been
of almost incalculable public benefit.

The mail-coach, leisurely and tedious as it seems
in these days of hurry, had a charm of its own in that
it enabled its passengers to enjoy the fresh air — since
most of them, by preference, travelled outside — and
the beauties of our then comparatively unspoiled country
and of our then picturesque old towns, mostly sleepy
or only slowly awakening, it is true, and, doubtless,
deplorably dull to live in. The journey was at least
never varied by interludes of damp and evil-smelling
tunnels, and the travelling ruffian of the day had less
opportunity for outrage on his fellowman or woman.
The coach also, perhaps, lent itself more kindly to
romance than does the modern, noisy railway train ;
at any rate, a rather pretty story, long current in our

1 For a graphically described contrast between the treatment
meted out in those "good old times" to Catholics and that to
Protestants, see Sydney Smith's too-seldom read "Peter Plymley's
Letters."

90 SIR ROWLAND HILL

family, and strictly authentic, belongs to the ante-
railway portion of the nineteenth century. One of
my mother's girl-friends, pretty, lively, clever, and
frankly coquettish, was once returning alone by coach
to London after a visit to the country. She was the
only inside passenger, but was assured that the other
three places would be filled on arrival at the next
stage. When, therefore, the coach halted again, she
looked with some curiosity to see who were to be
her travelling companions. But the expected three
resolved themselves into the person of one smiling
young man whose face she recognised, and who at
once sat down on the seat opposite to hers, ere long
confessing that, hearing she was to come to town by
that coach, he had taken all the vacant places in order
to make sure of a t£te-d-t§te. He was one of several
swains with whom she was accustomed to flirt, but
whom she systematically kept at arm's-length until she
could make up her mind whether to say " yes " or
"no." But he had come resolved to be played with
no longer, and to win from her a definite answer.
Whether his eloquent pleading left her no heart to
falter "no," or whether, woman-like, she said "yes"
by way of getting rid of him, is not recorded. But
that they were married is certain ; and it may as well
be taken for granted that, in accordance with the time-
honoured ending of all romantic love stories, " they
lived happy ever after."

No eminent postal reformer rose during the first
thirty-seven years of the nineteenth century unless we
except that doughty Parliamentary free lance, Robert
Wallace of Kelly, of whom more anon. But the

SOME EARLY POSTAL REFORMERS 91

chilling treatment meted out by officials within the
postal sanctuary to those reform - loving persons
sojourning outside it, or even to those who, sooner
or later, penetrated to its inner walls, was scarcely
likely to tempt sane men to make excursions into
so inhospitable a field.

Yet it was high time that a new reformer appeared,
for the Department was lagging far behind the Post
Offices of other countries — especially, perhaps, that of
France — and the wonderful nineteenth "century of
progress " had now reached maturity.

CHAPTER III

THE PLAN

"If in 1834 only a moderate reduction had been made in the
extortionate rates of postage which were then in force, Rowland
Hill might not have embarked upon his plan ; and, even if he had
done so, that plan might have failed to evoke from the public
sufficient force to overcome opposition in high quarters. In pro-
portion to the extent of the evil did men welcome the remedy. "-
JOYCE'S "History of the Post Office," p. 420.

The postal reform "perhaps represents the greatest social
improvement brought about by legislation in modern times." — JUSTIN
M'CARTHY in "A History of Our Own Times," chap. iv. p. 89.

FOR many years my father's attention had been turned
towards the question of postal reform ; although in
that respect he was far from standing alone. The
defects of the old system were so obvious that with
many people they formed a common subject of con-
versation ; and plans of improvement were repeatedly
discussed. So far back as 1826 Rowland Hill's
thoughts had outgrown the first stage on the road
to " betterment " — that of mere fault-finding with the
things that are. He had drawn up a scheme for
a travelling post office. The fact that, whereas the
mails from all parts as a rule reached London at
6 A.M., while the distribution of letters only began
three hours later, struck him as a defect in need of

92

THE PLAN 93

urgent remedy. If, he argued, the inside of the mail-
coach, or " an additional body thereto, were to be fitted
with shelves and other appliances, the guard might
sort and [date] stamp the letters, etc., on the journey.
By so doing, time would be saved : the mails would
either leave the provincial towns three hours later,
giving more time for correspondence, or the letters
could be delivered in London three hours earlier."
In January 1830 he suggested the dispatch of mail
matter by means of pneumatic tubes. But neither
project went beyond the stage of written memoranda ;
nor, in face of the never-failing hostility manifested
by the post officials towards all reforms, especially
those emanating from outsiders, was likely to do
more.

Early in the 'thirties reductions in certain depart-
ments of taxation had been made ; and my father's
mind being still turned towards the Post Office, he
fell into the habit of discussing with his family and
others the advisability of extending similar reductions
to postal rates.

And this seems a fitting place to mention that
while from every member of his family he received
the heartiest sympathy and help throughout the long
struggle to introduce his reform, it was his eldest
brother, Matthew, who, more than any other, did
him yeoman service ; and, after Matthew, the second
brother, Edwin.1 Of the five Hill brothers who

1 "All the members of his family," says Mr John C. Francis
in Notes and Queries, loth Series, No. 141, 8th September 1906,
" were proud of Rowland and his scheme. There was no jealousy :
each worked in harmony. The brothers looked at all times to each

94 SIR ROWLAND HILL

reached old age, it has been claimed for the eldest
that, intellectually, he was the greatest. He had not,
perhaps, the special ability which enabled my father
to plan the postal reform, a measure which probably
none of his brothers, gifted as in various ways all
were, could have thought out, and brought to concrete
form ; neither had the eldest the mathematical power
which distinguished Rowland. But in all other respects
Matthew stood first ; and that he was one of the
wittiest, wisest, most cultivated, and, at the same
time, most tender-hearted of men in an age especially
rich in the type there can be no doubt. He was
the first Birmingham man to go to the Bar, and
for twenty-eight years was his native city's first
recorder.

The second brother, Edwin, was also an unusually
clever man, and had a genius for mechanics which
placed him head and shoulders above his brethren.
His help in furthering the postal reform, as well as
in other ways, was given " constantly and ably," said
my father. Out of a very busy brain Edwin could
evolve any machine or other contrivance required to
meet the exigencies of the hour, as when, to make
life less hard to one who was lame and rheumatic,
he devised certain easily-swinging doors ; and when
in 1840 he was appointed Supervisor of stamps at
Somerset House he was quite in his element. Among
other things, he invented an ingenious method, said

other for counsel ; it was a perfect home, with the good old father as
its head. Truly have his words been verified : * The union of my
children has proved their strength.'" . . . "Never did a family
so unite in working for the common good."

THE PLAN 95

the First Report of the Commissioners of Inland
Revenue, by which the unwieldy, blank newspaper
sheets which, as we have seen, were obliged, before
being printed, to go to Somerset House to receive
the impress of the duty stamp, were separated, turned
over, and stamped with a speed and accuracy which
had previously been considered unattainable.1 He
was also the inventor of the envelope-folding machine
known as De La Rue's, and shown at the Great
Exhibition of 1851. The process of embossing the
Queen's head on the postal envelopes was likewise his
invention ; and, further, he published two once well-
known works — the one on " Principles of Currency,"
the other on " Criminal Capitalists." He applied the
latter title to those proprietors of houses and shops
who knowingly let them out as shelters for criminals
or depots for the sale of stolen goods ; and he pro-
posed that, in order to check crime, these landlords
should first be struck at2

1 "By his inventive mechanical skill," says Mr Francis, "he
greatly improved the machinery [at Somerset House]. My father
frequently had occasion to see him, and always found him ready
to consider any suggestion made. Especially was this the case when
he obtained permission for a stamp to be made with the sender's
name round the rim. This was designed for him by Edwin Hill."

2 Of Edwin's kindness of heart many instances are remembered.
Of these, two, characteristic of the man, shall be selected. The
head gardener at Bruce Castle lived in the (then) village of Totten-
ham down a narrow entry at a corner of which stood one of the
inevitable drink-traps which in this civilised country are permitted
to be set up wherever the poor most do congregate. John simply
could not pass that public-house. He was too good a man to
be allowed to sink into a sot ; and eventually my uncle bethought
him of building a gardener's cottage in a comer of the Castle
grounds. The plan succeeded : John lived to a hale old age, and

96 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Matthew it was who, after many conversations
with Rowland on the subject so frequently in the
latter's thoughts, advised him to draw up his plan
in pamphlet form. The advice was followed, and the
detailed scheme laid before the adviser, who approved
of it so highly that he suggested its publication by
their mutual friend, Charles Knight. This was done,
with what far - reaching effect we know. But my
uncle's help did not end here. For him, who, self-
aided, had won an influential position both at the Bar
and in the brilliant, intellectual society of his day, it
was easier than for his lesser known junior to have
access to men likely to prove powerful advocates of
the scheme and good friends to its author. Hence-
forth, as his biographers remind us, the eldest brother
devoted to the proposed reform all the time and
labour he could spare from his own work.1 He intro-
duced Rowland to men of influence in both Houses
of Parliament, to several of the chief journalists, and
other leaders of public opinion. Their sympathy was
soon enlisted, as was also that of many of my father's

some of his children did well in the world. One afternoon, when my
uncle was walking along the Strand on his way home from Somerset
House after an arduous day's work, he saw a shabbily-dressed child
sobbing bitterly. Now, Edwin Hill could never pass a little one
in distress, and therefore stopped to ask what was the matter. The
child had wandered from home, and was lost. The address it gave
was at some distance, and in quite an opposite direction from that
in which my uncle was bound. Most men would have made over
the small waif to the first policeman who came in sight. But not
this man. He took the wearied mite in his arms, carried it home,
and placed it in its anxious mother's arm.

1 "Matthew Davenport Hill," p. 142. By his daught<
R. and F. Hill.

Facsimile of Manuscript Page (in 'Sir ROWLAND HILL'S handwriting) of the Draft of
his Pamphlet on Post Office Reform. See 3rd Edition (1837) page- 49.

A fr, +***». *~

^^K

To Jace p. 96.

THE PLAN 97

own friends, and, ere long, that of the great majority
of the nation when once the merits of the plan came
to be understood.

When, in 1834, Rowland Hill joined the Associa-
tion formed for the total abolition of the odious
"taxes on knowledge" there was a duty of is. 6d.
on every advertisement ; a paper duty at ijd. the
Ib. ; and the newspaper stamp duty was at its
highest — 4d. This last' burden — undoubtedly a war-
tax — was reduced, once more to id. only in 1835,
when we had been at peace for twenty years. So
easy is it to lay a war-tax on the nation : so difficult
to take it off again. Weighted after this fashion, how
could journalistic enterprise prosper ? The Association
was of opinion that if the Press could be cheapened
newspapers would increase, and advertisements
multiply, while the fiscal produce of journalism would
be as large as ever. In estimating this probable
expansion Rowland Hill applied a principle on which
he subsequently relied in reference to postal reform,
namely, that the increased consumption of a cheapened
article in general use makes up for the diminished
price.

The Revenue for the financial year which ended
with March 1836 had yielded a large surplus ; and a
reduction of taxation was confidently looked for. Thus
the time seemed ripe for the publication of my father's
views upon the postal question ; and he set to work to
write that slighter, briefer edition of his pamphlet
which was intended for private circulation only.

It was in this year also that he made the
acquaintance of one of the greatest of all those — many

98

SIR ROWLAND HILL

in number — who helped to carry his proposed scheme
into accomplished fact — Robert Wallace of Kelly,
Greenock's first Member of Parliament and the
pioneer postal reformer of the nineteenth century.
From the time Mr Wallace entered Parliament, at
the General Election which followed the passing of
the great Reform Bill of 1832, he took the deepest
interest in postal matters, and strove to reform the
Department with a persistency which neither ridicule
could weary nor opposition defeat. He was in the
field two years before Rowland Hill ; and while thus
unconsciously preparing the way for another man,
was able to accomplish several useful reforms on his
own account.

In 1833 Mr Wallace proposed that postage
should be charged by weight instead of by number
of enclosures, thereby anticipating my father as
regards that one suggestion. But nothing came of
the proposal. He was more fortunate when moving
for leave to throw open to public competition the
contract for the construction of mail-coaches, which,
when adopted, led to an annual saving of over
;£i 7,000. He also secured the appointment of a
Commission of Inquiry into the management of the
Post Office. The Commission was established in
1835, continued to work till 1838, issued ten Reports,1

1 In the Ninth of which was embodied the Commissioners'
examination of Rowland Hill made in February 1837. It is curious
that even these able men, when discussing the plan with its author,
spoke with most hesitation of that detail of whose wisdom so many
officials were more than doubtful, yet which, from the first, never
presented any real difficulty — the practicability of prepayment.-
"Life/'i. 274.

THE PLAN 99

and by its untiring efforts was, as my father always
maintained, justly entitled to much of the credit of
his own later success. Mr Wallace was, of course,
to the fore in the Commission, and gave valuable
evidence in favour of the establishment of day mails,
which subsequently formed a feature of Rowland Hill's
plan, and was eventually carried into effect with great
advantage to the public and to the Revenue. To Mr
Wallace we also owe the boon of registration of letters.
He likewise pleaded for a reduction of postal rates,
and of more frequent communication between different
centres of population. In Parliament, during the
session of 1836, and in the last speech he made there
before the publication of Rowland Hill's pamphlet, he
urged the abandonment of the manifestly unjust rule
of charging postage not according to the geographical
distance between one place and another, but accord-
ing to the length of the course a letter was compelled
to take.1 As regards the question of reduced postal
rates, he said : "It would be proper not to charge more
than 3d. for any letter sent a distance of 50 miles ;
for 100 miles, 4d. ; 200 miles, 6d. ; and the highest
rate of postage ought not to be more than 8d. or
9d. at most."2

A detailed plan of wholesale reform (as was my
father's) Mr Wallace never had, and he no more
dreamed of postage stamps — though the suggestion
of these has been sometimes attributed to him as

1 As we have seen, in the chapter on " The Old Postal System,"
Sir Walter Scott has made a somewhat biting remark upon the " few
pence " which the Post Office added to its revenue on letters which
were sent a long round in order to meet Departmental convenience.

2 "Hansard," xxxv. (2nd Series), 422.

ioo SIR ROWLAND HILL

well as to other men — or of prepayment than he did
of uniformity of rate. He was an older man than
Rowland Hill, and of higher social standing ; yet was
he so incapable of jealousy or other petty meanness,
that when the younger man, on completion of his
scheme, laid it before the veteran Scotsman, the
latter threw aside all other plans and suggestions,
took up the only practicable reform, and worked
for it as heartily as if it had been his own.

To Mr Wallace every would-be postal reformer
turned with unerring instinct as to his best friend ;
and it was through the instrumentality of this public
benefactor that Rowland Hill had been furnished with
sundry Parliamentary Blue Books containing those
statistics and other valuable facts, mastery of which
was essential to the completion of his pamphlet,
since it was necessary to understand the old system
thoroughly before destroying it.

" As I had never yet been within the walls of any
post office," wrote my father of Mr Wallace's friendly
act, " my only sources of information for the time
consisted of those heavy Blue Books, in which invalu-
able matter too often lies hidden amidst heaps of
rubbish. Into some of these [books] I had already
dipped ; but Mr Wallace, having supplied me by
post with an additional half-hundred-weight of raw
material,1 I now commenced that systematic study,

1 "Raw material by the half-hundred-weight" and "by post" in
non-prepayment days is suggestive of heavy demands upon my
father's purse. But no demand was made. Mr Wallace's frank as
an M.P. would cause the packages he sent to be carried free of
charge. It was literally a cabful of books which arrived, thus adding
yet another item to the oft-quoted list of huge things which could

THE PLAN 101

analysis, and comparison which the difficulty of my
self-imposed task rendered necessary."

Basing his calculations on the information drawn
from these and other volumes, Rowland Hill found
that, after the reduction of taxation in 1823, the price
of soap fell by an eighth, tea by a sixth, silk goods
by a fifth, and coffee by a fourth. The reduction in
price was followed by a great increase of consumption,
the sale of soap rising by a third, and that of tea by
almost half. Of silk goods the sale had more than
doubled, and of coffee more than tripled. Cotton
goods had declined in cost during the previous twenty
years by nearly a half, and their sale was quadrupled.1

In his pamphlet Rowland Hill dwelt upon this
fact of increased consumption following on decreased
price. It was clear, then, that the taxes for remission
should be those affording the greatest relief to the

"go free" when sent by a member of the privileged classes. One
trembles to think what would have been the charge to one of the
/^privileged.

1 After the adoption of free trade the prices of foreign produce
fell still further, and their consumption since Rowland Hill drew up
his estimates has grown enormously. With increase of business
following on increase of consumption, came necessarily increase of
employment and of national prosperity. So also when the old
postal system was abolished, and the business of the Department
advanced by leaps and bounds, a very large addition had to be made
to the number of employees. That fact is obvious, but another,
perhaps because it is less obvious, is but little known. "The
introduction of penny postage," wrote my father in 1869, "was
really followed by a reduction in the hours, and an increase in the
remuneration to nearly every man in the Department, save only
the Postmaster - General and the Secretary "—himself. In some
quarters the reverse was erroneously believed to be the case. —
ii. 345.

102 SIR ROWLAND HILL

public accompanied with the least loss to the
Revenue ; and that scrutiny should be made into
the subject in order to discover which tax, or taxes,
had failed to grow in productiveness with increase
of population and prosperity. The test showed that,
whereas between 1815 and 1835 the nation had
added six millions to its numbers, and that trade
had largely increased, the postal revenue was rather
smaller in the later than in the earlier year. During
the same period the revenue from the stage-coaches
had grown by 128 per cent. In France, where the
postal charges were more reasonable, the revenue
of the Department had, in the same twenty years,
increased by 80 per cent.

Reform in our own postal system was obviously
a necessity.

But the fiscal loss to the country, as shown in
the state of our postal revenue, serious as it was,
seemed to Rowland Hill a lesser evil than the bar,
artificial and harmful, raised by the high charges on
correspondence, to the moral and intellectual progress
of the people. If put upon a sound basis, the Post
Office, instead of being an engine for the imposition
of an unbearable tax, would become a powerful
stimulus to civilisation.

Still delving among the Parliamentary Blue
Books, he further gathered that the cost of the
service rendered — that is, of the receipt, conveyance,
and distribution of each ordinary missive sent from
post town to post town within the United Kingdom-
averaged T^th5 °f a penny only ; tV^ths going to
conveyance, and ^jths to the receipt and delivery,

THE PLAN 103

collection of postage, etc. Also that the cost of
conveyance for a given distance being generally in
direct proportion to the weight carried, and a news-
paper or franked letter weighing about as much as
several ordinary letters, the average expense of con-
veying a letter chargeable with postage must be still
lower, probably some y^ths of a penny : a conclusion
supported by the well-known fact, already alluded
to,1 that the chargeable letters weighed, on an
average, one fourth only of the entire mail.

He also found that the whole cost of the mail-
coach service for one journey between London and
Edinburgh was only ^5 a day.2 The average load
of the mail diurnally carried being some six hundred-

1 Chap. i. p. 50.

2 " When at length I obtained precise information, I found that
in taking care not to make my estimate too low, I had made it
considerably too high ; and I think the history of this rectification
too curious and characteristic to be omitted. Two years later, the
Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider my plan ordered, at
my suggestion, a Return on the subject, when, to my surprise and
amusement, the Report of the Post Office gave as the cost of the
mail the exact sum estimated by me — viz., ^5. Struck with this
coincidence, the more so as I had intentionally allowed for possible
omission, I suggested the call for a Return in detail, and, this being
given, brought down the cost to £^ 8s. yf d. In the Return, how-
ever, I discovered an error, viz., that the charge for guards' wages
was that for the double journey instead of the single ; and when this
point was adjusted in a third Return, the cost sank to ^3, 195. yfd.
When explanation of the anomaly was asked for, it was acknowledged
by the Post Office authorities that my estimate had been adopted
wholesale." (Rowland Hill in the " Appendix to the Second Report
of the Select Committee on Postage, 1838," pp. 257-259.) In
estimating the real cost of a letter between London and Edinburgh
we must therefore seek for a fraction still smaller than the one
indicated by my father's calculations.

104 SIR ROWLAND HILL

weight, the cost of each hundred-weight was there-
fore 1 6s. 8d. Taking the average weight of a letter
at a quarter of an ounce, its cost of carriage for the
400 miles was but ^th part of a penny — in the
light of Rowland Hill's amended estimate actually
less. Yet the postage exacted for even the lightest
"single" letter was is. 3^d. The ninth part of a
farthing — the approximate cost of conveyance — is a
sum too small to be appreciable, and impossible to
collect. Therefore, " if the charge for postage be
made proportionate to the whole expense incurred
in the receipt, transit, and delivery of the letter, and
in the collection of its postage, it must be made
uniformly the same from every post town to every
other post town in the United Kingdom."1 In
other words, "As it would take a ninefold weight to
make the expense of transit amount to one farthing,
it follows that, taxation apart, the charge ought to
be precisely the same for every packet of moderate
weight, without reference to the number of its
enclosures."1

The custom of charge by distance seemed self-
condemned when a simpler mode was not only practi-
cable but actually fairer. Now, with increase of the
number of letters the cost of each was bound to
diminish ; and with reduction of postage, especially
the great reduction which seemed easy of attainment,
increase of number could not fail to follow.

The simple incident of the falling apple is said to
have suggested to Newton the theory of gravitation.
So also the discovery that the length of a letter's
1 "Post Office Reform," p. 19.

THE PLAN 105

journey makes no appreciable difference to the cost of
that journey led Rowland Hill to think of uniformity
of rate ; and in that portion of his "Life" which is
autobiographic he said that the " discovery " that such
a rate would approach nearer to absolute justice than
any other that could be fixed upon was " as startling
to myself as it could be to any one else, and was the
basis of the plan which has made so great a change in
postal affairs" (i. 250).

Mention has already been made of the time-
wasting and costly mode in which, during or after
delivery of the letters, the postage had to be collected,
necessarily in coin of the realm. In rural districts
the postman's journey, when twofold, doubled the
cost of its delivery, its distance, and its time-dura-
tion. The accounts, as we have seen, were most
complicated, and complication is only too apt to
spell mismanagement, waste, and fraud. Simplicity
of arrangement was imperative. But simplicity could
only be attained by getting rid of the complications.
The work must be changed. Time must be saved,
and unprofitable labour be done away with. But
how ? By abolishing the tiresome operations of
"candling" and of making the "calculations" (of
postal charge) now inscribed on every letter ; by
expediting ^the deliveries, and by other devices.
Above all, the public should learn to undertake its
due share of work, the share non- performance of
which necessitated the complications, and swelled the
expenses. That is, the sender of the letter should
pay for its transit before the Post Office incurred any
cost in connection with it, only, as under the existing

106 SIR ROWLAND HILL

system and in numberless cases, to meet with a refusal
on the part of the should-be receiver to accept it.

In other words, prepayment must be made the
rule. Prepayment would have the effect of ''simplify-
ing and accelerating the proceedings of the Post Office
throughout the kingdom, and rendering them less
liable to error and fraud. In the central Metropolitan
Office there would be no letters to be taxed, no
examination of those taxed by others ; no accounts to
be made out against the deputy postmasters for letters
transmitted to them, nor against the letter-carriers.
There would be no need of checks, no necessity to
submit to frauds and numberless errors for want of
means to prevent or correct them. In short, the
whole of the financial proceedings would be reduced to
a single, accurate, and satisfactory account, consisting
of a single item per day, with each receiver and each
deputy postmaster."1

Distribution would thenceforth be the letter-carriers'
only function ; and thus the first step towards the
acceleration of postal deliveries would be secured.
And while considering this last point, there came into
Rowland Hill's mind the idea of that now common
adjunct to everybody's hall-door — the letter-box. If
the postman could slip his letters through a slit in the
woodwork, he need not wait while the bell or knocker
summoned the dilatory man or maid ; and his round
being accomplished more expeditiously, the letters
would be received earlier.2 The shortening of the

1 " Post Office Reform," pp. 24, 25.

2 This proposal was by no means received at the outset with
universal favour. When the public was notified, after Government's

THE PLAN 107

time consumed on the round would unquestionably
facilitate the introduction of those hourly deliveries in
thickly populated and business districts which formed
part of the plan of postal reform.

How best to collect the prepaid postage had next
to be decided ; and among other things, Rowland
Hill bethought him of the stamped cover for news-
papers proposed by his friend Charles Knight three
years before, but never adopted ; and, finally, of the
loose adhesive stamp which was his own device.
The description he gave of this now familiar object
reads quaintly at the present day. " Perhaps this
difficulty " - of making coin payments at a post
office — " might be obviated by using a bit of
paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and
covered at the back with a glutinous wash which,
by applying a little moisture, might be attached to
the letter." l

The disuse of franks and the abandonment of
illicit conveyance, the breaking up of one long letter
into several shorter ones, and the certain future use
to be made of the post for the distribution of those
circulars and other documents which either went by
different channels or were altogether withheld,2 should

acceptance of the plan of postal reform, of the advisability of
setting up letter - boxes, many people — the majority, no doubt —
adopted the suggestion as a matter of course. But others objected,
some of them strongly ; and one noble lord wrote in high indignation
to the Postmaster-General to ask if he actually expected him, Lord
Blank, " to cut a hole in his mahogany door."

1 " Post Office Reform," pp. 45, 94-96.

2 Among these he included small orders, letters of advice,
remittances, policies of insurance, letters enclosing patterns, letters

io8 SIR ROWLAND HILL

cause the number of missives to increase enormously.
Although, were the public, in accordance with its
practice in other cases, to expend no more in postage
than before, the loss to the nett Revenue should be
but small. Even were it to be large, the powerful
stimulus given by easy communication and low-
priced postage to the productive power of the
country, and the consequent increase of revenue in
other departments, would more than make up for
the deficiency. On all these grounds, then, the
adoption of the plan must be of incalculable
benefit.

The uniform rate of a penny the half -ounce
ought to defray the cost of letter-carriage, and
produce some 200 per cent, profit. My father
originally proposed a penny the ounce ; and thirty-
three years later, being then in retirement, he
privately advised the Government of the day to
revert to the ounce limit. His suggestion was
adopted ; but the limit has since been brought up to
four ounces — a reduction which, had it been proposed
in 1837, must inevitably have ensured the defeat of
the postal reform.

As regards the speedy recovery of the nett
Revenue appearances seem to indicate that he
was over-sanguine ; the gross Revenue not reaching

between country attorneys and their London agents, docu-
ments connected with magisterial and county jurisdiction, and with
local trusts and commissions for the management of sewers,
harbours, roads, schools, chanties, etc., notices of meetings, of
elections, etc., prices current, catalogues of sales, prospectuses, and
other things which, at the present time, are sent by post as a matter
of course.

Prom a Pliotograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co.

No. 2, BURTON CRESCENT,

Where "Post Office Reform" was written. A group of people stand
opposite the house.

To face p. 109.

THE PLAN 109

its former amount till 1851, the nett till I862.1 The
reasons were several, but among them can hardly be
counted faulty calculations on Rowland Hill's part.
We shall read more about this matter in a later
chapter. Meanwhile, one cause, and that a main
one, shall be mentioned. As railways multiplied,
and mail - coaches ceased to ply, the expenses of
conveyance grew apace.2

Under the increased burden the old system, had
it endured much longer, must have collapsed. The
railway charges for carrying the mails, unlike the
charges for carrying passengers and goods, have
been higher, weight for weight, than the charges by
the mail - coaches, and the tendency in later years
has by no means made towards decrease.

The pamphlet was entitled " Post Office Reform :
Its Importance and Practicability." 8 Use of the words
" Penny Postage " was carefully avoided, because a
reformer, when seeking to convert to his own way
of thinking a too-often slow-witted public, is forced
to employ the wisdom of the serpent in conjunction,

1 Cobden was even more optimistic. In a letter to Rowland
Hill he said : "I am prepared to find that the revenue from the
penny postage exceeds, the first year, any former income of the Post
Office."

s It was in 1838 that the mails began to go by rail.

3 This was not my father's first pamphlet. In 1832 he published
" Home Colonies: Sketch of a Plan for the Gradual Extinction of
Pauperism and for the Diminution of Crime." The pamphlet
advocated the settlement of able-bodied paupers on waste lands —
a proposal frequently revived by different writers — by the cultivation
of which the men would be made self-supporting, and the State be
saved their charge. The successful working of similar experiments
in Belgium and Holland was instanced as proof that the theory
was not mere Utopianism.

i io SIR ROWLAND HILL

not only with the gentleness of the dove, but also
with something of the cunning of the fox or weasel.
Thus canny George Stephenson, when pleading for
railways, forbore to talk of locomotives running at
the tremendous rate of 12 miles an hour lest his
hearers should think he was qualifying for admission
to a lunatic asylum. He therefore modestly hinted
at a lower speed, the quicker being supposed to be
exceptional. So also Rowland Hill, by stating the
arguments for his case clearly, yet cautiously, sought
to lead his readers on, step by step, till the seem-
ing midsummer madness of a uniform postal rate
irrespective of distance should cease to startle, and,
instead, be accepted as absolutely sane.

In this way he engaged the attention, among
others, of the once famous Francis Place, tailor
and politician, to whom he sent a copy of " Post
Office Reform." Mr Place began its perusal with
an audible running accompaniment of " Pish ! " and
" Pshaw ! " varied by an occasional remark that the
"hitch" which must inevitably destroy the case
would presently appear. But as he read, the audible
monosyllabic marginal notes ceased, and when he
turned the last page, he exclaimed in the needlessly
strong language of the day : "I'll be damned if
there is a hitch after all ! " and forthwith became a
convert. Leigh Hunt expressed his own sentiments
in happier form when he declared that the pamphlet's
reasoning " carries us all along with it as smoothly
as wheel on railroad."

Through the kindness of Mr Villiers, the long-time
senior Member for Wolverhampton, the pamphlet,

THE PLAN in

while still in manuscript, was confidentially submitted
to the Government. The author, through his friend,
expressed his willingness to let them have the entire
credit of introducing the plan if they would accept
it. Otherwise he reserved the right to lay it before
the public. Many years after, Mr Villiers wrote of
the satisfaction he felt that the measure was left to
the unbiassed judgment of the people, for, after all,
the Government had not the courage to accept the
offer, and the only outcome of a rather pleasant
interview, in January 1837, with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Mr Spring Rice, was the suggestion
made by him and adopted by Rowland Hill, that
the penny rate should be charged not on an ounce,
but on half an ounce — to the cautious keeper of the
national purse seemingly a less startling innovation.

That the plan should be treated, not as a party
question, but strictly on its merits, was its author's
earnest, oft-repeated desire. Nor could it be properly
regarded from a political aspect, since it counted
among its advocates in the two Houses, and outside
them, members of both parties. Yet, notwithstanding
this support, and the fact that the friends of the
proposed reform daily grew more numerous, the best
part of three years was consumed in converting to
recognition of its merits not only a fairly large portion
of the official world, but the Prime Minister himself.
However, the same Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne,
it was who declared that it was madness to contem-
plate as possible the abolition of the Corn Laws.

" Post Office Reform " made no small sensation.
It was widely read and discussed, as indeed was but

ii2 SIR ROWLAND HILL

natural, seeing how thoroughly dissatisfied with the
old system nearly every one outside the official circle
was. The proposed reform was, as a rule, heartily
approved, although by some would-be clever people
it was mercilessly ridiculed ; and a writer in the
Quarterly Review assailed it, declaring, among other
things, that " prepayment by means of a stamp or
stamped cover is universally admitted to be quite the
reverse of convenient, foreign to the habits of the
people," etc. — yet another illustration of the folly of
indulging in prophecy unaccompanied by knowledge.
He further professed to see in the proposal " only
a means of making sedition easy."!1

To this attack Matthew Hill made a scathing
reply in the Edinburgh Review, using, to flagelate
the foe, the ready wit and unanswerable logic of
which he was a master. Then passing to the
financial side of the question, he pointed out that
the temporary diminution of income ought to be
regarded as an outlay. The loss, he argued, would
be slight in comparison with the object in view.
Even if the annual deficit were one million during
ten years, that would be but half what the country
had paid for the abolition of slavery ; and that pay-
ment was made with no prospect of money return.

i No. 128, p. 531. The author of the diatribe was John Wilson
Croker, whose name is preserved from oblivion by Macaulay's fierce
criticism in one of his famous " Essays," that on Croker's edition of
Boswell's "Life of Johnson" — criticism which in severity rivals that
on the poet Montgomery in the same series. Many years later
Gladstone said to Dr Hill : " You have succeeded in doing what
Macaulay attempted to do, and failed — you have suppressed Croker."
—(Mrs Lucy Crump's " Letters of George Birkbeck Hill.")

THE PLAN 113

Should hope of ultimate profit fail, a substituted tax
might be imposed ; and were it asked, what tax ?
the answer should be, any — certain that none could
operate so fatally on all other sources of revenue as
the present postal tax.

Time was on the side of the reformer, and before
long the public, having digested both the pamphlet
and the debates thereon, took up the question with
enthusiasm. In the largest city in the kingdom as
in the smallest hamlet, meetings were convened in
support and furtherance of the proposed reform.
Within twelve months two thousand petitions were
presented to Parliament, causing, on one occasion, a
curious scene. Mr Scholefield, having laid on the
table a petition from Birmingham, praying for adop-
tion of the penny postage plan, the Speaker called
on all members who had charge of similar petitions
to bring them up. At once a " crowd " rose to present
them amid cheering on all sides.

The number of signatures reached a quarter of
a million ; and as many of the petitions proceeded
from Town Councils, Chambers of Commerce, and
other such Corporations, a single signature in many
instances represented a considerable number of
persons.

Grote, the historian of Greece, and an earnest
worker for the reform, presented a petition. One
from the city contained over 12,500 signatures, bore
the names of the Lord Mayor and many London
merchants, and was filled in twelve hours. In the
Upper House, the Lord Radnor of the time, an
earnest friend to reforms of many sorts, presented

H

ii4 SIR ROWLAND HILL

no fewer than forty petitions. The signatures
were of many classes, all sects, and both political
parties.

In the City, on the proposal of Mr Moffatt, after-
wards Member for Southampton, the " Mercantile
Committee" was formed. Its founder, whom Row-
land Hill has described as "one of my most zealous,
steady, and efficient supporters," threw himself with
great earnestness into the formation of this Com-
mittee, raising funds, and gathering together the
able men, London merchants and others, who became
its members. Its principal aim was to collect evidence
in favour of the plan ; and to its ceaseless energy
much of the success of the movement was due. Mr
Ashurst, father to a late Solicitor to the Post Office,
was requested to become Solicitor to the Committee.
He accepted the invitation, declined to receive re-
muneration for his services, and worked with un-
flagging industry.1 Mr Bates, of the house of Baring
Brothers, acted as Chairman ; Mr Cole as Secretary.
In addition to the above, and to Mr Moffatt, may be

1 Mr Ashurst, as we are reminded in Mr Bolton King's " Mazzini "
(pp. 88 and 104), was a solicitor who had been a friend of Robert
Owen, and who made Mazzini's acquaintance at the time of the once
famous Governmental letter-opening scandal which agitated the far-
off 'forties, and caused Carlyle, Buncombe, Shiel, Macaulay, and
many more people both in the House of Commons and out of it
to denounce a practice which, as was only too truly said, through
sending "a warning to the Bourbons, helped to entrap hapless
patriots," meaning the brothers Bandiera. The agitation led to
the abolition of the custom of opening private letters entrusted for
conveyance to the Post Office; or did so for a while. It is a
custom that is very old, and has not lacked for apologists, as what
evil custom ever did? During Bishop Atterbury's trial in 1723, a

THE PLAN 115

mentioned the names of Messrs William Ellis, James
Pattison, L. P. Wilson, John Dillon,1 John Travers,
J. H. Gladstanes, and W. A. Wilkinson — all warm
supporters of the plan from the beginning.

Mr Cole excelled in the invention of pictorial
devices of the sort which are far more likely to
convert the average citizen to faith in a newly
propounded reform than all the arguments, however
able, that were ever spoken or written ; and are
therefore most valuable. He drew, for instance, a
mail-coach with a large amount of postal matter piled,
by artistic licence, on the roof instead of inside "the
boot." Six huge sacks contained between them 2,296
newspapers weighing 273 Ibs.; a seventh sack, as large
as any of its fellows, held 484 franked letters, and
weighed 47 Ibs. ; while a moderate-sized parcel was
filled with Stamp Office documents. They were all
labelled "go free." A bag of insignificant dimen-
sions leant up against one of the sacks. It held
1,565 ordinary letters, weighed 34 Ibs., and was
marked "pay ^93." This tiny packet paid for all
the rest! Cole was too sensible a man to make use

Post Office clerk deposed on oath that some letters which were offered
in evidence were facsimiles made of actual documents stopped,
opened, and copied in the office " by direction " ; and on Atterbury's
asking if the witness had received warrant for the act, the Lords
put in the plea of public expediency, and the enquiry came to an
end.

1 Mr John Dillon, of the once famous old firm of Morrison,
Dillon, & Co., was probably one of the last wealthy London
merchants who lived above their place of business. The Dillons
were hospitable people, and their dwelling was commodious and
beautifully furnished ; but not many merchant princes of the present
day would choose as a residential quarter — Fore Street, E.G.

n6 SIR ROWLAND HILL

of an illustration which, if untrue, could only have
inspired ridicule. His figures were absolutely correct,
and represented the actual proportions of the mail
matter carried from London to Edinburgh on 2nd
March 1838. His Brobdingnagian " single" and
Lilliputian " double " letters, whose names are indica-
tive of their relative size, were one evening handed
round the House of Commons with telling effect.
They were, of course, designed to satirise the old
system practice of " taxing" letters according to
number of enclosures. Both had passed through the
post that day, the giant having been charged just half
what was paid on the dwarf.

In all the large centres of population the great
mercantile houses were foremost among those who
took up the good cause, and the Press also threw
itself into the struggle with much heartiness except
in those cases where the cue given was — attack !
Happily these dissentients were soon outnumbered
and outvoiced. A few journals, indeed, achieved
marvellously sudden conversions — behaviour which
even in the present more enlightened days is not
absolutely unknown. Twenty-five London and eighty-
seven provincial papers — there were far fewer papers
then than there are now — supported the proposed
reform, and their championship found an echo in some
of the foreign Press. In London the Times (after
a while), the now defunct Morning Chronicle, and
the Spectator were pre-eminent. Mr Rintoul, founder
and first editor of the Spectator, not only championed
the reform long before its establishment, but continued
to give the reformer constant support through trials

THE PLAN 117

and triumphs till 1858, when, to the great loss of
journalism and of all good causes, death severed Mr
Rintoul's connection with that paper,1

Outside London, the Scotsman — then renowned for
its advanced views — the Manchester Guardian, the
Liverpool Mercury, and the Leeds Mercury — then in

1 Mr Rintoul was fortunate in being father to a devoted daughter
who, from an early age, gave him valuable assistance in his editorial
work. While still a young girl, and for the space of some few weeks
when he was suffering from severe illness, she filled the editorial
chair herself, and did so with ability. At the present day we are
frequently assured by people who did not live in the times they
criticise so freely that the " early Victorian " women were inferior to
those of the present day. The assertion is devoid of truth. The
women of half a century and more ago were bright, witty, unaffected,
better mannered and perhaps better read than their descendants,
often highly cultivated. They dressed simply, not extravagantly —
happily for the bread-winning members of their family —did not
gamble, were self-reliant, original-minded, and not, as has been
asserted, absurdly deferential to their male relations. Indeed, it is
probable that there were, proportionately, quite as many henpecked
husbands in the land as there are now. If in some ways the
Victorian women had less liberty than have the women of to-day
and travelled less, may it not, as regards the former case, have been
partly because the community was not so rich as it is at the present
time, and because the facilities for travel were fewer and the condi-
tions harder? In intellectual power and noble aims the women
of half a century ago were not inferior to those of to-day. Certain
it is that the former gave less time to pleasure and more to self-
culture, etc. There are to-day many women who lead noble, useful
lives, but their generation does not enjoy a monopoly of all the
virtues. To take but a few instances from the past : has any
woman of the present time excelled in true nobility of character or
usefulness of career Elizabeth Fry, first among female prison
reformers ; Florence Nightingale, pioneer of the nursing sisterhood,
and indefatigable setter to rights of muddle in Crimean War hospitals
and stores; Caroline Herschel, distinguished astronomer; Mary
Scmerville, author and scientist — though three of these belong to a

ii8 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the hands of the well-known Baines family — were,
perhaps, especially active. Their support and that of
other ably conducted provincial papers never varied,
and to the end of his life Rowland Hill spoke grate-
fully of the enlightened and powerful aid thus given.

yet earlier generation — and Barbara L. S. Bodichon, artist, foundress
of Girton College, and originator of the Married Women's Property
Act ? The modern woman is in many ways delightful, and is, as a
rule, deservedly independent ; but it is not necessary to accompany
insistence on that fact by cheap and unmerited sneers at former
generations of the sex. It is also not amiss to ask if it was not the
women of the past age who won for the women of the present the
liberties these latter enjoy.

CHAPTER IV

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM

BY the early summer of 1837 the agitation in favour
of the postal reform was in full movement, and in the
midst of it the old king, William IV., died. His
youthful successor was speedily deluged with petitions
in favour of penny postage. One of the first acts
of her first Parliament was to appoint the Select
Committee for which Mr Wallace had asked —
11 To enquire into the present rates and mode of
charging postage, with a view to such a reduction
thereof as may be made without injury to the
revenue ; and for this purpose to examine especially
into the mode recommended for charging and collect-
ing postage in a pamphlet published by Mr Rowland
Hill." Of this Committee, which did so much to
help forward the postal reform, the doughty Member
for Greenock was, of course, chosen as Chairman.
The Committee sat for sixty - three days ; and in
addition to the postal officials and those of the Board
of Stamps and Taxes (Inland Revenue), examined
Rowland Hill and over eighty other witnesses of
various occupations and from different parts of the
country.

The story of their arduous labours is told at great

119

120 SIR ROWLAND HILL

length in Dr Birkbeck Hill's edition of my father's
Autobiography. There is therefore no need to
elaborate it here. The evidence told heavily against
the existing postal system — whose anomalies, absurdi-
ties, and gross injustice have been described in the
first chapter of this work — and, with corresponding
force, demonstrated the necessity for its reform.1

It might have been supposed that the Committee's
careful and elaborate examination of Rowland Hill's
plan, supported as it was by an unanswerable array
of facts, would have sufficed to ensure its adoption.
" He had yet to learn the vast amount of vis inertia
existing in some Government Departments. The
minds of those who sit in high places are sometimes
wonderfully and fearfully made, and 'outsiders,' as
he was destined to find, must be prepared to knock
long and loudly at the outer door before they can
obtain much attention."

That the Post Office authorities would oppose
the plan was a foregone conclusion. They fought
against it in the strenuous fashion known metaphori-
cally as " tooth and nail." The Postmaster-General
of the day — he who said that "of all the wild and

1 The members in addition to Mr Wallace were Viscount
Lowther, Lord Seymour, Sir Thomas Fremantle, and Messrs
Warburton, Poulett Thomson, Raikes Currie, Morgan John
O'Connell, Thornley, Chalmers, Pease, Mahony, Parker (Sheffield),
George William Wood, and Villiers. Three of these — Lord Seymour,
Mr Parker, and Mr Thomson (afterwards Lord Sydenham) — were
opponents of the plan, but that their opposition was mainly official
was evidenced when, the Government having adopted the plan of
reform, all three became its advocates. — "Life," i. 287.

2 " The Jubilee of the Uniform Penny Postage," p. 18. By Pearson
Hill, 1890. Cassell & Co. Ltd,

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 121

visionary schemes which he had ever heard or read
of it was the most extraordinary " l — gave it as his
opinion that if twelve times the number of letters
were carried, the expenses of conveyance would
become twelve times heavier — a strange argument
for an educated man to use. He also declared that
with increase of correspondence the walls of the
Post Office would burst — a premonition which, not
unnaturally, provoked Rowland Hill into asking
whether the size of the building should be regulated
by the amount of correspondence, or the amount of
correspondence by the size of the building.

The Secretary to the Post Office, Colonel
Maberly, was apparently free from the dread of the
possible effect of increased correspondence which
exercised the minds of other post officials besides
the Postmaster - General. The Secretary told the
Committee he was sure that even if no charge were
made people would not write more frequently than
they did under the existing system ; and he predicted
that the public would object to prepayment. He
approved of a uniform rate, but apparently in theory
only, as he added that he thought it quite impracti-
cable. He doubted whether letter - smuggling —
to which practice Mr Peacock, Solicitor to the Post
Office, and other officials made allusion as an evil
on a very large scale — would be much affected by
the proposed reduction of postage, since "it cannot
be reduced to that price that smugglers will not
compete with the Post Office at an immense profit."
He pronounced the scheme to be "fallacious, pre-
1 " Hansard," xxxviii. 1462, 1464.

122 SIR ROWLAND HILL

posterous, utterly unsupported by facts, and resting
entirely on assumption " ; prophesied its certain
failure, if adopted, and said the revenue would not
recover for forty or fifty years.1

Some of the officials made the rather humiliating
confession that they should not know how to deal
with the multitude of letters likely to follow a change
of system, and a " breakdown " was so frequently
predicted, that it was hard to avoid the suspicion
that the wish was father to the thought. The dread
expressed of this increase of correspondence is, in
the light of these later days, unaccountable. " Has
any one," pertinently asked my father, "ever heard
of a commercial company afraid of an expected
growth in its business ? "

It was maintained that a fivefold increase of
letters would necessitate a fivefold number of mail-
coaches, and Rowland Hill was accused of having
omitted this "fact" in his calculations. The object-
tion was absurd. The coaches were by no means
fully laden, many having very little to carry, and
the chargeable letters, as we have seen, formed only
a small portion of the entire mail. Twenty - four
coaches left London every evening, each bearing its
share of that small portion ; but had the whole of
it been conveyed in one coach, its bulk would not
have displaced a single passenger.

1 " Third Report of the Select Committee on Postage," pp. 29,
34, etc. The gross revenue which rather more than recovered in
1851, was achieved on a four-and-three-quarters-fold increase of
letters only, whereas the Postmaster -General said that recovery
would require a twelvefold increase. Rowland Hill calculated that
recovery would ensue on a five-and-three-quarters increase.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 123

Colonel (afterwards General) Colby,1 indeed, told
the Committee that his attention was first drawn to
the desirability of cheapening postage while travelling
all over the kingdom, when he had "observed that
the mails and carriages which contained the letters
formed a very stupendous machinery for the con-
veyance of a very small weight ; that, in fact, if
the correspondence had been doubled, trebled, or
quadrupled, it could not have affected the expense
of conveyance."2

To determine this question of the weight of
the mails, the Committee caused a return to be made
in the case of the coaches leaving London. The
average was found to be only 463 Ibs. — a little over
a quarter of the weight which, according to Post
Official estimates, a mail-coach would be capable of
carrying.3

In the chapter on the old system we have seen
the straits to which the poor were reduced when
having to "take up" a letter which had come from
distant relative or friend. Yet how eager was
this class to enjoy the privilege possessed by those

1 Director of the Ordnance Survey, a distinguished geologist,
and an earnest worker in the cause of postal reform from quite
an early date. He had lost his hands during the Napoleonic
wars ; and when he dined at our house always brought his knife,
fork, etc., and his manservant, who screwed them into place, and
changed them when needful, a process which deeply interested us
children. He did not, however, permit this serious loss to stand
in the way of his leading an active and useful public career.

2 " Third Report," p. 48.

3 Ibid. p. 49. The Superintendent of the Mail-coaches con-
sidered that each coach could carry 15 hundred-weight or 1680
pounds.

i24 SIR ROWLAND HILL

better off than themselves, was shown during the
examination of Mr Emery, Deputy- Lieutenant for
Somerset, and a Commissioner of Taxes, when he
told the Committee that the poor people near Bristol
had signed a petition for the reduction of postage,
and that he " never saw greater enthusiasm." Testi-
mony to a similar effect abounds in the Committee's
Reports.

That some, at least, of the public were not so
alarmed at the prospect of prepayment as were the
officials generally, is seen by the evidence of several
witnesses who advised that it should be made com-
pulsory. The public were also quick to appreciate
the advantage of payment by stamps instead of
money. Sir (then Mr) William Brown of Liverpool,
said he had seen the demoralising effect arising
from entrusting young men with money to pay for
postage, which, under the existing arrangement, his
house [of business] was frequently obliged to do.
His view was corroborated by other witnesses.1

Mr Samuel Jones Loyd (afterwards Lord Over-
stone) greatly regretted " that the post was ever
taken as a field for taxation, and should be very
glad to find that, consistently with the general
interests of the revenue, which the Government has
to watch over, they can effect any reduction in the
total amount so received, or any reduction in the
charges without diminishing the total amount."

Lord Ashburton was of much the same opinion.

Rowland Hill himself dissented from the view

1 "Third Report," p. 42.

2 Ibid. p. 27.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 125

generally — and indeed still — held that so long as the
Department as a whole thrives, its funds may justly
be applied to maintain special services which do not
repay their own costs. On the contrary, he thought
that every division of the service should be at least
self-supporting, though he allowed that, for the sake
of simplicity, extensions might be made where there
was no immediate expectation of absolute profit. All
beyond this he regarded as contrary to the true
principles of free trade — of the " Liberation of Inter-
course," to use the later-day, and in this case more
appropriate, phrase. Whenever, therefore, the nett
revenue from the Post Office is too high for the
interests of the public, the surplus, he maintained,
should be applied to the multiplication of facilities in
those districts in which, through the extent of their
correspondence, such revenue is produced.1

Most of the Post Office chiefs examined by the
Committee viewed with disfavour the proposal to
" tax " letters by weight. An experiment had been
made at the Office from which it was inferred that
a greater number could be taxed in a given time on
the plan in use than by charging them in pro-
portion to the weight of each letter. The test, how-
ever, was of little value because the weighing had
not been made by the proposed half-ounce, but by
the quarter- ounce scale ; and, further, because it was
already the custom to put nearly every letter into the
balance unless its weight was palpable to the hand.2

While some of the officials objected to uniformity

1 "Post Office Reform," p. 55.

2 "First Report," questions 1369, 1372,

126 SIR ROWLAND HILL

of rate as "unfair in principle," others thought well
of it on the score that uniformity " would very much
facilitate all the operations of the Post Office."1

But, admissions apart, the hostility to the plan was,
on the part of the Post Office, unmistakable. This
opposition rendered Rowland Hill's work all the
harder. " My own examination," he says, " occupied
a considerable portion of six days, my task being not
only to state and enforce my own views, but to reply
to objections raised by such of the Post Office authori-
ties as were against the proposed reform. This list
comprised — with the exception of Mr Peacock, the
Solicitor — all the highest officials in the chief office ;
and, however unfortunate their opposition, and how-
ever galling I felt it at the time, I must admit on
retrospect that, passing over the question of means
employed, their resistance to my bold innovation was
very natural. Its adoption must have been dreaded
by men of routine, as involving, or seeming to involve,
a total derangement of proceeding — an overthrow of
established order ; while the immediate loss of revenue
— inevitable from the manner in which alone the
change could then be introduced (all gradual or
limited reform having by that time been condemned
by the public voice) — a loss, moreover, greatly
exaggerated in the minds of those who could not,
or did not, see the means direct and indirect of
its recuperation, must naturally have alarmed the
appointed guardians of this branch of the national

income."2

1 " Third Report," p. 34, etc.

2 "Life," 1325-327. "

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 127

Some members even of the Committee were
opposed to essential features of the reform, so that
it barely escaped, if not actual wreckage, serious
maiming at their hands. " The divisions on the two
most important of the divisions submitted to the
Committee," wrote Rowland Hill, "and, indeed, the
ultimate result of their deliberations, show that the
efforts that had been made had all been needed."1

A resolution moved by Mr Warburton recom-
mending the establishment of a uniform rate of inland
postage between one post town and another resulted
in a tie, and was only carried by the casting vote of
the chairman, Mr Wallace. Mr Warburton further
moving that in view of "any large reduction being
made in the rates of inland postage, it would be
expedient to adopt a uniform rate of one penny per
half-ounce without regard to distance," the motion
was rejected by six to three, the "aye" stalwarts
being the mover, and Messrs Raikes Currie2 and
M. J. O'Connell. Then Mr Warburton, still man-
fully striving, moved to recommend a uniform rate of
three halfpence : the motion being again lost. The
following day Mr Warburton returned to the charge,
and urged the adoption of a twopenny uniform rate,
rising by a penny for each additional half-ounce.
This motion was not directly negatived like its pre-
decessors, but was met by an amendment which was
tantamount to a negative. Again the votes were
equal ; and again the motion was carried by the
casting vote of the chairman.

1M Life," 1.325-327.

2 Father to a later Postmaster-General.

128 SIR ROWLAND HILL

The rejected amendment was moved by Mr
Thomson, who proposed that a draft report origina-
ting with Lord Seymour should be adopted, the chief
recommendations of which were the maintenance of
the charge by distance, such rate to vary from id.
(for under 15 miles) to is. (for above 200 miles), or
of some similar scale. Had the Seymour amendment
been adopted, " not only the recommendations for
uniformity and decided reduction of postage would
have been set aside, but also those for increased
facilities, for the general use of stamps, and for charge
by weight instead of by the number of enclosures."
In fact, the old postal system would have been simply
scotched, not killed — and very mildly scotched, many
of its worst features being retained. Yet this amend-
ment would have gone forth as the recommendation
of the Committee but for the casting vote of Mr
Wallace.

It is but fair to Lord Seymour to say that, how-
ever "erroneous in its reasonings on many points,"
the amendment yet contained passages justifying the
reformer's views, "particularly as regards the evils
which high rates of postage brought upon the poor,
the vast extent of illicit conveyance, the evils of the
frank system, and even many of the advantages of
a uniform charge." Had the recommendations in the
Seymour Report been prepared " two years before,
almost every one of them would have been received
as a grace ; but it was now too late, their sum total
being altogether too slight to make any approach

1 "Life,"i. 328.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 129

towards satisfying the expectations which had sub-
sequently arisen."

The adoption of a twopenny rate was not only
contrary to Rowland Hill's plan, but actually rendered
"strict uniformity impracticable, since reservation
would have to be made in favour of the local penny
rates then in existence which could not be raised
without exciting overpowering dissatisfaction."2

" Seldom, I believe, has any committee worked
harder," wrote my father, in after years. " Mr
Wallace's exertions were unsparing, his toil incessant,
and his zeal unflagging." The Times spoke but the
truth when in its issue of 3ist May 1839, it said
that the Post Office Inquiry was ''one conducted
with more honesty and more industry than any
ever brought before a Committee of the House of
Commons."3

Yet how near it came to destroying the reform
outright.

The third and concluding Report of the proceed-
ings of this memorable Committee was entrusted for
revision to the competent hands of Mr Warburton,
who made of it a model Blue Book. "On all im-
portant points," wrote Rowland Hill, "it gave to my
statements and conclusions the sanction of its power-
ful authority. Nevertheless, as the Committee had
determined on the recommendation of a twopenny
rate, the Report had to be framed in at least formal

* "Life," 1.329.

* Ibid. i. 330.

8 The Times was now a hearty champion of the reform, and wrote
uently and ably in support of it.

I3o SIR ROWLAND HILL

accordance with this fact; though both Mr Wallace,
in whose name it went to the Committee, and Mr
Warburton, its author, were strongly in favour of the
penny rate. A careful perusal of the document, how-
ever, will show that, though the twopenny rate is
formally recommended, the penny rate is the one
really suggested for adoption. In this sense it was
understood by the public ; and, to my knowledge, it
was wished that it should be so understood."1

Outside the official circle, opinion, though mainly
favourable, was still a good deal divided ; and the
dismal prophecies which always precede the passing
into law of any great reform had by no means ceased

1 " Life," i. 337. During the writing of this Report my father had
frequent occasion to call upon its author in order to check elaborate
calculations and to put important questions in the clearest light — on
the principle, apparently, that two heads, when each is mathe-
matical, are better than one. " Philosopher Warburton," as he was
sometimes called, was one of the best friends the postal reform had.
He was a man of wide influence, and an indefatigable worker.
Originally a timber merchant, he abandoned commerce for science
his favourite pursuits being mathematics and astronomy. He was a
member of the Political Economy Club from its foundation in 1821
till his death in 1858; he was one of the founders of the London
University, and served on its first council; and he represented
Bridport, Dorset, in successive Parliaments from 1825 to 1841. It
is often asserted that a recluse, bookworm, or scientist cares for
nothing outside his own four walls or lower than the starry heavens.
In this case never was saying more completely falsified. Mr
Warburton was unusually public - spirited, a prominent Parlia-
mentarian, and a lucid writer. When my father visited him, he
was always received in his friend's sanctum, the dining-room,
whose appearance never altered. Dining there would have been
impossible, although the table was always set out at full length.
It was entirely covered with piles of volumes, most of them Blue
Books. The sideboard, save for one small space reserved for

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 131

to be heard. It is therefore not altogether surprising
that even so clear-sighted a man as Sydney Smith —
whose wisdom is too seldom remembered by those
who think of him only as a wit — should have laughed
at "this nonsense of a penny post." But when the
" nonsense" had had three years of trial he wrote to
its author, uninvited, a letter of generous appreciation.
Miss Martineau, as an able journalist and political
economist, gave valuable assistance to the postal
reform. To read her statesmanlike letters to my
father, even after the lapse of over half a century, is
indeed a " liberal education." In these, when writing
of the old system, she employed several notable
phrases, of which, perhaps, one of the finest was that
describing the barrier raised by heavy postal rates
between severed relatives as "the infliction which
makes the listening parent deaf and the full-hearted
daughter dumb." In a letter, written shortly before
penny postage became a reality, to him whom in her
Autobiography she calls "the most signal social bene-
factor of our time," she told how "we are all putting
up our letter-boxes on our hall doors with great glee."
In the same letter she described the joy of the many
poor "who can at last write to one another as if they
were all M.P.s ! " As if they were all M.P.s / What

astronomical instruments, was similarly loaded, as were also all
the chairs but one in addition to that reserved for Mr Warburton's
use. The floor was likewise piled with books, very narrow passages
only being left to enable people to move about; and the whole
place bore a look upon it as of "the repose of years." When,
after talking a while, Mr Warburton resumed his pen, my father
had time, during his several visits, to read the whole of one of
Macaulay's brilliant and then newly-published Essays in a volume
which always occupied a particular spot on a table.

132 SIR ROWLAND HILL

a comment, what a, may be, unconsciously satirical
reflection on the previous state of things ! l

The great O'Connell gave to the postal reform the
aid of his powerful influence both within and without
Parliament. He was a friend of Matthew Davenport
Hill, and at an early stage of the agitation assured
my uncle of his hearty appreciation of the plan.
O'Connell himself would have proposed the Parlia-
mentary Committee on Postage, of which, as we have
seen, one of his sons was made a member, had not
Mr Wallace already taken the initiative ; and, later,
when the Bill was before the House, four of the
O'Connells, headed by their chieftain, went into the
"Ayes" lobby, together with other members from
the Green Isle. The proposed reform naturally and
strongly appealed to the sympathies of the inhabitants
of the poorer of the two islands. In May 1839, on the

1 Many years after the establishment of the postal reform, on the
occasion of a tour to the English Lakes, our parents took my younger
sister and me to visit Miss Martineau at her prettily - situated
Ambleside house. We two girls were charmed with her bright,
sensible talk, and her kindly, winning personality. We found her
also much better-looking than from her portraits we had expected
to see her. They missed the wonderful lighting up of the clever
face which, when animated, looked far younger than when in
repose. Among other interesting items of information, she told us
of her, I fear, useless efforts to rescue the local rural population,
then mostly illiterates, from the curse of intemperance. She
contemplated giving a lecture on the subject, and showed us some
horrifying coloured drawings representing the ravages effected by
alcohol on the human system which she had prepared for it ; but,
as she knew that no one would come if the lecture were announced
as about Drink, she said she should call it a " Discourse on Our
Digestive Organs," or something of the sort. We never heard th
fate of that proposed lecture.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 133

occasion of a public deputation to the Prime Minister,
Lord Melbourne, to urge adoption of the reform,
O'Connell spoke in moving terms of its necessity. One
passage of his speech recalls the remark made, many
years after, by Gladstone when, at the final interview
between himself and a later Irish leader, the aged
statesman, in answer to a question put by the historian
of "Our Own Times," said that, in his opinion,
O'Connell's principal characteristic was "a passion
of philanthropy."1 " My poor countrymen," said
O'Connell in 1839, "do not smuggle [letters], for the
high postage works a total prohibition to them. They
are too poor to find out secondary conveyances ; and
if you shut the Post Office to them, which you do
now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affec-
tions from home, kindred, and friends. ":

Hume, one of the great economists, a member of

1 "The Story of Gladstone's Life," p. 38. By Justin M'Carthy.

2 " Life," i. 342. How well the great orator understood his
poorer countrymen's need was shown when, for a few weeks before
the loth of January 1840, a tentative reduction to a uniform
fourpenny rate outside London was introduced. The increase of
letters during those few weeks stood at, for England and Wales, 33 ;
Scotland, 5 1 ; and Ireland, 5 2 per cent. When my father and his
brothers — as told in the Introductory Chapter — used to wander
about the " green borderland " outside the smaller Birmingham and
Wolverhampton of the early nineteenth century, they sometimes, in
the summer and autumn seasons, fell in with the Irish haymakers
and harvesters, and were struck with the frugal manner in which
they lived, their sobriety and their unwillingness to break into the
little hoard of money — their wages — which they aimed to take back
intact to their families in Ireland at the end of their few months'
service here. The postal reform enabled these men to write letters
and to send their money home cheaply, frequently, and without
waiting for the season's close.

134 SIR ROWLAND HILL

that " Manchester School " which the shallow wits of
the present time deride, and present at this deputation,
was a man who never advocated any course likely to
be improvident. Yet, undismayed by possible loss
of revenue, he gave the postal reform his heartiest
support ; l while Mr Moffatt, bolder still, volunteered,
should the Government shrink from the undertaking,
to start a City Company to work the Post Office, mean-
while guaranteeing to the State the same annual income
that it was accustomed to receive.

Mr Warburton, who headed the deputation, said,
with telling emphasis, that the proposed reform was a
measure which a Liberal party had a just right to
expect from a Liberal Administration. The deputa-
tion, a very important one, numbering, among others,
150 Members of Parliament, was unmistakably in
earnest, and the Government hesitated no longer. Mr
Warburton's hint was perfectly well understood ; and
Lord Melbourne's reply was cautious but favourable.2

Some three weeks later Mr Warburton wrote to
tell my father that "penny postage is to be granted."1
Three days later still, Mr Warburton wrote again
that the very date was now settled on which public
announcement of that fact would be made. A few

1 Writing of penny postage, eight years later, to the American
historian Bancroft, Hume said : " I am not aware of any reform
amongst the many I have promoted during the past forty years
that has had, and will have, better results towards the improvement
of the country, socially, morally, and politically."

2 In Earl Russell's " Recollections," at p. 231, a quotation is made
from an entry in his journal for 1839, which says : " The Cabinet "-
of which he was a member — " was unanimous in favour of the
ingenious and popular plan of a penny postage."

* "Life," i. 343-

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 135

days later still, Mr Warburton rose in the House
to ask the Home Secretary, Lord John Russell,
whether the Government intended to proceed with
a twopenny or a penny rate. Lord John replied
that the Government would propose a resolution in
favour of a uniform penny postage.

By Mr Warburton's advice, Rowland Hill was
present when this announcement was made, and deep
was the gratification he felt.

Still somewhat fearful lest the Government should

hesitate to adopt prepayment and the postage stamps

—details of vital necessity to the success of the plan

—its author, about this time and at the request of the

Mercantile Committee, drew up a paper, which they

published and widely circulated, entitled " On the

Collection of Postage by Means of Stamps."

In the Upper House, Lord Radnor, a little later,
repeated Mr Warburton's question ; and Lord Mel-
bourne replied that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
would shortly bring the matter forward.

My father drew up yet another paper, entitled
" Facts and Estimates as to the Increase of Letters,"
which was also printed by the Mercantile Committee,
and a copy sent to every member of Parliament in the
hope that its perusal might secure support of the
measure when introduced to the Commons.

On 5th July, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Mr Spring Rice, brought in his Budget, the adoption
of uniform penny postage being proposed in it.

During the debate, Rowland Hill sat underneath
the gallery, but when the division came on he
had, of course, to withdraw. The two door-keepers

136 SIR ROWLAND HILL

however, who took a lively interest in the progress of
affairs, and were zealous friends to the reform, advised
its author to keep within hail ; and at intervals one
or other of them gave a hurried whisper through
the grating in the door. "All right!" "Going on
capitally ! " " Sure of a majority ! " came in succes-
sion ; and when the anxious listener was laughingly
informed that Colonel Sibthorpe — a Tory of Tories,
and at one time beloved of Punch's caricaturists —
had gone into the "Ayes" lobby, the cause indeed
seemed won. In a House of only 328 members
there were 215 "ayes," and 113 "noes," being a
majority of 102, or nearly 2 to i.

But the House of Lords had still to be reckoned
with ; and towards it the untiring Mercantile Committee
next directed its attention. Some of its members
were formed into a deputation to interview the more
influential peers, the Duke of Wellington for one.1

1 Only those who remember any of the generation which lived
through the long and anxious years of the terrible war with France
can form an adequate idea of the veneration — adoration even — felt by
the nation for the great Duke — the Duke as he was generally called.
My father, at no time addicted to the " scarlet fever," was neverthe-
less one of the heartiest devotees; and one day during our three
years' sojourn at Brighton he took some of us children to the railway
station to see the veteran, then about to return to town after a visit
to the seaside. There he sat alone under the sheltering hood of his
open carriage which, with its back turned towards the locomotive,
was mounted on an ordinary truck at the rear end of the train. He
wore a dark, military cloak and close-fitting cloth cap, and with his
thin face, hooked nose, and piercing eyes looked like an ancient
eagle. His unwandering gaze was bent sea-wards as though he
descried a foreign fleet making with hostile intentions for our shores.
He was so used to being stared at that but for his at once giving the
military salute in acknowledgment of our father's respectful bow and

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 137

Mr Moffatt thereupon put himself into communica-
tion with the old soldier, and received from him a
characteristic and crushing reply. " F. M. the Duke

bared head, we might have thought him unconscious of the presence
of strangers. He seemed so to be even when our father took us
close to the train, and bade us look well at the greatest of living
Englishmen because he was so old that we might not see him again.
It would, however, have been difficult to forget a face so striking. After
all, that was not our only sight of him. We often afterwards saw him
riding in Hyde Park, where the crowd saluted him as if he were
Royalty itself; and, later still, we looked on at his never-to-be-
forgotten funeral. Mention of the " Iron Duke " and of the Brighton
railway brings back to memory another old soldier who figured in the
same wars and, as Earl of March, achieved distinction. This was
the then Duke of Richmond, on whom we children looked with
awesome curiosity, because rumour, for once a truth-teller, declared
that ever since 1815 he had carried somewhere within his corporeal
frame a bullet which defied all attempts at extraction, and, indeed,
did not prevent his attaining to a hale old age. While my father
was on the directorate of the London and Brighton railway, and
lived at that seaside resort, he often travelled to town with some
distinguished man whom he invited to share his coupe. (Why,
I wonder, is this pleasant sort of compartment rarely or never seen
nowadays?) More than once the Duke of Richmond was his
companion. The time was the mid 'forties, when railway locomotives
were far less powerfully built than they are now, and when, London
Bridge Terminus being up a rather long incline, it was customary, on
the departure of a train from the ticket-taking platform, to employ a
second engine to aid the one in front by pushing from behind.
The travellers were seated in an end coupe, and opposite their seats
were, of course, only the usual glass windows. When, therefore,
the Duke for the first time saw the auxiliary engine coming close up
against the carriage, he did not know what it meant, turned pale,
and showed considerable uneasiness. My father soon assured him
that all was right, and then asked why he, a veteran campaigner,
was unnerved by a mere railway engine. Whereupon the old
soldier laughingly replied that he would far sooner face the foe on
the battlefield than sit quietly right in face of the "iron horse."

138 SIR ROWLAND HILL

of Wellington presents his compliments to Mr Moffatt.
The Duke does not fill any political office. He is not
in the habit of discussing public affairs in private, and
he declines to receive the visits of deputations or
individuals for the purpose of such discussions," etc.

Nothing daunted, Rowland Hill resolved to try
direct appeal, and wrote to the Duke, setting forth
briefly "a few facts in support of the Bill," etc.
No answer was received, but the letter had a
scarcely looked- for effect.

The second reading of the Bill in the Commons
took place on the 22nd July, Mr Goulburn, Sir Robert
Inglis, and Sir Robert Peel attacked the measure ; and
Mr Baring, Lord Seymour, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr Wallace, and Mr Warburton defended
it. The House did not divide. The Bill was read
a third time on 2Qth July, and passed.

My paternal grandfather was in the House on the
occasion, and was probably the happiest and proudest
man there, the author of the plan not even excepted.

A few days later, my father, through Lord
Duncannon,1 received a summons to confer with
Lord Melbourne at the latter's house the following
Sunday. Lord Duncannon was present at the

1 Lord Duncannon had been a member of the Commission of
Post Office Inquiry of 1835-1838 (already mentioned) which examined
Rowland Hill in February 1837. He was at first a strong opponent
of the Reform, but during the examination became one of its
heartiest supporters. The other two Commissioners were Lord
Seymour — who, later, served on Mr Wallace's Select Committee, was
afterwards Duke of Somerset, and gave to the world an unorthodox
little volume — and Mr Labouchere, afterwards Lord Taunton, and
uncle to the better-known proprietor of Truth.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 139

interview ; and the three soon went to work in the
most friendly fashion.

The subject in hand having, after a while, been
thoroughly mastered, Lord Melbourne began to walk
up and down the room, his lips moving as if rehears-
ing his speech for the House of Lords, but uttering
no word. While thus employed, a servant entered,
and made an all but inaudible announcement to his
master. " Show him into the other room," said
Lord Melbourne ; and presently passed through the
folding doors into the adjoining apartment. A hum
of conversation at once began, one of the voices
rising at last to angry tones, and the postal reformer's
name being once audibly pronounced by the irate
speaker. "It is Lord Lichfield," quietly observed
Lord Duncannon. Gradually, peace seemed to be
restored ; the visitor departed, and Lord Melbourne,
re-entering, said : " Lichfield has been here. Why a
man cannot talk of penny postage without getting into
a passion passes my understanding."

The following day, 5th August, the Prime
Minister, in a long speech, moved the second
reading of the Penny Postage Bill in the Upper
House.

The Postmaster-General supported the measure,
but did not conceal his distrust of it from a financial
point of view.

To Lord Brougham's speech allusion has already
been made.1

1 Chap. ii. p. 80. With Lord Brougham and others, my father,
some years before, had been associated in the movement for the
"Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," a Society which, in England

140 SIR ROWLAND HILL

The Duke of Wellington did not believe that
reduced rates of postage would encourage the
soldiers on foreign or colonial service to write home
oftener than before ; 1 and in the earlier part of his
speech drew so doleful a picture of the state of
our national finances and of the danger likely to

and Wales acted as pioneers in the good work of publishing cheap
and wholesome literature, just as in Scotland did the Chambers
Brothers. Unfortunately, Brougham believed himself to be scientific,
and contributed to the series an article so full of mistakes that some
wag immediately dubbed the Society that for the " Cvnfusion of
Useful," etc. Brougham was a supporter of the postal reform, and
my father found in him more kindliness than the world gave him
credit for possessing. The great lawyer was a very eccentric man,
and Punch caricatured him unmercifully, invariably representing him
as clad in the large - checked " inexpressibles" which he is said
to have always worn because, in a moment of weakness, he had
purchased as a bargain so huge a roll of cloth of that pattern that
it supplied him with those garments for the rest of his days. The
story is pretty generally known of his causing to be published the
news of his death, and of his sitting, very much alive, in a back room
of his darkened house, and reading, with quite pardonable interest,
the obituary notices which appeared in the different newspapers.
He wrote an execrable hand, which varied in degrees of illegibility.
The least illegible he and his secretary alone could read ; a worse
he only; the very worst, not even he could decipher, especially
if he had forgotten the matter of which it treated. This story has,
of course, been fathered on many bad writers ; but any one possessed
of a Brougham autograph must feel convinced that to none but
him could possibly belong its authorship.

1 How much mistaken the old warrior was as regards the soldiers'
letters has been abundantly proved. During the first eight months
of postal communication between the United Kingdom and our
comparatively small army in the Crimea — and long, therefore, before
the Board School era — more than 350,000 letters passed each way ;
while when the Money Order system, for the first time in history,
was extended to the seat of war, in one year over ;£ 100,000 was sent
home for wives and families.

CAROLINE PEARSON, LADY HILL.

To face p. 141.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 141

accrue to them through the lowering of any duty,
that the anxious listener — who, by Lord Melbourne's
wish, was in the House — seated on the steps of
the throne, feared he was about to witness the
slaughter of the scheme for which he and others
had worked so strenuously. But Lord Duncannon,
observing the downcast countenance, came up and
kindly whispered : " Don't be alarmed ; he is not
going to oppose us."

Nor did he ; for, after alluding to the evils of
high postal rates, the Duke went on to say that, in
his opinion, the plan most likely to remedy these
was that known as Mr Rowland Hill's. "Therefore,"
he concluded, " I shall, although with great reluct-
ance, vote for the Bill, and I earnestly recommend
you to do the same."1

The Bill passed.2 It received the Royal assent
on the 1 7th August ; and at onee Mr Wallace wrote
to congratulate Mrs Hill on the success of her
husband's efforts, "a success to which your un-
remitting exertions have greatly contributed."

Mr Wallace's tribute was well deserved. My
mother was a devoted wife, a true helpmate, therein
resembling the late Lady Salisbury, Mrs Gladstone,
Lady Campbell- Bannerman, and many lesser known
women. During the long postal reform agitation,
her buoyant hopefulness and abiding faith in her
husband's plan never failed to cheer and encourage
him to persevere. Years after, when their children

"Life,"i. 352-360.

' When it passed the Lords, Cobden is said to have exclaimed :
" There go the Corn Laws ! "

Ce

i42 SIR ROWLAND HILL

were old enough to understand the position, their
father would tell them how much he owed to her,
and bade them never to forget the debt. She was,
moreover, a pattern scribe, sitting, hour after hour,
untiring, unshirking, giving her opinion when asked
for it, and in a handwriting both legible and beauti-
fully formed, covering page after page with the
sentences he dictated. More than one pamphlet,
his journal, and letters innumerable were thus written
by her ; and she also helped in the arduous prepara-
tion for his examination before the Commissioners
of Post Office Inquiry in 1837, the Select Committee
on Postage of 1838, and the still later Committee
of 1843. Years of useful work did she thus devote
to the reform, and many a time was she seated
already busy at her task when the first hour of the
long day's vigil struck four. From her own lips
little was ever heard of this ; but what other members
of the family thought of it is shown by the remark
made by an old kinswoman of my father. Some
one having spoken in her presence of her cousin
as "the father of penny postage," she emphatically
exclaimed: "Then I know who was its mother!"

The free-traders naturally hailed the postal reform
with enthusiasm. It was an economic measure en-
tirely after their own hearts, being, like their own
effort for emancipation, directed against monopoly
and class favouritism. Moreover, it gave an immense
impetus to their crusade, since it enabled the League's
literature to be disseminated with an ease and to
an extent which, under the old system, would have
been impossible. Thus one reform helps on another.

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 143

" The men of the League are your devoted servants,"
wrote Cobden in one of his cheery letters. " Colonel
Thompson,1 Bright, and I have blessed you not a
few times in the course of our agitating tour."

Cobden was one of the earliest and heartiest of
Rowland Hill's supporters. He thought so highly
of " Post Office Reform " that he urgently advised
its republication in a cheaper form, offering to defray
half the cost.2 Of the plan, when it had been some
time established, he wrote that " it is a terrible
engine for upsetting monopoly and corruption : witness
our League operations, the spawn of your penny
postage."

When Sir Robert Peel — more enlightened or
more independent in 1846 than in 1839 and later —
repealed the Corn Tax, Cobden again wrote to
Rowland Hill. "The League," he said, "will be
virtually dissolved by the passing of Peel's measure.
I shall feel like an emancipated negro — having ful-
filled my seven years' apprenticeship to an agitation
which has known no respite. I feel that you have
done not a little to strike the fetters from my limbs,
for without the penny postage we might have had
more years of agitation and anxiety."3

1 Colonel Perronet Thompson was the author of the once
famous " Anti - Corn - Law Catechism," which might, with great
advantage, be reprinted now. He was a public-spirited man, one
of the foremost among the free-traders, and deserves to be better
remembered than he is.

2 The pamphlet was published at a shilling ; in those days of
paper taxation, when books were necessarily dear and correspondingly
scarce, a by no means exorbitant price.

3 During a part of Cobden's Parliamentary career and that of his
and our friends, J. B. Smith and Sir Joshua Walmsley, all three men

144 SIR ROWLAND HILL

The Post Office, as we have seen, had hitherto
existed chiefly for the benefit of the aristocratic and
moneyed classes — those of the latter, at least, who
were Members of Parliament, then rich men only
— the general public having to pay dearly for the
privilege of using the Department for conveyance
of their correspondence. But with the advent of
the new system, the Post Office straightway became
the paid servant — and a far more faithful and efficient
one than it is sometimes given credit for being — of
the entire nation, since upon every man, woman,
and child in the United Kingdom were henceforth
conferred equal rights to postal intercourse.

Strange to say, the passing of the Penny Postage
Bill had, to some extent, depended upon the suc-
cessful making of a bargain. In April 1839 Lord
Melbourne's Government brought in what was known
as the Jamaica Bill, which proposed to suspend for
five years that Colony's Constitution. The measure
was strenuously opposed by the Conservatives led
by Peel and by some of the Liberals. On the second
reading of the Bill, the Government escaped defeat
by the narrow majority of five, and at onc^ resigned.
Peel was sent for by the Queen, but, owing to the
famous " Bedchamber Difficulty," failed to form a
Ministry. Lord Melbourne returned to office, and
the Radical members agreed to give his Administra-
tion their support on condition that penny postage
should be granted. "Thus," says my brother, "one

were next-door neighbours, living in London in three adjoining
houses. Hence Nos. 101, 103, and 105 Westbourne Terrace came
to be known as " Radical Row."

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 145

of the greatest social reforms ever introduced was
actually given as a bribe by a tottering Government
to secure political support." * A party move not
altogether without precedent.

When the new postal system became a legalised
institution both Mr Wallace and Mr Warburton,
independently of one another, wrote to Lord Mel-
bourne, and urged him to give Rowland Hill a
position in which he would be enabled to work out
his plan. Of Mr Wallace's letter my father said
that it was but a specimen of that tried friend's
general course. "He makes no reference to his
own valuable labours, but only urges claim for me."
Mr Warburton's letter was equally generous and
self-oblivious.

Lord Melbourne turned no deaf ear to these
appeals. In the autumn of 1839 the reformer was
appointed for a term of two years — afterwards ex-
tended to three — to the Treasury to superintend the
working of his plan. Obviously, his proper place, and
that to which the public expected him to be raised,
was the Post Office ; but the hostile element there was
probably too formidable to be withstood. The new
Chancellor of the Exchequer — Mr Spring Rice had
gone to the Upper House as Lord Monteagle — was
Mr (afterwards Sir) Francis Baring, whom Rowland
Hill found an able, zealous, high-minded chief, and
whose friendship he valued to the last.

Of what can only be correctly described as the
fanatical opposition of the Post Office authorities to
the reform, it is easy, and customary, to point the
1 "The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago," p. 24.

146 SIR ROWLAND HILL

finger of scorn or of derision. This is unjust.
Honourable men occupying responsible positions as
heads of an important branch of the Civil Service,
and bound, therefore, to safeguard what they believe
to be its truest interests, have a difficult task to
carry out when they are confronted with the forcible
acceptance of an untried scheme in whose soundness
they have little or no faith. That the policy the
postal officials pursued was a mistaken one time has
abundantly proved ; but if their opposition argued
lack of understanding, they merely acted as the
generality of men similarly situated would have done.
Even Rowland Hill, who, as an outsider, battered
so long at the official gates, was wont to confess,
when, later, he found shelter within the citadel they
defended, that he was not a little apt to feel towards
other outsiders a hostility similar to that which his
old enemies had felt towards him. The sentiment
is not inspired by the oft-alleged tendency to somno-
lence that comes of the well - upholstered official
armchair and assured salary, but from the heart-
weariness born of the daily importunity of persons
who deluge a long-suffering Department with crude
and impracticable suggestions, or with complaints that
have little or no foundation.1

1 Losses, for example, are often imputed to the Post Office for
which it is entirely blameless. Did space allow, scores of instances
might be cited. One of the most absurd was the case of a London
merchant, who, in the course of very many months, wrote at
intervals angry letters to the Postmaster-General asking why such
or such a letter had not reached its destination. No amount of
enquiries could trace the errant missives ; and the luckless Depart-
ment was, at corresponding intervals, denounced for its stupidity in

EXIT THE OLD SYSTEM 147

By the time the postal reform had come to be
an established institution, not a few former adversaries
loyally aided the reformer to carry out its details,
by their action tacitly confessing, even when they
made no verbal acknowledgment, that their earlier
attitude had been a mistake. Now that all are dead
their opposition may rightly be regarded with the
tenderness that is, or should be, always extended
to the partisans of a lost cause.

A great deal of the opposition was, however, far
from honest, and unfortunately had very mischievous
effects. On this subject something will be said in
the course of the ensuing chapter.

equally angry letters to the Press. One day, while certain city
improvements were being carried out, an ancient pump, near the
merchant's office, which had long refused to yield any water was
taken down, when its interior presented an unusual appearance.
An errand-boy had, at odd times, been sent to post the Firm's
letters, and had slipped them into the narrow slit where once the
vanished pump-handle used to work. The introduction of street
letter-boxes was then recent, and their aspect still unfamiliar. The
boy had therefore taken the venerable relic for one of those novel
structures, and all the missing letters lay therein.

CHAPTER V

AT THE TREASURY

To any one disposed to belief in omens it would seem
that the beginning of Rowland H ill's connection with
the Treasury augured ill for its continuance. Even
the letter which invited him to office went near to
miss reaching its destination.

He had left town for a brief rest after the
strenuous work of the close upon three years' struggle
for postal reform, leaving strict orders at the South
Australian Office that if any communication from
the Government intended for him arrived there it
should be forwarded without delay. The document
did arrive, but was laid aside to await the wanderer's
return because it bore in the left-hand corner what
seemed to be the signature of a then well-known man
connected with Australian affairs who, at the meet-
ings of the Association, was much given to bestow on
its members much unsought advice and worthless
criticism ; and was therefore, by unanimous consent,
voted an insufferable bore. However, when a
messenger came from the Treasury to ask why no
notice had been taken of a letter from the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the alarmed clerk on duty hastened
to send on the belated dispatch, wrapped up as a

148

From a Photograph In Messrs. Whiteley db Co.

No. I, ORME SQUARE.

The residence of Rowland Hill when Penny Postage was established.
The Tablet was put up by the L.C.C.

To face p. 148.

AT THE TREASURY 149

brown paper parcel, by railway, as being, to his
mind, the most expeditious, apparently because most
novel mode of conveyance. But parcels by rail made
slower progress in those days than in these ; and
when at last this one reached its destination its date
was hardly of the newest.

The first interview with the Chancellor of the
Exchequer was scarcely satisfactory, but through no
fault of Mr Baring, who was but the mouthpiece of
the Cabinet. The Government, as we have seen,
offered a temporary (two years') engagement to a
man already provided with steady employment, and
therefore in a fairly good financial position, as things
were then accounted ; required him to devote his
whole time to the public service ; and to this tem-
porary engagement proposed to attach the salary
of a head clerk. This, too, to a man who, with the
help of thousands of supporters of every class, had
just inaugurated an epoch-making reform destined to
confer lasting benefit on his own country and on the
entire civilised world ; who was on the wrong side
of forty ; and who had a wife and young children to
support. The offer — however intended — could only
be described as shabby ; and the fact that during
the interview the amount of emolument was twice
increased suggested a hard - bargain - driving trans-
action rather than a discussion between friendly
negotiators. We have also seen that in 1837
Rowland Hill, through his friend Mr Villiers, offered
to make a present to the Government of his plan-
willing, because he was convinced of its soundness
and workability, to let them have the full credit of

150 SIR ROWLAND HILL

its introduction, but stipulating that if the gift were
refused he should refer his proposals to the Press,
and to the country — a gift the Government had not
the courage to accept. It is therefore clear that
monetary greed found no place in my father's tem-
perament, but only the dread which every prudent
husband and father must feel when confronted with
the prospect, in two years' time and at the age
of forty-six, of recommencing the arduous battle of
life.

He told Mr Baring that while he was willing
to give his services gratuitously, or to postpone the
question of remuneration till the new system should
have had adequate trial, it would be impossible for
him to enter on such an undertaking were he placed
on a footing inferior to that of the Secretary to the
Post Office — a necessary stipulation if the reformer
was to have full power to carry his plan into opera-
tion. He was well aware that the post officials
viewed it and him with unfriendly eyes ; and his
anxiety was not diminished by the knowledge that
his reform would be developed under another roof
than that of the Treasury, and by the very men
who had pronounced the measure revolutionary,
preposterous, wild, visionary, absurd, clumsy, and
impracticable. His opponents had prophesied that
the plan would fail ; and as Matthew Davenport Hill,
when writing of this subject, wittily and wisely said :
" I hold in great awe prophets who may have the
means of assisting in the fulfilment of their own pre-
dictions." It was therefore imperative that Rowland
Hill's position should be a well-defined one, and he

AT THE TREASURY 151

himself be placed on an equality with the principal
executive officer among those with whose habits and
prejudices he was bound to interfere. The labour
would be heavy, and the conditions were unusual.
He must try to turn enemies still smarting under the
bitterness of defeat into allies willing as well as able
to help on the reform they detested ; and to persuade
them not to place obstacles in its way. The innova-
tions to be made would be numerous, because, while
reduction of postage and modes of prepayment formed
the principal features of the plan, they were far from
being the only features. The projected increase of
facilities for transmitting letters, etc., would cause an
immense amount of extra work ; and as in this matter
he would have to contend with the Post Office almost
single-handed, nothing would be easier than for its
head officials to raise plausible objections by the score
to every proposal made. Nor could the public, who
had now secured cheap postage and an easier mode
of paying for it — to superficial eyes the only part of
the plan worth fighting for — be henceforth relied upon
to give the reformer that support which was necessary
to carry out other important details; the less so as
the reformer would be debarred from appealing for
outside help or sympathy, because, when once the
official doorways are passed, a man's independence
is lost, and his lips are perforce sealed.

The interview was brought to a close by Rowland
Hill telling Mr Baring that before returning a definite
answer he must consult his friends ; and that as his
eldest brother was away on circuit at Leicester, and
he proposed to start at once for that town to seek

152 SIR ROWLAND HILL

fraternal advice, three days must elapse before the
matter could be settled.

He found his brother lying on a couch in a state
of exhaustion after a very hard day's work, and
Rowland proposed to delay discussion of the question
till the following day. But Matthew would not hear
of this ; and, getting more and more moved as the
younger man proceeded with his tale, presently sprang
upright, and, oblivious of fatigue, threw himself with
ardour into the subject of the offered appointment.
After a while, Matthew proposed to write a letter on
his own account to Rowland, which the latter should
hand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This was
done the next day, the younger brother writing to the
elder's dictation ; and the letter is given at full length
in my father's " Life" and in my brother's " The Post
Office of Fifty Years Ago." In Matthew's own clear
and eloquent language — for he was as admirable a
writer as he was a speaker — are expressed the views
enunciated above, which Rowland had already laid
before Mr Baring at the interview just described.

Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my
father met again the former wrote him a letter
explanatory of the course of conduct to be adopted
on his engagement at the Treasury, stating, among
other things, that free access to the Post Office, and
every facility of enquiry as to the arrangements made
would be given, but that all "your communications
will be to the Treasury, from which any directions
to the Post Office will be issued ; and you will not
exercise any direct authority, or give any immediate
orders to the officers of the Post Office." The

AT THE TREASURY 153

explanation was said to be given " to prevent future
misunderstanding " ; and this was doubtless the
euphonious mode of expressing apprehension of a
state of things which, in view of the well-known
hostility of St Martin's-le-Grand, the writer felt was
likely to arise ; and again mention was made of the
condition that " the employment is considered as
temporary, and not to give a claim to continued
employment in office at the termination of those two
years." *

The prospect was scarcely satisfactory ; never-
theless, my father hoped that by the end of his term
of engagement, and by unceasing effort on his part,
he might find himself "in a recognised position, in
direct communication with persons of high authority,
and entrusted with powers which, however weak and
limited in the outset, seemed, if discreetly used, not
unlikely in due time to acquire strength and durability.
I was far from supposing that the attainment of my
post was the attainment of my object. The obstacles,
numerous and formidable, which had been indicated
in my brother's letter had all, I felt, a real existence ;
while others were sure to appear of which, as yet, I
knew little or nothing. Still, I felt no way daunted,
but, relying at once on the efficiency of my plan, I
felt confident of succeeding in the end."2

The goal at which Rowland Hill aimed was, as
he told Mr Baring at this second interview, the
permanent headship — as distinguished from the

1 Letter to Rowland Hill from Mr Baring, dated " Downing
Street, i4th September 1839."

2 "Life,"i. 371.

154 SIR ROWLAND HILL

political headship — of the Post Office, then filled by
Colonel Maberly : l the only position in which the
reformer could really acquire that authority which
was essential to the development of his plan. But
the Fates were stronger even than one strong-willed
man ; and Colonel Maberly held the post for fifteen
years longer. Thus, when the helm came at last
into Rowland Hill's hands, he was long past middle
life ; and his years of almost unrestricted influence
were destined to be but few.

Further encouragement to accept the present
position was given by Mr Baring's friendly, sym-
pathetic attitude ; and it should here be recorded
that the longer Rowland Hill served under his chief
the more cordial grew the relations between them.
Ample proof of this confidence was seen in the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's increased readiness
to adopt suggestions from the new official, and to
leave to him the decision on not a few questions of
importance.

On the first day of my father's appointment he

accompanied Mr Baring to the Post Office, that

being the first time the reformer had set foot within

its portals. He was much interested in the different

processes at work, such as date-stamping, "taxing"

—the latter destined soon, happily, to be abolished

—sorting, etc. But the building, which had been

erected at great expense only ten years previously,

struck him as too small for the business carried on

1 An amusing character-sketch of Colonel Maberly is to be
found in the pages of Edmund Yates's " Recollections and
Experiences."

AT THE TREASURY 155

in it ; badly planned, badly ventilated, and deficient in
sanitary arrangements — a monument to the fatuity
alike of architect and builder. This discovery led
him to think of practicable alterations in the exist-
ing edifice and of devolution in the shape of erection
of district offices ; and by Mr Baring's wish he drew
up a paper giving his views in detail, and including
with his proposals that necessary accompaniment
of amalgamation into one force of the two corps of
letter-carriers, the general and the " twopenny post "
men, which has already been alluded to. But this
greatly needed measure was, perforce, deferred till
after Colonel Maberly's retirement.

In order the better to get through as much of his
projected work as he could accomplish in the twice
twelvemonths before him, my father rose daily at
six, and after an early breakfast set off for the
Treasury, where at first his appearance at an hour
when many officials were probably only beginning
to rise caused considerable astonishment, and where
he stayed as long as he could. If even under these
circumstances the progress made seemed slow and
unsatisfactory to the man longing to behold his
scheme adopted in its entirety, how much worse
would not the reform have fared had he kept strictly
to the hours prescribed by official custom !

A few weeks after his acceptance of office, and
at Mr Baring's suggestion, he visited Paris to inspect
the postal system there. He found it in many
respects well ahead of our own. In France the old
system never weighed so heavily upon the people as
did our own old system upon us. The charges were

156 SIR ROWLAND HILL

about two-thirds of our own for corresponding dis-
tances, but the number of a letter's enclosures was
not taken into consideration, the postage varying
according to weight. Though Paris was much
smaller than London, its post offices were more
numerous than ours, being 246 against our 237.
There was a sort of book post, a parcel post for
valuables of small dimensions at a commission paid
of 5 per cent. — the Post Office, in case of loss,
indemnifying the loser to the extent of the value
of the article ; and a money order system so far in
advance of our own that the French people sent
more than double as much money through the post
as we did. The gross revenue was about two-thirds
that of the British Post Office ; the expenses 20
per cent, more ; the nett revenue less than half.

Street letter-boxes were an old institution in
France ; our own, therefore, were but an adaptation.
The larger towns of Germany possessed them, as
did also the towns and villages of the Channel Isles.
After his visit to France, Rowland Hill urged the
Treasury to adopt street letter-boxes, and one was
put up in Westminster Hall. But it was not till
the early 'fifties that they were introduced to any
great extent. Before the establishment of penny
postage there were only some 4,500 post offices in
the United Kingdom. In the year of my father's
death (1879), the number had grown to over 13,000,
in addition to nearly 12,000 pillar and wall boxes.
And the advance since 1879 has, of course, been very
great.1 But it is not alone in number that the
1 In connection with the putting up of one receptacle in London

AJ\>ST-CFF;CE iv 1790.

By permission of the Proprietors of the City Press.

AN OLD POST OFFICE.

To /nee r. 157.

AT THE TREASURY 157

change is seen. In the case of post offices, a
handsome edifice, full of busy workers has, in many
towns and districts, replaced an insignificant build-
ing managed by a few more or less leisurely officials,
or by even one person.

It was during this visit to Paris that my father
became acquainted with M. Piron, Sous Directeur des
Posies aux Lettres, a man whose memory should not
be suffered to perish, since it was mainly through
his exertions that the postal reform was adopted in
France. For several years during the latter part of
Louis Philippe's reign, M. Piron strove so persistently
to promote the cause of cheap postage that he actu-
ally injured his prospects of rising in the Service,
as the innovation was strenuously opposed both
by the monarch and by the Postmaster-General,
M. Dubost, the " French Maberly." Therefore,
while the " citizen king" remained on the throne the
Government gave little or no encouragement to the
proposed reform. But M. Piron, too much in earnest
to put personal advancement above his country's
welfare, went on manfully fighting for cheap postage.
He it was who made the accidental discovery among
the archives of the French Post Office of documents
which showed that a M. de Valayer had, nearly two
hundred years before, established in Paris a private

not many years ago, a gruesome discovery was made. The ground
near St Bartholomew's Hospital had been opened previous to the
erection of a pillar letter-box, when a quantity of ashes, wood and
human, came to light. "Bart's" looks upon Smithfield, scene of
the burning of some of the martyrs for conscience' sake. No need,
then, to ponder the meaning of these sad relics. They clearly
pointed to sixteenth-century man's inhumanity to man.

158 SIR ROWLAND HILL

(penny ?) post — of which further mention will be made
in the next chapter. Neither Charles Knight, who
first suggested the impressed stamp, nor Rowland
Hill, who first suggested the adhesive stamp, had
heard of M. de Valayer or of his private post ; and
even in France they had been forgotten, and might
have remained so but for M. Piron's discovery. One
is reminded of the re - invention of the mariner's
compass and of many other new-old things.

Nine years after my father's official visit to Paris,
that is, with the advent of the Revolution of 1848,
the reforming spirit in France had stronger sway ;
and M. Piron's efforts were at last crowned with
success. The uniform rate proposed by him (20
centimes) was adopted, and the stamp issued was
the well-known black head of Liberty. In order to
keep pace with the public demand, the first sheets
were printed in such a hurry that some of the heads—
the dies to produce which were then detached from
one another — were turned upside down. M. Piron
sent my father one of the earliest sheets with apologies
for the reversals. These are now almost unobtain-
able, and are therefore much prized by philatelists.

During this visit to Paris, or at a later one, my
father also made the acquaintance of M. Grasset,
M. St Priest, and other leading post officials ; and,
among non - official and very interesting people,
M. Horace Say, son to the famous Jean Baptiste
Say, and father to the late M. Leon Say, three
generations of illustrious Frenchmen.

Although travelling in France — or, indeed, in
England or any other country — way in 1839 very

AT THE TREASURY 159

different from what it has become in these luxurious
days, for railways were established later in France
than they were here, my mother had accompanied
her husband. One day the pair set off in a caleche
to visit some old friends who lived in a rather distant
part of the country. Darkness came on, and ere long
all trace of the road was lost. At last the wretched
little vehicle broke down in a field ; and the driver,
detaching the horse, rode off to try to discover their
whereabouts. The process was a slow one ; and the
travellers were left alone for what seemed to be
many hours. Near the field was a wood in which
wolves had been seen that day, and there was good
reason to dread a visit from them. When at last the
driver, having found the right road, reappeared,
attached the horse to the caleche, and pushed on
again, he drove his party by mistake to the back-
door of their friends' house. It was now late at
night, and the family, who had retired to rest, and
were waked by the driver's loud knocking, mistook
the belated travellers for robbers, and refused to
unbar the door. It was only after a long parley
that the wearied visitors were admitted, to receive,
of course, the warmest welcome. The master of the
house had been the hero of an unusually romantic
story. As a young officer in the French army, he
was captured at the time of the unfortunate Walcheren
expedition, and carried to England, there to remain
some years as a prisoner of war. While on parole
he made many friends in this country, where he
occupied part of his time by the study of English
law, in which he became a proficient. During his

160 SIR ROWLAND HILL

novitiate he became acquainted with a young lady
unto whom he was not long in losing his heart. As
he came to know her and her widowed mother better,
a suspicion crossed his mind that the daughter was
being kept out of a handsome property, rightly hers,
by a fraudulent relative. Examination of the case
strengthened suspicion into conviction, and he under-
took to champion her cause, his knowledge of English
law coming in as a powerful weapon to his hand.
On conclusion of the trial, he and some of those
who had acted with him set off for the lady's home
as fast as horses, post-boys, and money could take
them. " They are scattering guineas ! " exclaimed a
bystander. " They have won the case!" It was so,
and something more than the case, for the gallant
young Frenchman was rewarded for his prowess by
receiving in marriage the hand of the girl for whom
he had accomplished so much. When the war was
over, M. Chevalier returned to France together with
his wife and her mother.

Heartily as Mr Baring approved of the new
system, he still distrusted the principle of prepay-
ment. In this opinion he was, as we have seen, not
singular. By many people it was still pronounced
"un-English" to prepay letters. But my father was
so confident of the wisdom of the step that Mr
Baring ultimately gave way, stipulating only that
the responsibility should rest, not on the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, but on the author of the reform.
The condition was unhesitatingly accepted.

To ensure use of the stamps, Mr Baring, later,
proposed that it should be made illegal to prepay

AT THE TREASURY 161

postage other than by their means ; but Rowland
Hill, hating compulsion, and feeling confident of
their ultimate acceptability, maintained that it would
be better if at first the two modes of payment, money
and stamps, contended for public favour on equal
terms, and succeeded in convincing Mr Baring of
the soundness of that view.

The question of the stamps was therefore one
of the first to require my father's attention on his
return from Paris ; and he found much to occupy
him in dealing with the many suggestions contained
in the letters sent in by the public, and in the vast
number of designs accompanying them. As the
succeeding chapter will show, the subject, in one
form or another, took up much of his time for a
little over twelve months.

Early in December, at his suggestion, the tenta-
tive postal rate of id. for London, and 4d. for the
rest of the kingdom was introduced, all tiresome
extras such as the penny on each letter for using the
Menai and Conway bridges, the halfpenny for cross-
ing the Scottish border, etc., being abolished. This
experiment was made to allow the postal staff to
become familiarised with the new system, as a vast
increase of letters, necessarily productive of some
temporary confusion, was looked for on the advent
of the uniform penny rate. Under the old system
4d. had been the lowest charge beyond the radius
of the * ' twopenny post " ; therefore, even the pre-
liminary reduction was a relief. But although three
years earlier a lowering of the existing rates to a
minimum of 6d. or 8d. would have been eagerly

162 SIR ROWLAND HILL

welcomed, the public were now looking forward to
yet lower charges ; and the prospect of paying qd.
was viewed with great dissatisfaction. People began
to suspect that the concession would go no further,
that the Government intended to " cheat the public,"
and my father was accused of having " betrayed his
own cause." Thus easily is a scare manufactured.

The result of the first day of this preliminary
measure was awaited with some anxiety. The
increase of the fourpenny letters was about 50, and
of the penny letters nearly 150 per cent., the unpaid
letters being about as numerous as usual, prepay-
ment being not yet made compulsory. This state
of things my father considered ' ' satisfactory "; Mr
Baring "very much so." The next day the numbers
fell off, and this gave the enemies of postal reform
a delightful, and by no means neglected, opportunity
of writing to its author letters of the " I told you
so ! " description.

The loth of January 1840, when the uniform penny
rate came into operation, was a busy day at the
post offices of the country. Many people made a
point of celebrating the occasion by writing to their
friends, and not a few — some of the writers being
entire strangers — addressed letters of thanks to the
reformer.1 One of these was from Miss Martineau,

1 The first person to post a letter under the new system is
said to have been Mr Samuel Lines of Birmingham, Rowland
Hill's former drawing - master, whose portrait hangs in the Art
Gallery of that city. He was warmly attached to his ex-pupil,
who, in turn, held the old man in high esteem, and maintained
an occasional correspondence with him till the artist's death.
Determined that in Birmingham no one should get the start of

AT THE TREASURY 163

who had worked ably and well for the reform ; and
another from the veteran authoress, Miss Edgeworth,
whom, some twenty years earlier, Rowland Hill had
visited in her interesting ancestral home.1

At that time, and for many years after, there
was at St Martin's - le - Grand a large centre hall
open to the public, but, later, covered over and
appropriated by the ever-growing Circulation Depart-
ment. At one end of the hall was a window, which
during part of the day always stood open to receive
the different kinds of missives. These, as the hour for
closing drew near, poured in with increasing volume,
until at "six sharp," when the reception of matter
for the chief outgoing mail of the day ended, the
window shut suddenly, sometimes with a letter or
newspaper only half-way through.2 On the after-

him, Mr Lines wrote to my father a letter of congratulation,
and waited outside the Post Office till at midnight of the 9th
a clock rang out the last stroke of twelve. Then, knocking up
the astonished clerk on duty, he handed in the letter and the
copper fee, and laconically remarked : " A penny, I believe."

1 Another well-known literary woman, the poetess, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, according to her "Letters" recently published,
wrote to an American friend earnestly recommending adoption of
"our penny postage, as the most successful revolution since 'the
glorious three days ' of Paris " — meaning, of course, the three days
of July 1830 (i. 135).

2 This window and the amusing scramble outside it are
immortalised in Dickens's pleasant article on the Post Office in
the opening number of Household Words, first edition, 3oth
March 1850. (Our friend, Mr Henry Wills, already mentioned
in the Introductory Chapter, was Dickens's partner in Household

Words, and brought the famous novelist to our house at
Hampstead to be dined and " crammed " before writing the article.
It was a memorable evening. No doubt the cramming was duly
administered, but recollection furnishes no incident of this opera-

164 SIR ROWLAND HILL

noon of the loth, six windows instead of one were
opened ; and a few minutes before post time a
seventh was thrown up, at which the chief of the
Circulation Department himself stood to help in the
receipt of letters. The crowd was good-tempered,
and evidently enjoyed the crush, though towards
the last letters and accompanying pennies were

tion, and only brings back to mind a vivid picture of Dickens talking
humorously, charmingly, incessantly, during the too brief visit,
and of his doing so by tacit and unanimous consent, for no one
had the slightest wish to interrupt the monologue's delightful flow.
His countenance was agreeable and animated ; the impression made
upon us was of a man, who, as the Americans aptly put it, is
"all there." We often saw him both within doors and without,
for one of his favourite walks, while living in Tavistock Square,
was up to Hampstead, across the Heath — with an occasional peep
in at "Jack Straw's Castle," where friends made a rendezvous to
see him — and back again to town through Highgate. Every one
knew him by sight. The word would fly from mouth to mouth,
" Here comes Dickens ! " and the lithe figure, solitary as a rule,
with its steady, swinging pace, and the keen eyes looking straight
ahead at nothing in particular, yet taking in all that was worth
noting, would appear, pass, and be lost again, the while nearly
every head was turned to look after him.) Whenever visitors
were shown over the Post Office, they were advised so to time
their arrival that the tour should end a little before 6 P.M., with
a visit to a certain balcony whence a good view could be obtained
of the scene. One day my father escorted the Duchess of
Cambridge and her younger daughter — better known since as
Duchess of Teck — over the Post Office. He was delighted with
their society, being greatly struck with the elder lady's sensible,
well-informed talk, and the lively, sociable manner of the younger
one. Both were much amused by the balcony scene, and Princess
Mary entered keenly into the fun of the thing. She grew quite
excited as the thickening crowd pressed forward faster, laughed,
clapped her hands, and audibly besought the stragglers, especially
one very leisurely old dame, to make haste, or their letters would
not be posted in time.

AT THE TREASURY 165

thrown in anyhow, sometimes separating beyond
hope of reunion ; and though many people were un-
able to reach the windows before six o'clock struck.
When the last stroke of the hour had rung out,
and the lower sash of every window had come down
with a rush like the guillotine, a great cheer went
up for "penny postage and Rowland Hill," and
another for the Post Office staff who had worked
so well.

So much enthusiasm was displayed by the public
that the author of the new system fully expected
to hear that 100,000 letters, or more than three times
the number usually dispatched, had been posted.
The actual total was about 112,000.

The reformer kept a constant watch on the returns
of the number of inland letters passing through the
post. The result was sometimes satisfactory, some-
times the reverse, especially when a return issued
about two months after the establishment of the
penny rate showed that the increase was rather less
than two - and - three - quarters - fold. The average
postage on the inland letters proved to be three
halfpence ; and the reformer calculated that at that
rate a four - and - three - quarters - fold increase would
be required to bring up the gross revenue to its
former dimensions. Eleven years later his calcula-
tion was justified by the result ; and in the thirteenth
year of the reform the number of letters was exactly
five times as many as during the last year of the
old system.

Meanwhile, it was satisfactory to find that the
reductions which had recently been made in the

166 SIR ROWLAND HILL

postage of foreign letters had led to a great increase
of receipts, and that in no case had loss to the
revenue followed.

One reason for the comparatively slow increase
in the number of inland letters must be attributed to
the persistent delay in carrying out my father's plan
for extending rural distribution. In the minute he
drew up, he says : " The amount of population thus
seriously inconvenienced the Post Office has declared
itself unable to estimate, but it is probable that in
England and Wales alone it is not less than
4,000,000. The great extent of the deficiency [of postal
facilities] is shown by the fact that, while these two
divisions of the empire contain about 1 1 ,000 parishes,
their total number of post offices of all descriptions
is only about 2,000. In some places quasi post
offices have been established by carriers and others,
whose charges add to the cost of a letter, in some
instances as much as sixpence. A penny for every
mile from the post office is a customary demand."

Of the beneficent effects of cheap postage, grati-
fying accounts were meanwhile being reported ; some
told in conversation, or in letters from friends or
strangers, some in the Press or elsewhere.

One immediate effect was an impetus to education,
especially among the less affluent classes. When
one poor person could send another of like condition
a letter for a penny instead of many times that
amount, it was worth the while of both to learn to

1 "Life," i. 451. In 1841 the census gave the population ot
England and Wales as a little under 16,000,000. The delay above
mentioned therefore affected at least a fourth of the number.

AT THE TREASURY 167

read and write. Many people even past middle age
tried to master the twin arts ; and at evening classes,
some of which were improvised for the purpose, two
generations of a family would, not infrequently, be
seen at work seated side by side on the same school
bench. Other poor people, with whom letter-writing,
for lack of opportunity to practise it, had become a
half - forgotten handicraft, made laborious efforts to
recover it. And thus old ties were knit afresh, as
severed relatives and friends came into touch again.
Surely, to hinder such reunion by "blocking" rural
distribution and other important improvements was
little, if at all, short of a crime.

Mr Brookes, a Birmingham home missionary,
reported that the correspondence of the poorer classes
had probably increased a hundredfold ; and that
adults as well as young people took readily to pre-
payment, and enjoyed affixing the adhesive Queen's
head outside their letters.

Professor Henslow, then rector of Hitcham,
Suffolk, wrote of the importance of the new system
to those who cultivated science and needed to ex-
change ideas and documents. He also stated that
before penny postage came in he had often acted
as amanuensis to his poorer parishioners, but that
they now aspired to play the part of scribe them-
selves.

The servant class, hitherto generally illiterate,
also began to indite letters home ; and a young
footman of Mr Baring's one day told my father that
he was learning to write in order to send letters to
his mother, who lived in a remote part of the

168 SIR ROWLAND HILL

country ; and added that he had many friends who
were also learning. Indeed, one poor man, settled
in the metropolis, proudly boasted that he was now
able to receive daily bulletins of the condition of
a sick parent living many miles away.

Charles Knight found that the reduced rates of
postage stimulated every branch of his trade — an
opinion endorsed by other publishers and book-
sellers ; and the honorary secretary to the Parker
Society, whose business was the reprinting of the
early reformers' works, wrote, two years after the
abolition of the old system, to tell the author of the
new one that the very existence of the Society was
due to the penny post.

"Dear Rowland," wrote Charles Knight, in a
letter dated loth May 1843, " The Poor Law
* Official Circular ' to which par. No. 7 chiefly refers,
is one of the most striking examples of the benefit of
cheap postage. It could not have existed without
cheap postage. The Commissioners could not have
sent it under their frank without giving it away,
which would have cost them ^1,000 a year. It is
sold at 4d., including the postage, which we prepay ;
and we send out 5,000 to various Boards of Guardians
and others who are subscribers, and who pay, in
many cases, by post office orders. The work affords
a profit to the Government instead of costing a
thousand a year."

After four years of the new system Messrs Pick-
ford said that their letters had grown in number
from 30,000 to 720,000 per annum. And testimony
of similar character was given either in evidence

AT THE TREASURY 169

before the Committee on Postage of 1843, or, from
time to time, was independently volunteered.

The postal reform not only gave a vast impetus to
trade and education, but even created new industries,
among them the manufacture of letter - boxes and
letter-weighing machines — which were turned out in
immense quantities — to say nothing of the making
of stamps and of stamped and other envelopes, etc.

In two years the number of chargeable letters
passing through the post had increased from
72,000,000 per annum to 208,000,000. Illicit con-
veyance had all but ceased, and the gross revenue
amounted to two - thirds of the largest sum ever
recorded. The nett revenue showed an increase
the second year of ;£ 100,000, and the inland letters
were found to be the most profitable part of the
Post Office business.1 It is a marvel that the new
system should have fared as well as it did, when
we take into consideration the bitter hostility of the
postal authorities, the frequent hindrances thrown in
the path of reform, to say nothing of the terrible
poverty then existing among many classes of our
fellow country people under the blighting influence
of Protection and of the still unrepealed Corn Laws ;
poverty which is revealed in the many official reports
issued during that sad time, in "S.G.O.'s" once
famous letters, and in other trustworthy documents
of those days, whose hideous picture has, later, been
revived for us in that stirring book, " The Hungry
Forties."

The hindrances to recovery of the postal revenue

1 " Report of the Committee on Postage" (1843), p. 29.

170 SIR ROWLAND HILL

were in great measure caused by the delay in carry-
ing out the details of Rowland Hill's plan of reform.
Especially was this the case in the postponement of
the extension of rural distribution — to which allusion
has already been made — one of the most essential
features of the plan, one long and wrongfully kept
back ; and, when granted, gratefully appreciated.
Issue of the stamps was also delayed, these not
being obtainable for some months after the introduc-
tion of the new system ; and there was a still longer
delay in providing the public with an adequate
supply.1

The increase of postal expenditure was another
factor in the case. The total charge for carrying
the inland mails in 1835 — the year before " Post
Office Reform" was written — was ^225,920; and it
remained approximately at that figure while the old
system continued in force. Then it went up by
leaps and bounds, till by the end of the first year
of the new system (1840) it reached the sum of
^333,418. It has gone on steadily growing, as was
indeed inevitable, owing to the increase of postal
business ; but the growth of expenditure would seem
to be out of all proportion to the service, great as
that is, rendered. By 1868 the charge stood at
^7i8,ooo,2 and before the nineteenth century died
out even this last sum had doubled.

The following instance is typical of the changes
made in this respect. In 1844 the Post Office
received from the coach contractors about £200 for

1 See also chap. vi.

2 "Life,"!. 412.

AT THE TREASURY 171

the privilege of carrying the mail twice a day
between Lancaster and Carlisle. Only ten years
later, the same service performed by the railway
cost the Post Office some ;£i 2,000 a year.1

Another form of monetary wastefulness through
overcharge arose from misrepresentation as to the
length of railway used by the Post Office on different
lines, one Company receiving about ^"400 a year
more than was its due — although, of course, the true
distance was given in official notices and time-tables.
Even when the error was pointed out, the postal
authorities maintained that the charge was correct.

This lavish and needless increase of expenditure
on the part of the Post Office made Mr Baring as
uneasy as it did my father. Not infrequently when
explanations were demanded as to the necessity for
these enhanced payments, evasive or long-delayed
replies were given. Thus Rowland Hill found him-
self " engaged in petty contests often unavailing and
always invidious";2 and in these petty contests and
ceaseless strivings to push forward some item or
other of his plan, much of his time, from first to
last, was wasted. Thus, at the beginning of 1841,
when he had been at the Treasury a year and
quarter, it became evident that, unless some improve-
ment took place, two years or even a longer period
would not suffice to carry out the whole of his plan.

Before 1841 came to an end he was destined to
find the opposing powers stronger than ever. In
the summer of that year the Melbourne Ministry

1 "First Annual Report of the Postmaster-General, 1854."

2 "Life,"!. 414.

172 SIR ROWLAND HILL

fell — to the harassed postal reformer a heavy blow.
For, if during the past two years he had not succeeded
in accomplishing nearly all he had hoped to do, still
the record of work was far from meagre. But if,
with Mr Baring as an ally, and under a Govern-
ment among whose members, so far as he knew,
he counted but a single enemy, progress was slow,
he had everything to dread from a Ministry bound
to be unfriendly.

With their advent, conviction was speedily forced
upon him that the end was not far off. The amount
and scope of his work was gradually lessened ;
minutes on postal matters were settled without his
even seeing them ; and minutes he had himself drawn
up, with the seeming approbation of his official chiefs,
were quietly laid aside to be forgotten. On the plea
of insufficiency of employment — insufficiency which
was the natural consequence of the taking of work
out of his hands — the number of his clerks was cut
down to one ; and all sorts of minor annoyances
were put in his way. Meanwhile, the demands from
the Post Office for increased salaries, advances,
allowances, etc., which during the past two years
had been frequently sent up to the Treasury, became
more persistent and incessant than ever.

Rural distribution was still delayed, or was only
partially and unsatisfactorily carried out. Some places
of 200 or 300 inhabitants were allowed a post office,
while other centres peopled by 2,000 or 3,000 went
without that boon. This plan of rural distribution,
whose object was to provide post offices in 400
registrars' districts which were without anything of

AT THE TREASURY 173

the sort, was, after long waiting, conceded by the
Treasury before the break - up of the Melbourne
Ministry ; and my father, unused till latterly to
strenuous modes of official evasion, believed the
measure safe. He forgot to take into account the
Post Office's power of passive resistance ; and several
months were yet to elapse ere he discovered that Mr
Baring's successor had suspended his predecessor's
minute ; nor was its real author ever able to obtain
further information concerning it.

Nor was this all. Letters written by Rowland
Hill to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer on the
subject of registration and other reforms remained
unnoticed, as did also a request to be allowed to
proceed with one or two more out of a list of
measures which stood in need of adoption. Later,
my father wrote urging that other parts of his reform
should be undertaken, drawing attention to the work
which had already been successfully achieved ; and
so forth. A brief acknowledgment giving no answer
to anything mentioned in his letter was the only
outcome. At intervals of two months between the
sending of each letter, he twice wrote again, but of
neither missive was any notice taken.

Among other projects it had been decided that
Rowland Hill should go to Newcastle-on-Tyne to
arrange about a day mail to that town ; and the
necessary leave of absence was duly granted. He
was also desirous of visiting some of the country
post offices ; but, being anxious to avoid possible
breach of rule, he wrote to Colonel Maberly on the
subject. The letter was referred to the Postmaster-

174 SIR ROWLAND HILL

General, and, after him, to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer : the result being that the sanction to any
portion of the journey was withdrawn.

One of the worst instances of the official " veiled
hostility " to reform and reformer appeared in a
document which my father — who might easily have
given it a harsher name — always called the " fallacious
return," published in 1843. In this the Post Office
accounts were so manipulated as to make it seem
that the Department was being worked at an annual
loss of £12,000 or more. The unfriendly powers
had all along prophesied that the reform could not
pay ; and now, indeed, they had a fine opportunity
of " assisting in the fulfilment of their own pre-
dictions."

Till the new postal system was established,
the "packet service" for foreign and colonial mails
had, "with little exception," been charged to the
Admiralty. In the " fallacious return " the entire
amount (,£612,850) was charged against the Post
Office. Now, in comparing the fiscal results of the
old and new systems, it was obviously unfair to
include the cost of the packet service in the one and
exclude it from the other. Despite all statements
made to the contrary — and a great deal of fiction
relating to postal arithmetic has long been allowed
to pass current, and will probably continue so to do
all down the "ringing grooves of time"-— the nett
revenue of the Department amounted to ,£600,000
per annum}

Another "mistake" lay in under-stating the gross
i «Life,"ii. 4, 5.

AT THE TREASURY 175

revenue by some ;£ 100,000. On this being pointed
out by my father to the Accountant-General, he at
once admitted the error, but said that a corrective
entry made by him had been " removed by order."1
And not only was correction in this case refused, but
other "blunders" in the Post Office accounts on the
wrong side of the ledger continued to be made,
pointed out, and suffered to remain.

In one account furnished by the Department it
was found, says my father, " that the balance carried
forward at the close of a quarter changed its amount
in the transit ; and when I pointed out this fact as
conclusive against the correctness of the account, it
was urged that without such modification the next
quarter's account could not be made to balance."2
Not a very bright example of the application of
culinary operations to official book-keeping because
of the ease with which it could be detected. What
wonder that to any one whose eyes are opened to
such ways, faith in official and other statistics should
be rudely shaken !

The effect of these high-handed proceedings was
naturally to foster mistaken ideas as to postal
revenues.

In 1842 Lord Fitzgerald, during a debate on the
income-tax, said that the Post Office revenue had
perished. The statement was speedily disposed ol
by Lord Monteagle, who, after pointing out the
falseness of the allegation, declared that the expense
of the packet service had no more to do with penny
postage than with the expense of the war in
1 "Life,ii. 87. 2 Ibid. i. 448.

176 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Afghanistan or China, or the expense of the Army
and Naxry.1

In the House of Commons, Peel, of course only
quoting memoranda which had been provided for his
use, repeated these misleading statistics ; and, later,
they have found further repetition even in some of
the Postmaster-General's Annual Reports.

These frequently recurring instances of thwarting,
hindering, and misrepresentation showed plainly that
the working of the postal reform should not have
been entrusted to men whose official reputation was
pledged not to its success but to its failure ; and
that the " shunting " of its author on to a Depart-
ment other than that in which if endowed with due
authority he might have exercised some control,
was, to put the case mildly, a great mistake.

One ray of comfort came to him in the midst of
his troubles. In the hard times which prevailed in
the early 'forties diminution of revenue was far
from being peculiar to the Post Office. The
country was undergoing one of the heaviest of those
periodically recurrent waves of depression which
lessen the product of all taxes (or the ability to pay
them) when, in April 1843, my father was able to
write in his diary that the Post Office " revenue
accounts show an increase of ,£90,000 on the year.
. . . The Post Office is the only Department which
does not show a deficiency on the quarter."

In July 1842, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
wrote to Rowland Hill to remind him that his three

1 "Hansard," Ixiv. 321.

2 « Life," i. 460.

AT THE TREASURY 177

years' engagement at the Treasury would terminate
in the ensuing September, and adding that he did
not consider it advisable to make any further exten-
sion of the period of engagement beyond the date
assigned to it.

Dreading lest, when the official doors should close
behind him, his cherished reform should be wrecked
outright, its author offered to work for a time with-
out salary. The offer was refused, and the intended
dismissal was announced in Parliament. The news
was received with surprise and indignation there
and elsewhere.

The Liberal Press was unanimous in condemna-
tion of the Government's conduct, and some of the
papers on their own side, though naturally cautious
of tone, were of opinion that Rowland Hill had
been harshly used. The Ministers themselves were
probably of divided mind ; and my father, when
commenting upon a letter which the Prime Minister
about this time addressed to him, says : " I cannot
but think that, as he wrote, he must have felt some
little of that painful feeling which unquestionably
pressed hard upon him in more than one important
passage of his political career."1

At the last interview the postal reformer had
with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Goulburn's
courteous manner also went " far to confirm the
impression that he feels he is acting unjustly and
under compulsion."2

One of the most indignant and outspoken of the

1 "Life,"i. 471.

2 Ibid. i. 468.

M

178 SIR ROWLAND HILL

many letters which Rowland Hill received was from
his former chief, Mr Baring, who stigmatised the
conduct of the Government as "very shabby," more
than hinted that jealousy was the cause of dismissal,
and added that had the Postmaster-General's plan of
letter-registration been carried into effect, it "would
have created an uproar throughout the country."
It was well known that the head of the Post Office
did not feel too kindly towards the reform, and was
bent on charging a shilling on every registered letter,
while Rowland Hill stoutly maintained that six-
pence would be sufficient.1 Hence the allusion.
The Postmaster- General is said to have demanded
his opponent's dismissal, and as he was credited
with being in command of several votes in the
Lower House, his wishes naturally carried weight.

Cobden gave vent to his disgust in a character-
istic letter in which he suggested that the programme
of the Anti-Corn-Law League should be followed: —
a national subscription raised, a demonstration made,
and a seat in Parliament secured. But the pro-
gramme was not followed.

Among other letters of sympathy came one from
the poet who, as his epitaph at Kensal Green reminds
us, "sang the Song of the Shirt." Said Hood: "I
have seen so many instances of folly and ingrati-
tude similar to those you have met with that it
would never surprise me to hear of the railway people,

1 The registration fee is one of the postal charges which have
become smaller since that time, to the great benefit of the public.
It is pleasant to know that the threatened plan of highly-feed com-
pulsory registration was never carried into effect.

AT THE TREASURY 179

some day, finding their trains running on so well,
proposing to discharge the engines."1

The public, used to nearly four years of the new
system, took alarm lest it should be jeopardised ;
and the Mercantile Committee, well entitled as, after
its arduous labours, it was to repose, roused itself
to renewed action, and petitioned the Government
to carry out the postal reform in its entirety.

But the ruling powers were deaf to all protests ;
and thus to the list of dismissed postal reformers
was added yet one more. First, Witherings ; then,
Dockwra ; next, Palmer ; and now, Hill.

While giving due prominence to the more salient
features of the intrigue against the postal reform
and reformer, the painful narrative has been as far

1 " Gentle Tom Hood," as the wittiest of modern poets has been
called, was a friend of old standing. Though little read to-day,
some of his more serious poems are of rare beauty, and his Haunted
House is a marvel of what Ruskin used to call "word-painting."
His letters to children were as delightful as those of the better-known
" Lewis Carroll." Hood was very deaf, and this infirmity inclined
him, when among strangers or in uncongenial society, to taciturnity.
Guests who had never met him, and who came expecting to hear
a jovial fellow set the table in a roar, were surprised to see a
quiet-mannered man in evidently poor health, striving, by help of
an^ear-trumpet, to catch other people's conversation. But, at any rate,
it was not in our house that the hostess, piqued at the chilly silence
pervading that end of her table which should have been most
mirthful, sent her little daughter down the whole length of it to
beg the bored wit to "wake up and be funny !" Hood had many
cares and sorrows, including the constant struggle with small means
and ill-health ; and it is pleasant to remember that when the final
breakdown came, Sir Robert Peel — concealing under a cloak of
kindly tactfulness, so kindly that the over-sensitive beneficiary could
not feel hurt — bestowed on the dying man some sorely-needed
monetary assistance.

i8o SIR ROWLAND HILL

as possible curtailed. It is, however, well worth
telling if only to serve as warning to any would-be
reformer — perhaps in any field : in the Post Office
certainly — of the difficulties that lie in the path he
yearns to tread. Should the reader be inclined to
fancy the picture overdrawn, reference to the " Life
of Sir Rowland Hill," edited by Dr G. B. Hill, will
show that in those pages the story is told with far
more fulness of detail and bluntness of truth-speaking.

More than thirty years after Peel had "given
Rowland Hill the sack," as at the time Punch, in
a humorous cartoon, expressed it, the real story of
the dismissal was revealed to its victim by one who
was very likely to be well-informed on the subject.
It is an ugly story ; and for a long time my brother
and I agreed that it should be told in these pages.
Later, seeing that all whom it concerned are dead,
and that it is well, however difficult at times, to
follow the good old rule of de mortuis nil nisi bonum,
it has seemed wiser to draw across that relic of the
lorig-ago past a veil of oblivion.

But here a digression may be made into a several
years' later history, because, however chronologically
out of place, it fits in at this juncture with entire
appropriateness.

It is obvious that no person could succeed in
cleansing so Augean a stable as was the Post Office
of long ago without making enemies of those whose
incompetency had to be demonstrated, or whose
profitable sinecures had to be suppressed. Thus even
when Rowland Hill's position had become too secure
in public estimation for open attack to be of much

AT THE TREASURY 181

avail, he was still exposed to that powerful "back-
stairs " influence which, by hindering the progress of
his reform, had done both the public service and
himself individually much harm.

Of the reality of this secret hostility, ample proof
was from time to time afforded, none, perhaps, being
more striking than the following. When Lord
Canning had been political head of the Post Office
for some months, he one day said to my father :
" Mr Hill, I think it right to let you know that you
have enemies in high places who run you down
behind your back. When I became Postmaster-
General, every endeavour was made to prejudice me
against you. I determined, however, to judge for
myself. I have hitherto kept my eyes open, saying
nothing. But I am bound to tell you now that I find
every charge made against you to be absolutely untrue.
I think it well, however, that you should know the
fact that such influences are being exerted against
you."1

When, at the age of forty-seven, Rowland Hill
had to begin the world afresh, one dread weighed
heavily upon his mind. It was that Peel's Govern-
ment might advance the postal charges to, as was
rumoured, a figure twice, thrice, or even four times
those established by the reformed system. It was
a dread shared by Messrs Baring, Wallace, Moffatt,
and very many more. Great, therefore, was the relief
when the last-named friend reported that the new

1 This and the previous paragraph are contributed by Mr Pearson
Hill, who was always, and deservedly, entirely in our father's
confidence.

i82 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Postmaster-General had assured him that there was
no danger of the postage rates being raised.1

After the dismissal by Peel, a long and anxious
time set in for the little household in the then semi-
rural precinct of Orme Square, Bayswater ; and again
my mother's sterling qualities were revealed. Reared
as she had been in a circle where money was plentiful
and hospitality unbounded, she wasted no time in
useless lamentations, but at once curtailed domestic
expenses — those most ruthlessly cut down being, as,
later, our father failed not to tell us, her own. In his
parents' home he had lived in far plainer style than
that maintained in the house of which, for many
years, owing to her mother's early death, she had
been mistress. Yet in all that ministered to her
husband's comfort she allowed scarcely any change
to be made. At the same time, there was no running
into debt, because she had a hearty contempt for the
practice she was wont to describe as "living on the
forbearance of one's tradespeople."

But at last anxiety was changed to relief. One
morning a letter arrived inviting her husband to join
the London and Brighton Railway Board of Directors.
Owing to gross mismanagement, the line had long
been going from bad to worse in every way ; and
an entirely new directorate was now chosen. The

1 " Life," i. 436. The only time, later, when there seemed a
chance of such increase was during the Crimean War, " when," said
my father in his diary, " being called upon to make a confidential
report, I showed that, though some immediate increase of revenue
might be expected from raising the rate to twopence, the benefit
would be more than counterbalanced by the check to correspond-
ence ; and upon this the project was abandoned."

AT THE TREASURY 183

invitation was especially gratifying because it came
from personal strangers.

My father's connection with the railway forms an
interesting chapter of his life which has been told
elsewhere. In a work dealing only with the postal
reform, repetition of the story in detail would be out
of place. One brief paragraph, therefore, shall suffice
to recall what was a pleasant episode in his career.

The " new brooms" went to work with a will,
and the railway soon began to prosper. The price of
shares — notwithstanding the announcement that for
the ensuing half-year no payment of dividends could
be looked for — rose rapidly ; ordinary trains were
increased in speed and number, expresses started, and
Sunday excursion trains, by which the jaded dwellers
"in populous city pent" were enabled once a week
to breathe health-giving sea-breezes, were instituted ;
the rolling stock was improved, and, by the building
of branch lines, the Company was ere long enabled
to add to its title "and South Coast." The invitation
to my father to join the Board met, at the sitting
which discussed the proposal, with but one dissentient
voice, that of Mr John Meesom Parsons of the Stock
Exchange. "We want no Rowland Hills here," he
said, " to interfere in everything ; and even, perhaps,
to introduce penny fares in all directions " — a rate
undreamed of in those distant days. He therefore
resolved to oppose the unwelcome intruder on every
favourable occasion. The day the two men first met
at the Board, the magnetic attraction, instinct, what-
ever be its rightful name, which almost at once and
simultaneously draws together kindred souls, affected

184 SIR ROWLAND HILL

both ; and forthwith commenced a friendship which
in heartiness resembled that of David and Jonathan,
and lasted throughout life. Mr Parsons, as gleefully
as any school-boy, told us the story against himself
on one out of many visits which he paid us ; and with
equal gleefulness told it, on other occasions and in
our presence, to other people.1

An incident which occurred four years after the
termination of Rowland Hill's engagement at the
Treasury seemed to indicate a wish on Peel's part to
show that he felt not unkindly towards the reformer,
however much he disliked the reform. In the seventh
year of penny postage, and while its author was still
excluded from office, the nation showed its apprecia-
tion of Rowland Hill's work by presenting him with a
monetary testimonial. Sir Robert Peel was among
the earliest contributors, his cheque being for the
maximum amount fixed by the promoters of the
tribute. Again Mr " Punch " displayed his customary
genius for clothing a truism in a felicitous phrase by
comparing Peel's action with that of an assassin who
deals a stab at a man with one hand, and with the
other applies sticking-plaster to the wound.

1 It was during Rowland Hill's connection with the Railway
Company that a riddle appeared in a certain newspaper which was
copied into other papers, and was therefore not slow in reaching our
family circle. It was worded much as follows : " When is Mr
Rowland Hill like the rising sun? — When he tips the little Hills
with gold." We never knew who originated this delightful jeu
d* esprit, but our father was much amused with it, and we children had
the best possible reason for being grateful to its author. The riddle
cropped up afresh in Lord Fitzmaurice's " Life of Lord Granville ''
(i. 174) ; but the Duke of Argyll, then Postmaster-General, is therein
made the generous donor.

?

CHAPTER VI

THE STAMPS

BETWEEN the date of Rowland Hill's leaving the
Treasury, and that of his appointment to the Post Office
to take up afresh the work to which, more than aught
else, he was devoted, an interval of about four years
elapsed, during a great part of which, as has just been
mentioned, he found congenial employment on the
directorate of the London and Brighton railway ;
a little later becoming also a member of the Board of
Directors of two minor lines of railway. But as this
episode is outside the scope of the present work, the
four-years-long gap may be conveniently bridged over
by the writing of a chapter on postage stamps.

Since their collection became a fashion — or, as
it is sometimes unkindly called, a craze — much has
been written concerning them, of which a great part
is interesting, and, as a rule, veracious ; while the
rest, even when interesting, has not infrequently
been decidedly the reverse of true. This latter fact
is especially regrettable when the untruths occur in
works of reference, a class of books professedly com-
piled with every care to guard against intrusion of
error. Neglect of this precaution, whether the result
of carelessness or ignorance, or from quite dissimilar

i86 SIR ROWLAND HILL

reasons, is to be deplored. No hungry person cares to
be offered a stone when he has asked for bread ; nor
is it gratifying to the student, who turns with a heart
full of faith to a should-be infallible guide into the
ways of truth, to find that he has strayed into the
realm of fiction.

The present chapter on stamps merely touches the
fringe of the subject, in no wise resembles a philatelist
catalogue, and may therefore be found to lack interest.
But at least every endeavour shall be made to avoid
excursion into fableland.

Since the story of the postal labels should be told
from the beginning, it will be well to comment here
on some of the more glaring of the misstatements
regarding that beginning contained in the notice on
postage stamps which forms part of the carelessly-
written article on the Post Office which appeared in
the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
vol. xix. p. 585.

(i) " A postpaid envelope," the writer declares,
" was in common use in Paris in the year 1653."

So far from being "in common use," the envelope
or cover was the outcome of an aristocratic monopoly
granted, as we have seen in a previous chapter,
to M. de Valayer, who, "under royal approbation"
set up "'a private' [penny?]1 post, placing boxes at
the corners of the streets for the reception of letters
wrapped up in envelopes which were to be bought
at offices established for that purpose."1 To M. de

1 " Life," i. 377. It is curious that neither in the article on the
French Post Office in the " Encyclopaedia Brittanica " nor in that
in Larousse's " Dictionnairt du XIX* Siecle " is mention made of M.

THE STAMPS 187

Valayer, therefore, would seem to belong priority of
invention of the street letter-box, and perhaps of the
impressed stamp and envelope ; although evidence to
prove that the boon was intended for public use seems
to be wanting. In the days of Louis XIV. how
many of the " common "alty were able to make use of
the post ? M. de Valayer also devised printed forms
of "billets," prepaid, and a facsimile of one is given in
the Quarterly Review s article.1 Like our own present-
day postcards, one side of the billet was to be used for
the address, the other for correspondence ; but the
billet was a sheet of paper longer than our postcard,
and no doubt it was folded up — the address, of course,
showing — before being posted. There is no trace
on the facsimile of an adhesive stamp. Neither is
mention made of any invention or use of such stamp
in France or elsewhere in the year 1670, although
some seeker after philatelist mare's-nests a while since
read into the article aforesaid fiction of that sort.

(2) " Stamped postal letter paper (cart a postale
bollata] was issued to the public by the Government
of the Sardinian States in November 1818 ; and
stamped postal envelopes were issued by the same
Government from 1820 till 1836."

There was no such issue " to the public." For the
purpose of collecting postal duties, "stamped paper or

de Valayer or M. Piron. Whether the real worthies are excluded from
the articles in order to make room for the fustian bound to creep in,
it would be difficult to say. But, while perusing these writings,
a saying of my brother's often returns to mind. " I have never," he
declared, "read any article upon the postal reform, friendly or
the reverse, which was free from misstatements."
i No. 128, p. 555.

i88 SIR ROWLAND HILL

covers of several values, both with embossed and with
impressed stamps, appear to have been used in the
kingdom of Sardinia about the year i8i9.J>1 The use
of these stamped covers, etc., was almost entirely
limited to one small class of the community, namely
the Ministers of State, and was in force from about
1819 to 1821 only. "In March 1836, a formal decree
was passed suppressing their further use, the decree
being required simply to demonetise a large stock
found unused in the Stamp Office at Turin."1 The
Sardinian experiment, like the earlier one of M. de
Valayer in Paris, had but a brief existence, the cause
1 "The Origin of Postage Stamps," p. 7. By Pearson Hill.
Here is a story of a " find " that is more interesting than that at
Turin or that of M. Piron already alluded to, because it comes nearer
home to us. About the middle of the nineteenth century, and
during the demolition in London of some old houses which had
long been appropriated to governmental use, and were now
abandoned, the discovery was made of a large number of the
paper-duty stamps, issued by George III.'s Ministry in order to
tax the "American Colonies." When the obnoxious impost was
cancelled, and the many years long revolt had become a success-
ful revolution, the ex-colonies thenceforth assuming the title of
"The United States," the stamps became waste material, and
were thrown into a cupboard, and forgotten. At the time of their
reappearance, the then Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes
(Inland Revenue Office), Mr John Wood, gave half a dozen of
them to Rowland Hill, as curiosities ; and one is still in my posses-
sion. Another was given by my father to the American philan-
thropist, Mr Peabody, then visiting this country, who was greatly
interested in the discovery. Now it would be just as correct to say
that the tax had been imposed on the American Colonies — of course
it never was imposed, since, as we know, payment was from the
first refused — till the middle of the nineteenth century, simply
because the stamps were only found some eighty years after their
supersession, as it is to say that the Sardinian "stamped postal
letter paper" and "stamped postal envelopes" were employed till

THE STAMPS 189

of failure in both cases being apparently attributable
to the absence of uniformity of rate.

(3) " Stamped wrappers for newspapers were made
experimentally in London by Mr Charles Whiting,
under the name of 'go-frees,' in 1830."

In this country Charles Knight — in as complete
ignorance as was my father of M. de Valayer's experi-
ment in the mid-seventeenth century — has always been
considered the first to propose the use of stamped
covers or wrappers for newspapers ; and this he did
in 1834, his covers being intended to take the place,
as payers of postage, of the duty stamp, when that
odious "tax on knowledge" should be abolished.
Had it been possible under the old postal system to
prepay letter-postage as well as newspaper-postage,
what more likely than that a man so far-seeing as
was Mr Knight would also have suggested the appli-
cation of his stamp to all mail matter ? Letter postage
stamps and prepayment had, of necessity, to await the
advent of 1840 and uniformity of rate.1

(4) " Finally, and in its results most important of
all, the adhesive stamp was made experimentally by
Mr James Chalmers in his printing office at Dundee,
in 1834."

An untruth followed by other untruths equally
astounding.

Mr Chalmers, when writing of his stamps, has

1836, in which year, after long disuse, they were formally abolished.
But the manner and matter of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica's" article
on the Post Office and the stamps are not what they should be, and
much of them would reflect discredit on the average school-boy.

1 Prepayment, as has been stated, was not actually unknown,
but was so rare as to be practically non-existent.

igo SIR ROWLAND HILL

happily supplied refutation of the fraudulent claim
set up for him since his own death and that of the
postal reformer ; and as Mr Chalmers is the person
chiefly concerned in that claim, and was a man as
honourable as he was public-spirited, his evidence
must necessarily be more valuable than that of any
other witness. He published his suggestions as to
postal reform, etc., in full, with his name and address
added, in the Post Circular^ of 5th April 1838, his
paper being dated 8th February of the same year.
Specimens of his stamps accompanied his communi-
cation; and in a reprint of this paper made in 1839
he claimed November 1837 as the date of his "first"
experiments in stamp - making — the italics being his
own. In none of his writings is there mention of
any earlier experiments ; neither is allusion made j
to any such in the numerously-signed "certificate"
addressed by his fellow-citizens of Dundee to the
Treasury in September 1839. The certificate eulo-
gises Mr Chalmers' valuable public services, speaks
of his successful efforts in 1825 to establish a 48 j
hours' acceleration of the mail-coaches plying between
Dundee and London, and recommends to " M;
Lords" the adoption of the accompanying "slips"
proposed by him. But nowhere in the certificate v.
reference made to the mythical stamps declared,
nearly half a century later, to have been made ii
1834. Yet some of these over one hundn
signatories must have been among the friends who,

1 The Post Circular was a paper set up temporarily by tl
" Mercantile Committee " to advocate the reform. It was abli
edited by Mr Cole, and had a wide circulation.

THE STAMPS 191

according to the fable, visited Mr Chalmers' printing
office in that year to inspect those early stamps.
An extraordinary instance of wholesale forgetfulness
if the stamps had had actual existence.1 The "slips"
made "first" in November 1837 were narrow pieces
of paper of which one end bore the printed stamp,
while the other end was to be slipped under the
envelope flap — a clumsy device, entailing probable
divorce between envelope and "slip" during their
passage through the post. The fatal objection to all
his stamps was that they were type-set, thereby
making forgery easy. In every case the stamps
bear the face- value proposed by Rowland Hill in
his plan of reform — a penny the half, and twopence
the whole ounce. Not only did Mr Chalmers not
invent the stamp, adhesive or otherwise, but of the
former he disapproved on the ground of the then
supposed difficulty of gumming large sheets of paper. *

It may be added that copies of the Post Circular
figure in the " Cole Bequest " to the South Kensington
Museum ; and if a very necessary caution addressed
to the custodians there while the Chalmers claim was
being rather hotly urged has received due attention,
those documents should still be in the Museum, un-
impeachable witnesses to the truth.

This claim to priority of invention, or of publica-
tion of invention, of the stamps which, with culpable
carelessness, obtained recognition in the pages of the

1 The stamps were probably exhibited at the Dundee printing
office, any time between November 1837 and September 1839 —
at which later date they were sent to London.

2 Published in February of that year.

i92 SIR ROWLAND HILL

" Encyclopaedia Britannica" has no foundation in fact.
The writer of the article on the Post Office in
"Chambers's Encyclopaedia," ix. 677 (edition 1901),
is far better informed on the subject of which he
treats, though even he says that "Both" [men]
" seem to have hit on the plan independently ;
but," he adds, with true discernment of the weakest
feature of the claim, " the use of adhesive postage
stamps, without uniform rates, and at a time when
the practice of sending letters unpaid was almost
universal, would obviously have been impossible."

This impossibility has already been demonstrated
in the present work in the chapter on " The Old
System." The simple explanation of the cause
which prompted Mr Chalmers, late in 1837, to
make designs for the stamps is not far to seek. At
some time during the intervening months he had
read "Post Office Reform,"1 opened up a corre-
spondence with its author - - till then an entire
stranger — and joined the ranks of those who were
helping on the reform. It is a pity that in the
attempt to fix upon this public-spirited man credit
for an invention which was not his, the good work
he actually accomplished should be frequently lost
sight of.

The " Dictionary of National Biography" also too
readily gave countenance to the Chalmers fable, a
decision perhaps explained by the priority of position
accorded in the alphabet to C over H. An accident
of this sort gives a misstatement that proverbial long
start which is required for its establishment, and
1 Published in February of that year.

THE STAMPS 193

naturally handicaps truth in the race ; the conse-
quence being that rectification of error is not made,
and the later article is altered to bring it into seeming
agreement with the earlier.1

On the other hand, the conductors of " Chambers 's
Encyclopaedia" evidently recognise that a work of
reference should be a mine of reliable information,
one of their most notable corrections in a later
edition of a mistake made in one earlier being that
attributing the suppression of garrotting to the
infliction on the criminals of corporal punishment—
an allegation which, however, often asserted by those
outside the legal profession, has more than once
been denied by some of the ablest men within it.

No notice would have been taken in these pages
of this preposterous claim were it not that the two
works of reference whose editors or conductors seem

1 Dr Birkbeck Hill, on one occasion, told me that in the article
on my father which he was asked to write for the D.N.B. he said
of the adhesive stamp that its invention had been "wrongfully
attributed to Mr James Chalmers " — words which nowhere appear in
the article as it now stands. " The proprietors of the ' Encyclopaedia
Britannica,' " wrote my brother in "The Origin of Postage Stamps,"
pp. 14, 15 (note), " did not avail themselves of the offer I had made
to place them in communication with those from whom official
information could be best obtained — indeed, they appear to have
made no application to the Post Office for information of any kind.
. . . Meanwhile, as it afterwards turned out, they were abundantly
supplied with Mr P. Chalmers' ex partc, and, to say the least,
singularly inaccurate statements. With the editor of the 'Dictionary
of National Biography ' I had no communication whatever." Is it
after this careless fashion that much of our "island story" is
compiled? If so, what wonder that long before the present day
wise men should have declared that all history needed to be
rewritten ?

N

194 SIR ROWLAND HILL

to have been only too easily imposed upon have a
wide circulation, and that until retractation be made
— an invitation to accord which, in at least one case,
was refused for apparently a quite frivolous reason
— the foolish myth will in all probability be kept
alive. The fraud was so clumsily constructed that
it was scarcely taken seriously by those who know
anything of the real history of the stamps, impressed
and adhesive ; and surprise might be felt that sane
persons should have put even a passing faith in it,
but for recollection that - - to say nothing of less
notorious cases — the once famous Tichborne claimant
never lacked believers in his equally egregious and
clumsily constructed imposture.

How little the Chalmers claimant believed in his
own story is shown by his repeated refusal to accept
any of the invitations my brother gave him to carry
the case into Court. Had the claim been genuine,
its truth might then and there have been established
beyond hope of refutation.

In all probability most of the claimants to invention
of the postage stamp — they have, to our knowledge,
numbered over a dozen, while the claimants to the
entire plan of reform make up at least half that
tale — came from the many competitors who, in
response to the Treasury's invitation to the public
to furnish designs, sent in drawings and written
suggestions.1 What more natural than that, as years

1 One of these claimants was a man connected with a well-
known national museum ; and his pretensions were to us a
never-failing source of amusement. He was distinguished for two
peculiarities : one being a passion for slaughtering the reputations

THE STAMPS 195

went past and old age and weakened memory came
on, these persons should gradually persuade them-
selves and others that not only had they invented
the designs they sent up for competition, but also
the very idea of employing stamps with which to pay
postage ? Even in such a strange world as this,
it is not likely that all the claimants were wilful
impostors.1

of his friends ; the other, the misappropriation to his own credit
of all originality in any reforms or inventions projected by them.
So far as I am aware, only one claimant was of my own sex ; and she,
at least, had the courage of her opinions, for, instead of biding her
time till the postal reformer was no more, the poor insane creature
wrote direct to him, saying she was the originator of the entire plan,
and begging him to use his influence with the Government to obtain
for her an adequate pension. The stories connected with some of
the other claims are quite as curious as the foregoing.

1 Inaccuracy of memory applies to other things than invention of
postage stamps. Here is a curious instance. "Sir John Kaye, in
writing his history of the Sepoy War, said he was often obliged to
reject as convincing proof even the overwhelming assertion, ' But I
was there.' 'It is hard,' he continues, 'to disbelieve a man of
honour when he tells you what he himself did ; but every writer long
engaged in historical enquiry has had before him instances in which
men, even after a brief lapse of time, have confounded in their minds
the thought of doing, or the intent to do, a certain thing with the
fact of actually having done it. Indeed, in the commonest affairs of
daily life we often find the intent mistaken for the act, in retrospect.'
Kaye was writing at a period of not more than ten to twelve years
after the events which he was narrating. When you extend ten
years to twenty or twenty-four, memories grow still more impaired,
and the difficulty of ensuring accuracy becomes increasingly greater."
(Thus "The Reformer," A. and H. B. Bonner, vii. 36, 37.) Most
of the claims to invention of the postage stamp seem to have been
made considerably more than ten, twelve, twenty, or twenty-four
years after its introduction — some of them curiously, or, at any rate,
opportunely enough, forty years or so after ; that is about the time
of Rowland Hill's death, or but little later.

196 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Rowland Hill's first proposal in regard to the
postage stamps was that they and the envelopes
should be of one piece, the stamps being printed on
the envelopes. But some days later the convenience
of making the stamp separate, and therefore adhesive,
occurred to him ; and he at once proposed its use,
describing it, as we have seen, as " a bit of paper
just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered
at the back with glutinous wash," etc. As both
stamps are recommended in " Post Office Reform"
as well as in its author's examination before the
Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry in February
1837, it is clear that priority of suggestion as well
as of publication belong to Rowland Hill.1

By 1838 official opinion, though still adverse to
the proposal to tax letters by weight, had come
to view with favour the idea of prepayment by
means of stamps. Still, one of the chief opponents
enumerated as many as nine classes of letters to
which he thought that stamps would be inapplicable.
The task of replying to eight of these objections
was easy enough ; with the ninth Rowland Hill was

1 For the adhesive stamp, see " Post Office Reform," p. 45, and
" Ninth Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry," p. 38.
The impressed stamp is mentioned in " Post Office Reform " at
p. 42, and also in that "Ninth Report." The writer of the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica's" article (xix. 585), while quoting
Rowland Hill's description of the adhesive stamp, adds : " It is
quite a fair inference that this alternative had been suggested from
without," but gives no reason for hazarding so entirely baseless an
assertion. The article, indeed, bears not a few traces of what looks
like personal malice ; and it is a pity that the editorial revising pen,
whether from indolence or from misunderstanding of the subject on
its wielder's part, was suffered to lie idle.

THE STAMPS 197

fain to confess his inability to deal. Stamps, it was
declared, would be unsuitable to " half-ounce letters
weighing an ounce or more." l

That the stamps — whatever should be the design
chosen — would run risk of forgery was a danger
which caused no little apprehension ; and the
Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes
(Inland Revenue) proposed to minimise that risk by
having them printed on paper especially prepared.
In the case of the envelopes bearing the embossed
head, the once famous "Dickinson" paper, which
contained fine threads of silk stretched across the
pulp while at its softest, was that chosen. It was
believed to be proof against forgery, and was in
vogue for several years, but has long fallen into
disuse.

The Government, as we have seen, decided in
July 1839 to adopt the plan of uniform penny
postage, including the employment of "stamped
covers, stamped paper, and stamps to be used
separately,"2 and invited the public to furnish designs
for these novel objects. In answer to the appeal
came in some 2,600 letters containing suggestions
and many sets of drawings, of which forty-nine
varieties alone were for the adhesive stamps. It
was, if possible, an even less artistic age than
the present — though, at least, it adorned the walls
of its rooms with something better than tawdry

1 These are the actual words made use of. See "Second
Report of the Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry," Question
u, in.

2 Thus the Treasury Minute.

198 SIR ROWLAND HILL

bric-a-brac, unlovely Japanese fans, and the contents
of the china-closet -- and in most cases beauty of
design was conspicuous by its absence, a fault
which, coupled with others more serious, especially
that of entire lack of security against forgery, fore-
doomed the greater number of the essays to
rejection.1

To become a financial success it was necessary
that the stamps should be produced cheaply, yet of
workmanship so excellent that imitation could be
easily detected. Now there is one art which we
unconsciously practise from infancy to old age-
that of tracing differences in the human faces we
meet with. It is this art or instinct which enables
us to distinguish our friends from strangers ; and it
was, perhaps, recognition of this fact that long ago
led to the placing on the coinage of the portrait of
the reigning monarch because it was familiar to the
public eye, and therefore less likely than any other
face to be counterfeited. In an engraving of some
well-known countenance, any thickening or misplacing

1 " In the end there were selected from the whole number of
competitors four whose suggestions appeared to evince most
ingenuity," wrote my father. "The reward that had been offered
was divided amongst them in equal shares, each receiving ^100"
(" Life," i. 388). Sir Henry Cole gives their names as follows : —
"Mr Cheverton, Mr C. Whiting, myself, and, I believe, Messrs
Perkins, Bacon & Co. After the labour," he adds, " of reading the
two thousand five" (?six) "hundred proposals sent to the Treasury,
' My Lords ' obtained from them no other modes of applying the
postage stamp than those suggested by Mr Hill himself — stamped
covers or half sheets of paper, stamped envelopes, labels or adhesive
stamps, and stamps struck on letter-paper itself." — ("Fifty Years of
Public Life," i. 62, 65, 66.)

THE STAMPS 199

of the facial lines makes so great an alteration in
features and expression that forgery is far more
easily detected than when the device is only a coat-
of-arms or other fanciful ornament.1 For this reason,
therefore, it was decided in 1839 to reproduce on
the postage stamp the youthful Queen's head in
profile designed by Wyon for the money of the then
new reign, daily use of which coinage was making
her face familiar to all her people. The head is
also identical with that on the medal — likewise by
Wyon — which was struck to commemorate her first
State visit to the city in November 1837.

The stamp then being difficult to counterfeit, and
worth but little in itself, while the machinery
employed to produce it was costly, the reason is
obvious why, so far as is known, only two attempts,
and those so clumsy that one wonders who could
have wasted time in forging the things, were made
to imitate the finely executed, earliest " Queen's
head."2

1 So profoundly did Rowland Hill feel the importance of this
fact that he invariably scouted a suggestion occasionally made in
the early days of the postal reform that his own head should appear
on at least one of the stamps. The some-time postmaster of New
Brunswick, who caused his portrait to adorn a colonial stamp now
much sought after by philatelists on account, perhaps, of its rarity,
for it was speedily abolished, seems to have been of quite a different
frame of mind.

2 This earliest stamp was a far finer and more artistic piece of
workmanship than any of its successors ; and has only to be
compared with the later specimens — say, for example, with King
Edward's head on ihe halfpenny postcards and newspaper bands —
to see how sadly we have fallen behind some other nations and our
own older methods, at any rate in the art of engraving, or, at least,
of engraving as applied to the postage stamp.

200 SIR ROWLAND HILL

The design was engraved by hand on a single
steel matrix, the head, through the agency of this
costly machinery, being encompassed by many fine,
delicately - wrought lines. The matrix was then
hardened, and used to produce impressions on a
soft steel roller of sufficient circumference to receive
twelve repetitions, the beautiful work of the original
matrix being therefore repeated, line for line, in
every stamp printed. The roller, being in turn
hardened, reproduced, under very heavy pressure,
its counterpart on a steel plate a score of times,
thus making up the requisite 240 impressions which
cause each sheet to be of the value of one
sovereign.1

Absolute uniformity was thus secured at com-
paratively little cost. The ingenious process was
invented by Mr Perkins,2 of the firm .of Perkins,
Bacon & Co. of Fleet Street, who, during the
first forty years of the reformed postal system,
printed some y^ths of our postage stamps, and in
that space of time issued nearly 21,000,000,000 of

* In the paper drawn up by Rowland Hill, " On the Collection
of Postage by Means of Stamps," and issued by the Mercantile
Committee in June 1839, he had recommended that, for convenience'
sake, the stamp should be printed on sheets each containing 240,
arranged in twenty rows of twelve apiece ; and they are so printed
to this day. It has been asserted that at first the sheets were
printed in strips of twelve stamps each ; but there is no truth in the
statement. Archer's perforation patent, which makes separation
of the adhesives easy, and is therefore a boon to the many of us
who are often in a hurry, was not adopted before the mid-'fifties.

2 His father, an American, was the inventor of the once famous
air-gun.

THE STAMPS 201

penny adhesives alone.1 Later, the contract passed
into the hands of Messrs De La Rue, who hitherto,
but long after 1840, had merely printed stamps of
a few higher values than the penny and twopenny
issue. In at least one work of fiction, however, the
impression is conveyed that the latter firm from the
first enjoyed the monopoly of stamp production of
all values.

About midway in the 'fifties a serious fire broke
out on Messrs Perkins & Co.'s premises, and much
valuable material was destroyed. Investigation of
the salvage showed that barely two days' supply of
stamps remained in stock ; and some anxiety was
felt lest these should become exhausted before fresh
ones could be produced, as even a temporary return
to prepayment by coin of the realm would by this
time have been found irksome. But with charac-
teristic zeal, the firm at once recommenced work,
and only a few people were ever aware how peril-
ously near to deadlock the modern postal machine
had come. It was after this fire that the crimson
hue of the penny adhesive was altered to a sort of
brick - red. The change of colour — one of several
such changes exhibited by the red stamp — is duly
recorded in Messrs Stanley Gibbon & Co.'s catalogue,
though the probably long - forgotten accident with
which it would seem to be connected is not mentioned.

1 Fifteen years after the issue of the first stamps, during which
time more than 3,000,000,000 had been printed, it was deemed
advisable to make a second matrix by transfer from the first. It
had become necessary to deepen the graven lines by hand, but
the work was so carefully done that the deviation in portraiture
was very slight.

202 SIR ROWLAND HILL

The reasons for the four months' long delay in
the issue of the stamps were twofold. They were,
first, the more or less open hostility of the Post
officials to both reform and reformer, which, as has
been stated, caused all sorts of hindrances to be
strewn in the path of progress ; and, secondly, the
apprehension still felt by the Government that the
public would not take kindly to prepayment. The
stamps ought, of course, to have been issued in
time to be used by the loth January 1840, when
the new system came into force. When they were
at last forthcoming, none were forwarded to the
receiving offices till complaint was made. The fault
was then found to lie with the wording of the
Treasury letter giving the requisite directions.
Later, another difficulty arose. The Stamp Office
persisted in issuing the stamped covers in entire
sheets as they were printed, and the Post Office
refused to supply them uncut to the receivers. Three
days alone were wasted over this wrangle. A week
later the Post Office, which had formally undertaken
the distribution of the covers, discovered that such
work was beyond its powers. For a month after
the first issue of the stamps the receiving office;
remained unsupplied.

While the Government and others still cherished
the delusion that the recipient of a letter would feel
insulted if denied the time - honoured privilege oi
paying for it, the delayed publication of the stamps
was less to be regretted since it enabled the experi-
ment to be first tried with money only.

The official forecast was at fault. From the very

THE STAMPS 203

start, and with the best will in the world, the public,
when posting letters, put down pennies and missives
together, and when the stamps — called by would-be
wits the " Government sticking-plasters" —at last
appeared, the difficulty was not to persuade people
to make use of them, but to get them supplied fast
enough to meet the popular demand.

While the stamps were still new that large section
of mankind which never reads public instructions was
occasionally at a loss where to affix the adhesive.
Any corner of the envelope but the right one would
be chosen, or, not infrequently, the place at the
back partly occupied by the old-fashioned seal or
wafer. Even the most painstaking of people were
sometimes puzzled, and a certain artist, accustomed,
like all his brethren of the brush, to consider that
portion of his canvas the right hand which faced his
left, was so perplexed that he carried to the nearest
post office his letter and stamp, knocked up the clerk,
and when the latter's face appeared at the little
unglazed window of the ugly wooden screen which
is now superseded everywhere, perhaps save at
railway booking offices, by the more civilised open
network, asked politely, " Which do you call the right
hand of a letter?" "We've no time here for stupid
jokes," was the surly answer, and the window shut
again directly.

A similar rebuff was administered to a man
who, while travelling, called for letters at the post
office of a provincial town. He was the unfortunate
possessor of an "impossible" patronymic. "What
name ? " demanded the supercilious clerk. " Snooks,"

204 SIR ROWLAND HILL

replied the applicant ; and down went the window
panel with a bang, accompanied by a forcibly
expressed injunction not to bother a busy man with
idiotic jests.

To the post office of, at that time, tiny Ambleside,
came one day a well-to-do man to buy a stamp to
put on the letter he was about to post. " Is this
new reform going to last ? " he asked the postmaster.
"Certainly," was the reply; "it is quite established."
" Oh, well, then," said the man, resolved to give
the thing generous support, "give me three stamps!"
Not much of a story to tell, perhaps, but significant
of the small amount of letter-writing which in pre-
penny postage days went on even among those well-
to-do people who were not lucky enough to enjo
the franking privilege.

The postal employees also showed their strange-
ness to the new order of things by frequently for-
getting to cancel the stamps when the letters bearing
them passed through the post — thereby enabling dis
honest people to defraud the Department by causing
the unobliterated labels to perform another journey
Many correspondents, known and unknown, sent
Rowland Hill, in proof of this carelessness, envelopes
which bore such stamps. Once a packet bearing
four uncancelled stamps reached him.

The Mulready envelope had met with the cordial
approbation of the artist's fellow Royal Academicians
when it was exhibited in Council previous to its
official acceptance ; though one defect, palpable to
any one of fairly discerning ability, had apparently
escaped the eighty possibly somnolent eyes belong-

•

THE STAMPS 205

ing to " the Forty " - that among the four winged
messengers whom Britannia is sending forth in
different directions seven legs only are apportioned.
The envelope failed to please the public ; it was
mercilessly satirised and caricatured, and ridicule
eventually drove it out of use. So vast a number
of " Mulreadies " remained in stock2 however, that,
on their withdrawal, a machine had to be constructed
to destroy them. There were no philatelists then
to come to their rescue.

Forgery of the stamps being out of the question,
fraudulent people devoted their energies to getting
rid of the red ink used to obliterate the black
"pennies" in order to affix these afresh to letters
as new stamps. The frauds began soon after the
first issue of the adhesives, for by the 2ist of May
my father was already writing in his diary of the
many ingenious tricks which were practised. Cheat-
ing the Post Office had so long been an established
rule, that even when postage became cheap, and
the public shared its benefits impartially — peer and
Parliamentarian now being favoured no more highly
than any other class — the evil habit did not at once
die out.

, In some cases the fraud was palpable and un-
abashed. For example, Lord John Russell one
day received a sheet of paper, the label on which
had been washed so mercilessly that the Queen's
features were barely discernible. The difficulty of
dealing with the trouble was, of course, intensified
by the fact that whereas the stamps were impressed
on the paper by powerful machinery, and had had

206 SIR ROWLAND HILL

time to dry, the obliterations were made by hand,1
and were fresh — a circumstance which, in view of
the tenacity of thoroughly dried ink, gave a great
advantage to the dishonest.

At this juncture an ink invented by a Mr Parsons
was favourably reported on as an obliterant, but it
shortly yielded to the skill of Messrs Perkins & Co. ;
and the stamp - cleaning frauds continuing, several
of our leading scientific men, including Faraday,
were consulted. As a result, new obliterating inks,
red and black, were successively produced, tested,
and adopted, but only for a while. Some of the
experiment-makers lived as far off as Dublin and
Aberdeen ; and Dr Clark, Professor of Chemistry
at the University of the latter city, came forward
on his own account, and showed his interest in the
cause by making or suggesting a number of e^peri-
ments. Many people, indeed, went to work volun-
tarily, for the interest taken in the matter was
widespread, and letters offering suggestions poure<
in from many quarters. But apparently the chemi-
cally skilled among the rogues were abler than thos<
employed by the officials, since the " infallible "
recipes had an unlucky knack of turning out dism;
failures. Therefore, after consultation with Faraday,
it was resolved that, so soon as the stock of stamp;

1 And a hasty hand, too, for in those days of manual labour then
was a keen race among the stampers as to who, in a given time,
should make the greatest number of obliterations. The man whose
record stood habitually highest was usually called on to exhibit
his prowess to visitors who were being escorted over the Depart-
ment.

THE STAMPS 207

on hand became exhausted, an aqueous ink should
be used both for the stamps and for the oblitera-
tion, ordinary black printing ink being meanwhile
employed for the latter process. Professor Phillips
and Mr Bacon, of the firm of Perkins & Co., at
the same time undertook to procure a destructive
oleaginous ink to be used in the printing of the new
stamp.

It was hoped that thoroughly good printer's ink
would be found efficacious for obliterating purposes ;
but ere long a chemist named Watson completely
removed the obliteration. He then proposed for
use an obliterative ink of his own invention, which
was tried, but proved to be inconveniently successful,
since it both injured the paper and effaced the
writing near the stamp. Its use had therefore to be
abandoned.

The trouble did not slacken, for while Mr Watson
was laboriously removing the black printing ink from
the black pennies, and making progress so slowly
that, at a like rate, the work could not have repaid
any one, honest or the reverse, for the time spent
upon it, Mr Ledingham, my father's clerk, who had
throughout shown great enthusiasm in the cause,
was cleaning stamps nine times as fast, or at the
rate of one a minute — a process rapid enough to
make the trick remunerative.

Ultimately, it occurred to Rowland Hill that "as
the means which were successful in removing the
printing ink obliterant were different from those which
discharged Perkins' ink, a secure ink might perhaps

208

SIR ROWLAND HILL

be obtained by simply mixing the two."1 The device
succeeded, the ink thus formed proving indestruct-
ible ; and all seemed likely to go well, when a fresh
and very disagreeable difficulty made its unwelcom<
appearance. To enable this ink to dry with sufficient
rapidity, a little volatile oil had been introduced, an<
its odour was speedily pronounced by the postal
officials to be intolerable. Happily, means were
found for removing the offence ; and at length, a
little before the close of the year, all requiremem
seemed to be met.2

It had been a time of almost incessant anxiety.
For more than six months there had been the earlie]
trouble of securing a suitable design for the stamps,
and then, when selected, the long delay in effecting
their issue ; and now, during another six months,
this later trouble had perplexed the officials and theii
many sympathisers. In the end, the colour of th<
black penny was changed to red, the twopenny stam]
remaining blue. Thenceforth, oleaginous inks wen
used both for printing and for obliterating ; the in]
for the latter purpose being made so much mon
tenacious than that used to print the stamp that an]
attempt to remove the one from the other, even ii
the destruction of both did not follow, must at least
secure the disappearance of the Queen's head,
simple enough remedy for the evil, and, like man;
another simple remedy, efficacious ; yet some of th<
cleverest men in the United Kingdom took half
year to find it out.

1 Rowland Hill's Journal, 9th November 1840.

2 "Life," 1.399-407.

THE STAMPS 209

^Before trial it was impossible to tell which of
the two kinds of stamps would be preferred : the
one impressed upon the envelope and so forming a
part of it, or the other, the handy little adhesive.
Rowland Hill expected the former to be the favourite
on account of its being already in place, and there-
fore less time-consuming. Moreover, as a man gifted
with a delicate sense of touch, the tiny label which,
when wet, is apt to adhere unpleasantly to the fingers,
attracted him less than the cleanlier embossed stamp
on the envelope ; and perhaps he thought it not
unlikely that other people would be of like mind.
But from the first the public showed a preference for
the adhesive ; and to this day the more convenient
cover with the embossed head has been far seldomer
in demand. It is not impossible that if the present
life of feverish hurry and high pressure continues,
and even intensifies, the reformer's expectations as
regards the choice of stamps may yet be realised.
It may have been the expression of this merely
"pious opinion" on his part which gave rise to some
absurd fables — as, for instance, that he recommended
the adhesive stamp "very hesitatingly," and only at
the eleventh hour ; that he sought to restrict the
public to the use of the impressed stamp because
he preferred it himself; and rubbish of like sort.

From the time that Rowland Hill first planned
his reform till the day when his connection with the
Post Office terminated, his aim ever was to make
of that great Department a useful servant to the
public ; and all who knew what was his career there
were well aware that when at length he had beaten

2IO

SIR ROWLAND HILL

down opposition, that object was attained. He was
the last man likely to allow personal predilections or
selfish or unworthy considerations of any kind to
stand before the welfare of the service and of his
country.

From a Photograph by Maull and Polybla-nTc.

SIR ROWLAND HILL.

To face p. 211.

CHAPTER VII

AT THE POST OFFICE

As the evident weakening of Peel's Government
became more marked, the thoughts of the man who
had been sacrificed to official intrigues, and unto
whom it was, as he pathetically writes, " grief and
bitterness to be so long kept aloof from my true
work," turned longingly towards the Post Office and
to his insecurely established and only partially
developed plan. With a change of Ministry, better
things must surely come.

His hopes were realised. In 1846 the Peel
Administration fell, and Lord John (afterwards Earl)
Russell became Prime Minister. The public voice,
clearly echoed in the Press, demanded Rowland Hill's
recall to office, there to complete his reform.1

One of the first intimations he received of his

1 The people of to-day who have never known the old postal
system can have no idea of the unanimity and strength of that
voice. Memory of the former state of things was still fresh in men's
minds ; and, with perhaps one exception, no person wished for its
return. " Hill, you are the most popular man in the kingdom,"
one day exclaimed an old friend. The exception — there might have
been more than one, but if so, we were none the wiser — was one
of the Bentincks who, so late as the year 1857, suggested in the
House of Commons a return to franking on the score that penny

211

212 SIR ROWLAND HILL

probable restoration was a letter from Mr Warburton
advising him to be " within call if wanted." A dis-
cussion had risen overnight in Parliament. Mr
Duncombe had complained of the management of
the Post Office, and so had Mr Parker, the Secretary
to the Treasury. The new Postmaster - General,
Lord Clanricarde, it was reported, had found "the
whole establishment in a most unsatisfactory con-
dition " ; and the new Prime Minister himself was
" by no means satisfied with the state of the Post
Office," and did not "think the plans of reform
instituted by Mr Hill had been sufficiently carried
out." Messrs Hume and Warburton urged Mr Hill's
recall.1

Several of the good friends who had worked so
well for the reform both within and without Parliament
also approached the new Government, which, indeed,
was not slow to act ; and my father entered, not, as
before, the Treasury, but his fitter field of work — the
Post Office. The whirligig of time was indeed bring-
ing in his revenges. An entire decade had elapsed
since the reformer, then hopeful and enthusiastic,
inwardly digested the cabful of volumes sent him by
Mr Wallace, and dictated to Mrs Hill the pages of

postage was one of the greatest jobs and greatest financial mistakes
ever perpetrated. Sir Francis Baring advised Mr Bentinck to try
to bring back the old postal rates, when he would see what the
country thought of the proposal. — (" Hansard," cxlvi. 188, 189.)

1 By this time Mr Wallace had retired from public life, and only
a short while later became involved in pecuniary difficulties. By the
exertions of his friends and admirers, an annuity was secured to him
— a provision which, though small in comparison with his former
prosperity, placed the venerable ex-Parliamentarian well above want.
He died in 1855, aged eighty-two.

AT THE POST OFFICE 213

" Post Office Reform." He had at the time been
denied admission to the Post Office when seeking
for information as to the working of the old system
he was destined to destroy. He now found himself
installed within the official precincts, and in something
resembling authority there.

Thus before the passing of the year 1846 he was
able to comment yet further in his diary on the
curious parallel between his own treatment and that
of Dockwra and Palmer. " Both these remarkable
men," he wrote, "saw their plans adopted, were
themselves engaged to work them out, and sub-
sequently, on the complaint of the Post Office, were
turned adrift by the Treasury." We "were all alike
in the fact of dismissal. ... I alone was so far
favoured as to be recalled to aid in the completion
of my plan."1

At the time when Dockwra, the most hardly
used of all, was driven from office a ruined man,
and with the further aggravation of responsibility for
the costs of a trial which had been decided unjustly
against him, the " merry monarch's " numerous progeny
were being lavishly provided for out of the national
purse. The contrast between their treatment and
that of the man who had been one of the greatest
benefactors to his country renders his case doubly
hard.

In an interview which Mr Warburton had with

the Postmaster-General preparatory to Rowland Hill's

appointment, the Member for Bridport pointed to

the fact that his friend was now fifty-one years of

1 " Life," ii. 9, 10.

214 SIR ROWLAND HILL

age, and that it would be most unfair to call on him
to throw up his present assured position only to run
risk of being presently " shelved " ; and further urged
the desirability of creating for him the post of Adviser
to the Post Office, in order that his time should not
be wasted in mere routine duty. At the same time,
Mr Warburton stipulated that Rowland Hill should
not be made subordinate to the inimical permanent
head of the Office. Had Mr Warburton's advice
been followed, it would have been well for the incom-
pleted plan, the reformer, and the public service.
Rowland Hill himself suggested, by way of official
designation, the revival of Palmer's old title of
Surveyor-General to the Post Office ; but the pro-
posal was not received with favour. Ultimately he
was given the post of Secretary to the Postmaster-
General, a title especially created for him, which
lapsed altogether when at last he succeeded to
Colonel Maberly's vacated chair. The new office was
of inferior rank and of smaller salary than his rival's ;
and, as a natural consequence, the old hindrances and
thwartings were revived, and minor reforms were
frequently set aside or made to wait for several years
longer. Happily, it was now too late for the penny
post itself to be swept away ; the country would
not have allowed it ; and in this, the seventh year
of its establishment, its author was glad to record
that the number of letters delivered within 12
miles of St Martin's-le- Grand was already equal to
that delivered under the old system throughout the
whole United Kingdom.

By 1846 Rowland Hill was occupying a better

AT THE POST OFFICE 215

pecuniary position than when in 1839 he went to the
Treasury. He had made his mark in the railway
world ; and just when rumours of his retirement
therefrom were gaining ground, the South Western
Railway Board of Directors offered him the manager-
ship of that line. The salary proposed was unusually
high, and the invitation was transparently veiled
under a Desdemona-like request that he would recom-
mend to the Board some one with qualifications " as
much like your own as possible." But he declined
this and other flattering offers, resigned his three
directorships, and thus relinquished a far larger
income than that which the Government asked him
to accept. The monetary sacrifice, however, counted
for little when weighed in the balance against the
prospect of working out his plan.

His first interview with Lord Clanricarde was a
very pleasant one ; and he left his new chiefs presence
much impressed with his straightforward, business-like
manner.

On this first day at St Martin's-le-Grand's Colonel
Maberly and Rowland Hill met, and went through
the ceremony of shaking hands. But the old
animosity still possessed considerable vitality. The
hatchet was but partially interred.

With Lord Clanricarde my father worked har-
moniously ; the diarist after one especially satis-
factory interview writing that he " never met with
a public man who is less afraid of a novel and
decided course of action."

Early in his postal career, my father, by Lord
Clanricarde's wish, went to Bristol to reorganise

216 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the Post Office there, the first of several similar
missions to other towns. In nearly every case he
found one condition of things prevailing : an office
small, badly lighted, badly ventilated, and with
defective sanitary arrangements ; the delivery of
letters irregular and unnecessarily late ; the mail
trains leaving the provincial towns at inconvenient
hours ; and other vexatious regulations, or lack of
regulations. He found that by an annual expenditure
of ^125 Bristol's chief delivery of the day could be
completed by nine in the morning instead of by noon.
Although unable to carry out all the improvements
needed, he effected a good deal, and on the termina-
tion of his visit received the thanks of the clerks and
letter-carriers.1

In 1847 a thorough revision of the money order
system was entrusted to him ; and, thenceforth, that
office came entirely under his control. Seventeen
years later, Lord Clanricarde, in the Upper House,
paid his former lieutenant, then about to retire, a
handsome tribute of praise, saying, among other
things, that, but for Mr Hill, the business of that
office could hardly have been much longer carried on.
No balance had been struck, and no one knew what
assets were in hand. On passing under Mr Hill's
management, the system was altered : four or five
entries for each order were made instead of eleven ;
and official defalcation or fraud, once common, was
now no more heard of.2

1 "Life,"ii. 58.

2 The Times (Parliamentary Debates), i5th June 1864. The
Money Order Office dates from 1792. It was first known as

AT THE POST OFFICE 217

Lord Clanricarde placed the management of that
office under my father's command in order that the
latter should have a free hand ; and it was settled
that all returns to Parliament should be submitted
to Rowland Hill before being sent to the Treasury,
with leave to attack any that seemed unfair to penny
postage. Previous to this act of friendliness and
justice on the Postmaster-General's part, papers had
generally been submitted to the permanent head of
the office and even to officers of lower rank, but had
been withheld from the reformer's observation. l

" Eternal vigilance " is said to be the necessary
price to pay for the preservation of our liberties ;
and, half a century ago, a like vigilance had to be
exercised whenever and wherever the interests of the
postal reform were concerned.

The arrears in the Money Order Departments of

" Stow & Co.," being started as a private undertaking by three
Post Office clerks ; and its mission was to enable small sums of
money to be safely transmitted to our sailors and soldiers. Later,
all classes of the community were included in the benefit, the
remittances to be forwarded being still restricted to small sums.
Each of the three partners advanced ;£i,ooo to float the enterprise,
and division of the profits gave to each about £200 a year. The
commission charged was 8d. in the pound, of which 3d. each went to
the two postmasters who received and paid the orders, and 2d.
to the partners. The Postmaster-General sanctioned the measure,
which clearly supplied a felt want, but refrained from interference
with its management. In 1838 "Stow & Co." ceased to exist,
becoming thenceforth an official department, and the then partners
receiving compensation for the surrender of their monopoly. The
fees were thereupon fixed at 6d. for sums not exceeding ^£2, and
is. 6d. for sums of £2 to ^"5, the rates being still further reduced
in 1840.

1 "Life,"ii. 59, 60.

2l8

SIR ROWLAND HILL

the London and provincial offices were so serious that
to clear them off would, it was declared, fully employ
thirty-five men for four years. The Post Office had
always maintained that the Money Order Department
yielded a large profit ; but a return sent to Parliament
in 1848 showed that the expenditure of the year
before the change of management exceeded the
receipts by more than ;£ 10,000. In 1849 my father
expressed "a confident expectation" that in the
course of the year the Money Order Office would
become self-supporting. By 1850 that hope was
realised. By 1852 the office showed a profit of
,£11,664, thereby, in six years, converting the
previous loss into a gain of more than ,£22,000 j1
and during the last year of Rowland Hill's life
(1878-79) the profits were ,£39,000.

A reduction of size in the money order forms and
letters of advice, and the abolition of duplicate advices
effected a considerable saving in stationery alone ;
while the reduction of fees and the greater facilities
for the transmission of money given by cheap postage
raised the amount sent, in ten years only, twenty-
fold. In 1839 about ^313,000 passed through the
post ; and in 1 864, the year of my father's resigna-
tion, ,£16,494,000. By 1879 the sum had risen to
^"27,000,000 ; and it has gone on steadily increasing.

Perhaps the following extract from Rowland Hill's
journal is satisfactory, as showing improvement in
account-keeping, etc. "July 8th, 1853. — A recent
return to Parliament of the number and cost of
prosecutions [for Post Office offences] from 1848 to
1 "Life,"ii. 257.

AT THE POST OFFICE 219

1852 inclusive, shows an enormous decrease — nearly,
I think, in the ratio of three to one. This very
satisfactory result is, I believe, mainly owing to the
improved arrangements in the Money Order Office."

The new postal system, indeed, caused almost a
revolution in official account - keeping. Under the
old system the accounts of the provincial postmasters
were usually from three to six months in arrear,
and no vouchers were demanded for the proper
disbursement of the money with which the post-
masters were credited. In consequence of this
dilatoriness, the officials themselves were often
ignorant of the actual state of affairs, or were some-
times tempted to divert the public funds to their
own pockets, while the revenue was further injured
by the delay in remitting balances. Under the
new system each postmaster rendered his account
weekly, showing proper vouchers for receipts and
payments and the money left in hand, to the smallest
possible sum. This improvement was accompanied
by lighter work to a smaller number of men, and
a fair allowance of holiday to each of them.

When, in 1851, my father's attention was turned
to the question of facilitating life insurance for the
benefit of the staff, and especially of its humbler
members, it was arranged with Sir George Cornwall
Lewis,2 at that time Chancellor of the Exchequer,
that, to aid in making up the requisite funds, the
proceeds of unclaimed money orders, then averaging

1 "Life"ii. 260.

2 Reputed author of the well-known saying that " Life would
be endurable were it not for its pleasures."

220 SIR ROWLAND HILL

;£i,iOO a year, and all such money found in
"dead" letters as could not be returned to their
writers, should be used. Accumulations brought the
fund up to about ,£12,000. In this manner "The
Post Office Widows' and Orphans' Fund Society"
was placed on a firm footing. A portion of the
void order fund was also employed in rescuing from
difficulties another society in the London office called
"The Letter-Carriers' Burial Fund."1

Although in 1857 my father, with the approval
of Lord Colchester, the then Postmaster - General,
had proposed the extension of the money order
system to the Colonies, it was not till the Canadian
Government took the initiative in 1859 that the
Treasury consented to try the experiment. It proved
so successful that the measure was gradually extended
to all the other colonies, and even to some foreign
countries.

Like Palmer, Rowland Hill was a born organiser,
and work such as that effected in the Money Order
Office was so thoroughly congenial that it could
scarcely fail to be successful. The race of born
organisers can hardly be extinct. Is it vain to
hope that one may yet arise to set in order the
said - to - be - unprofitable Post Office Savings Bank,
whose abolition is sometimes threatened ? As a
teacher of thrift to one of the least thrifty of nations,

1 "Life," ii. 304-307. In 1871 the amount of unclaimed
money orders was ,£3,390. In that year the Lords of the Treasury
put an end to this disposal of unclaimed money except in regard
to the then existing recipients of the aid; and the accumulated
capital, together with the interest thereon, about ,£20,707, was paid
into the Exchequer. — (Editor, G.B.H.'s, note at p. 306.)

AT THE POST OFFICE 221

it is an institution that should be mended rather
than ended. Mending must surely be possible when,
for example, each transaction of that Bank costs
7'55d. exclusive of postage — or so we are told —
while other savings banks can do their work at a
far lower price.1

The following story is illustrative of the strange
want of common-sense which distinguishes the race,
especially when posting missives. " Mr Ramsey,
(missing-letter clerk)," writes Rowland Hill in his
diary of 27th May 1847, "has brought me a
packet containing whole banknotes to the amount
of ,£1,500 so carelessly made up that they had all
slipped out, and the packet was addressed to some
country house in Hereford, no post - town being
named. It had found its way, after much delay,
into the post office at Ross, and had been sent to
London by the postmistress."

It is not often that the head of so dignified and
peaceful an institution as the Post Office is seen
in a maimed condition, and that condition the result
of fierce combat. Nevertheless, in that stirring time
known as "the year of revolutions" (1848), a
newly-appointed chief of the French Post Office, in
the pleasant person of M. Thayer, arrived in this
country on official business. He came supported on
crutches, having been badly wounded in the foot
during the June insurrection in Paris. He told
us that his family came originally from London, and
that one of our streets was named after them. If,
as was surmised, he made a pilgrimage to Marylebone
1 "Life," ii. 365. (Note by its Editor.)

222 SIR ROWLAND HILL

to discover it, it must have looked to one fresh from
Paris a rather dismal thoroughfare.

About 1849 Rowland Hill instituted periodical
meetings of the Post Office Surveyors to discuss ques-
tions which had hitherto been settled by the slower
method of writing minutes. These postal parliaments
were so satisfactory that henceforth they were often
held. They proved "both profitable and pleasant,
increased the interest of the surveyors in the work
of improvement, and by the collision of many opinions,
broke down prejudices, and overthrew obstacles."

One of the greatest boons which, under my father's
lead, was secured to the letter-carriers, sorters, post-
masters, and others, all over the kingdom, was the
all but total abolition of Post Office Sunday labour.
In a single day 450 offices in England and Wales
were relieved of a material portion of their Sunday
duties. Three months later the measure was extended
to Ireland and Scotland, 234 additional offices being
similarly relieved. While these arrangements were in
process of settlement, Rowland Hill, in the autumn
of 1849, resolved to still further curtail Sunday
labour. Hitherto the relief had been carried out in
the Money Order Department only, but it was now
decided to close the offices entirely between the
hours of ten and five. To make this easier, it became
necessary to provide for the transmission of a certain
class of letters through London on the Sunday, and
to ask a few men to lend their services on this
account. Compulsion there was none : every man
was a volunteer ; and for this absence of force my
father, from beginning to end of the movement,

AT THE POST OFFICE 223

resolutely bargained. Previous to the enactment of
this measure of relief, 27 men had been regularly
employed every Sunday at the General Post Office.
Their number was temporarily increased to 52 in
order that some 5,829 men — all of whom were com-
pulsory workers — should elsewhere be relieved, each
of some five - and - three - quarters hours of labour
every "day of rest." In a few months, all the
arrangements being complete, and the plan got into
working order, the London staff was reduced to
little more than half the number employed before
the change was made. Ultimately, the services even
of this tiny contingent were reduced, four men
sufficing; and Sunday labour at the Post Office
was cut down to its minimum amount — a state of
things which remained undisturbed during my father's
connection with that great public Department.

The actual bearing of this beneficent reform was,
strange to say, very generally misunderstood, and
perhaps more especially by " The Lord's Day Society."
Thus for some months Rowland Hill was publicly
I denounced as a " Sabbath - breaker " and a friend
and accomplice of His Satanic Majesty. The mis-
understanding was not altogether discouraged by
some of the old Post Office irreconcilables ; but it is
only fair to the memory of the chief opponent to
record the fact that when the ill-feeling was at its
height Colonel Maberly called his clerks together,
told them that, owing to unjust attacks, the Depart-
ment was in danger, and exhorted them to stand
forth in its defence.1

1 "Life," ii. 122. On the famous loth of April 1848 (Chartist

ill

\

224 SIR ROWLAND HILL

When the turmoil began the Postmaster- General
was inclined to side with some of the leading officials
who advocated compulsion should the number volun-
teering for the London work be insufficient. Happily,
the supply was more than ample. But when the
trouble subsided Lord Clanricarde generously admitted
that he had been wrong and my father right.

Some of the provincial postmasters and other
officials, misunderstanding the case, joined in the

day) Colonel Maberly likewise showed his martial spirit and strong
sense of the virtue of discipline when he requested Rowland Hill
to place his own clerks and those of the Money Order Office — i
all about 250 — under his, the Colonel's, command, thus making u
a corps of special constables some 1,300 strong. All over Londo
on and before that day, there was great excitement ; a large supply
of arms was laid in, defences were erected at Governmental and
other public buildings, very little regular work was done, and there
was any amount of unnecessary scare, chiefly through the alarmist
disposition of the Duke of Wellington — seldom, rumour said, averse
from placing a town in a more or less state of siege, and ever ready
to urge upon successive Governments the desirability of spendin
huge sums on fortifications whose destiny ere long was to becom
obsolete — though partly also because there were many people sti
living who could remember the Gordon riots immortalised i
" Barnaby Rudge," and who feared a repetition of their excesse
But the Chartists were a different set of men from Gordon's "ta
rag, and bobtail" followers. On the morning of the loth, m
father, driving to the Post Office, came up in Holborn with the long
procession marching in the direction of Kennington Common (now
a park), preparatory to presenting themselves with their petitio
at the Houses of Parliament. Calling on the cabman to driv
slowly, my father watched the processionists with keen interest, an
was much struck with their steady bearing, evident earnestness, an
the bright, intelligent countenances of many of them. On clos
inspection, not a few terrible revolutionists are found to loo
surprisingly like other people, though the comparison does no
invariably tell in favour of those other people.

AT THE POST OFFICE 225

clamour, and went far on the way to defeat a
measure planned for their relief. Others were
more discerning, and the postmaster of Plymouth
wrote to say that at his office alone thirty men
would be relieved by an enactment which was
"one of the most important in the annals of the
Post Office."

The agitation showed how prone is the public
to fly to wrong conclusions. Here was Rowland
Hill striving to diminish Sunday work, and being
denounced as if he was seeking to increase it ! It goes
without saying that, during the agitation, numerous
letters, generally anonymous, and sometimes violently
abusive, deluged the Department, and especially the
author of the relief; and that not even Rowland Hill's
family were spared the pain of receiving from candid
and, of course, entirely unknown friends letters of the
most detestable description. Truly, the ways of the
unco gude are past finding out.

While the conflict raged, many of the clergy
proved no wiser than the generality of their flocks,
and were quite as vituperative. Others, to their
honour be it recorded, tried hard to stem the tide
of ignorance and bigotry. Among these enlightened'
men were the Hon. and Rev. Grantham Yorke, rector
of St Philip's, Birmingham ; the Professor Henslow
already mentioned ; and Dr Vaughan, then head-
master of Harrow and, later, Dean of Llandaff. All
three, although at the time personal strangers, wrote
letters which did their authors infinite credit, and
which the recipient valued highly. The veteran free-
trader, General Peronnet Thompson, also contributed

226

SIR ROWLAND HILL

a series of able articles on the subject to the then
existing Sun.

Some of the newspapers at first misunderstood
the question quite as thoroughly as did the public ;
but, so far as we ever knew, only the Leeds Mercury
— unto whose editor, in common with other editors,
had been sent a copy of the published report on the
reduction of Sunday labour — had the frankness to
express regret for having misrepresented the situa-
tion.1 Other newspapers were throughout more
discriminating; and the Times, in its issue of 25th
April 1850, contained an admirable and lengthy ex-
position of the case stated with very great clearness
and ability.2

" Carrying out a plan of relief which I had sug-
gested as a more general measure when at the
Treasury," says Rowland Hill in his diary, " I pro-

1 The Mercury's article (25th April 1850) was so good that
it seems worth while to quote some of it. " Macaulay informs us
that the post, when first established, was the object of violent
invective as a manifest contrivance of the Pope to enslave the
souls of Englishmen ; and most books of history or anecdote will
supply stories equally notable. But we really very much doubt
whether any tale of ancient times can match the exhibition of
credulity which occurred in our own country, and under our own
eyes, within these last twelve months. . . . Nearly 6,000 people
have been relieved from nearly six hours' work every Sunday by
the operation of a scheme which was denounced as a deliberate
encouragement to Sabbath-breaking and profanity."

2 A propos of never answering attacks in the Press and elsewhere,
my father was not a little given to quote the opinion of one of
the Post officials who " goes so far as to declare that if he found
himself charged in a newspaper with parricide, he would hold his
tongue lest the accusation should be repeated next day with the
aggravation of matricide." — "Life," ii. 235.

AT THE POST OFFICE 227

posed to substitute a late Saturday night delivery
in the nearer suburbs for that on Sunday morning.
By this plan more than a hundred men would be
forthwith released from Sunday duty in the metro-
politan district alone." l He further comments, perhaps
a little slyly, on the " notable fact that while so
much has been said by the London merchants and
bankers against a delivery where their places of
business are, of course, closed, not a word has been
said against a delivery in the suburbs where they
live." *

To give further relief to Sunday labour, Rowland
Hill proposed "so to arrange the work as to have
the greatest practicable amount of sorting done in
the travelling offices on the railways ; the earlier
portion ending by five on Sunday morning, and the
later not beginning till nine on Sunday evening.
The pursuit of this object led to a singular device."3
He was puzzling over the problem how to deal with
letters belonging to good-sized towns too near to
London to allow of sorting on the way. The rail-
way in case was the London and North-Western ;
the towns St Albans and Watford. The thought
suddenly flashed upon him that the easiest way out
of the difficulty would be to let the down night mail
train to Liverpool receive the St Albans and Watford
up mails to London ; and that on arrival at some
more remote town on the road to Liverpool they

1 This relief, proposed in November 1849, became an accom-
plished fact a few days before the year died out.

2 "Life, "it. 138.
' Ibid. ii. 137.

228 SIR ROWLAND HILL

should be transferred, sorted, to an up train to be
carried to London. No time would be really lost
to the public, because, while the letters were perform-
ing the double journey their destined recipients would
be in bed ; nor would any additional expense or
trouble be incurred. The plan was a success, was
extended to other railways, and the apparently
eccentric proceeding long since became a matter of
everyday occurrence.

In 1851 prepayment in money of postage on
inland letters was abolished at all those provincial
offices where it had thus far been allowed. Early in
the following year the abolition was extended to
Dublin, next to Edinburgh, and, last of all, to London
— thus completing, throughout the United Kingdom,
the establishment of prepayment by stamps alone,
and thereby greatly simplifying the proceedings at all
offices. To save trouble to the senders of many
circulars, the chief office, St Martin's-le-Grand, con-
tinued to receive prepayment in money from 10 A.M.
to 5 P.M., in sums of not less than £2 at a time : an
arrangement, later, extended to other offices.

An extract from Rowland Hill's diary, under
date 2Qth October 1851, says: "A clerkship at
Hong- Kong having become vacant by death, the
Postmaster - General has, on my recommendation,
determined not to fill it, and to employ part of the
saving thus effected in giving to the postmaster and
each of the remaining clerks in turn leave of absence
for a year and a half,1 with full salary, and an allowance

1 In those slower-going days a large part of the holiday would
be taken up by the journey home and back.

AT THE POST OFFICE 229

of ;£ioo towards the expense of the voyage. By
these means, while ample force will still be left, the
poor fellows will have the opportunity of recruiting
their health."

Early in 1852 Rowland Hill also writes in his
diary that " The Postmaster-General has sanctioned
a measure of mine which, I expect, will have the
effect of converting the railway stations in all the
larger towns into gratuitous receiving offices." The
plan, convenient as it has proved, was, however,
long in being carried out.

The agitation to extend penny postage beyond
the limits of the British Isles is much older than
many people suppose. Far back in the 'forties
Elihu Burritt1 strove long and manfully in the cause
of "ocean penny postage" ; and in my father's diary,

1 A frequent and always welcome visitor at my father's house
was this son of America — "the learned blacksmith," as he was
habitually called. He was one of the most interesting as well as
most refreshingly unconventional of men, but was never offensively
unconventional because he was one of "Nature's noblemen."
Sweet-tempered, gentle-mannered, and pure-minded, he won our
regard — affection even — from the first. He could never have been
guilty of uttering an unkind word to any one, not even to those who
were lukewarm on the slavery question, who did not feel inspired
to join the Peace Society, or who were languid in the cause of
"ocean penny postage." On the last-named subject he had, as an
entire stranger, written to my father a long letter detailing his
scheme, and urging the desirability of its adoption ; and it was
this letter which led to our making Elihu Burritt's acquaintance.
He became a great friend of my elder sister, and maintained with
her a many years' long correspondence. Once only do I remember
seeing him angry, and then it was the righteous indignation which
an honest man displays when confronted with a lie. It was when
unto him had been attributed the authorship of my father's plan.

230 SIR ROWLAND HILL

under date 5th March 1853, it is recorded that the
Postmaster - General received a deputation "which
came to urge the extension of penny postage to the
Colonies." l It was a reform long delayed ; and as
usual the Post Office was reproached for not moving
with the times, etc. That a large portion of the
blame lay rather with the great steamship companies,
which have never failed to charge heavily for con-
veyance of the mails, is far too little considered.

But the great steamship companies are not alone
in causing the Post Office to be made a scapegoat
for their own sins in the way of exacting heavy pay-
ments. In 1853 Rowland Hill gave evidence before
a Parliamentary committee to consider railway and

He would have nothing to do with a fraudulent claim to which
sundry other men have assented kindly enough, or have even, with
unblushing effrontery, appropriated of their own accord. Elihu
Burritt and Cardinal Mezzofanti were said to be the two greatest
linguists of the mid-nineteenth century ; and I know not how many
languages and dialects each had mastered — the one great scholar a
distinguished prince of the Roman Catholic Church, the other an
American of obscure birth and an ex-blacksmith. Another trans-
atlantic postal reformer, though one interested in the reform as
regarded his own country rather than ours, was Mr Pliny Miles, who
in outward appearance more closely resembled the typical American
of Dickens's days than that of the present time. In his own land
Mr Miles travelled far and wide, wrote much, spoke frequently, and
crossed the Atlantic more than once to study the postal question
here. He was an able man, and a good talker. I well remember
his confident prophecy, some few years before the event, of
fratricidal war between the Northern and Southern States; how
bitterly he deplored the coming strife ; and how deeply impressed
were all his hearers both with the matter and manner of his
discourse. I believe he had " crossed the bar " before hostilities
broke out.

1 "Life,"ii. 241.

AT THE POST OFFICE 231

canal charges ; and showed that, owing to the strained
relations between the Post Office and the railway
companies, the use of trains for mail conveyance was
so restricted as to injure the public and even the
companies themselves ; also that, while the cost of
carrying passengers and goods had been greatly
reduced on the railways, the charge for carrying the
mails had grown by nearly 300 per cent, although
their weight had increased by only 140 per cent.
He also laid before the Committee a Bill — approved
by two successive Postmasters-General — framed to
prescribe reasonable rates, and laying down a better
principle of arbitration in respect of trains run
at hours fixed by the Postmaster - General. The
Committee, as shown by their Report, mainly
adopted Rowland Hill's views, which were indeed
perfectly just, and, if adopted, would, in his estima-
tion, have reduced the annual expenditure in rail-
way conveyance — then about ^360,000 — by at least
;£ 1 00,000. The proposals were made to secure fair
rates of charge in all new railway bills, but it was
intended to extend the arrangement eventually to
already existing railways. But the railway influence
in Parliament was too strong to allow adoption
of these improvements ; and attempts subsequently
made were unavailing to alter the injurious law
enacted early in the railway era, and intended to
last only till experience of the working of the lines
should have afforded the requisite data for laying
down a scale of charges.1 Being of opinion that, in
order to serve the public more effectually, far greater
1 "Life," ii. 227-230..

232 SIR ROWLAND HILL

use should be made of the railways, the reformer
tried to procure for the Post Office the unrestricted
use of all trains for a moderate fixed charge. Owing,
however, to the existing law, the uncertainty of rates
of payment, the excessive awards frequently made,
and other causes, this useful measure was not adopted,
with the result that the subsidies to the companies
went on increasing in magnitude.

In the same year the Great Northern Railway had
spontaneously begun to run a train at night, at such
speed as to outstrip the night mail on the London and
North-Western line. Believing that the object was
to tempt the public into agitating for the use of the
rival train and line, my father applied to the North-
Western Railway company for such acceleration as
would obviate the possibility of such a demand being
made. He also suggested the introduction of what
are now called limited mails ; but this idea was not
adopted for some years.1 Till the acceleration was
accomplished the answer to a letter leaving London
by the night mail for Edinburgh or Glasgow could
not be received till the afternoon of the next day
but one.

Increased speed, however, was found to produce
unpunctuality, misunderstandings, and other evils ; and
the public grew dissatisfied. Of course the railway
companies blamed the Post Office, and, equally, of

1 " My notion is," wrote the diarist, "to run a train with only one
or two carriages in addition to those required for the mail, and to
stop only once in about 40 miles." A long distance run in those
days. The speed was fixed at 40 miles an hour, stoppages included.
This was considered very quick travelling in the 'fifties.

AT THE POST OFFICE 233

course, though with better reason, the Post Office
blamed the railway companies. My father proposed
that each side should be subjected to fines whenever
irregularity occurred, and that punctuality should
receive reward. But the proposal was not accepted.
In 1855, however, the attempt was again made to
induce the railway companies to agree to the pay-
ment of mutual penalties in case of unpunctuality,
coupled with reward to the companies, but not to
the Office, for punctual performance. Only one
company — the North British — accepted the proposal,
the result being that the instances of irregularity
were in half a year brought down from 112 to 9,
the company at the same time receiving a reward
of ,£400.

Later, the railway companies agreed to accelerate
their night mails between London and Edinburgh
and Glasgow. An additional payment of some
,£15,000 a year had to be made, but the benefit to
the two countries was so great that the outlay was
not grudged. The effort to extend a like boon to
Ireland was not so successful. The companies which
had begun with moderate demands, suddenly asked
for lessened acceleration and increased remuneration ;
and the Government adopted their views in preference
to those of the Postmaster - General and the postal
reformer. As a natural consequence, an annual
subsidy of over ;£ 100,000 had to be paid in addition
to the necessary cost of provision for letter-sorting in
the trains and steamships. Punctuality also was often
disregarded, and penalties were suspended on the score
of insufficient pier accommodation at Holyhead.

234

SIR ROWLAND HILL

Some of the companies were short-sighted enough
to refuse what would have been remunerative work
offered by the Post Office. On one short line of
23 miles, ,£3,000 per annum was demanded for the
carriage of a night mail ; and, although the Office
offered to furnish a train of its own, as by law any
one was entitled to do, and to pay the appointed tolls,
though legally exempt from so doing — such payment
to be settled by arbitration — the proposal was rejected.
Ultimately, a more circuitous route was adopted at a
third of the cost first demanded.

There was great need of reorganisation and
common - sense rearrangement in these matters.
Why, for instance, when carrying a letter between
Land's End and John O' Groat's should twenty-one
separate contracts, irrespective of engagements with
rural messengers and of plans for the conveyance of
mail-bags to and from railway stations and post offices,
have been required ?

With a view to the reduction of these extravagant
subsidies, Rowland Hill proposed that " Government
should, on ample security, and to a limited extent,
advance loans on the terms on which it could itself
borrow to such companies as were willing to adopt
a reasonable tariff of charge for postal services." He
hoped by these means to reduce the annual payments
to the companies by about ,£250,000. The Duke of
Argyll, then Postmaster- General, and Mr Hutchinson,
Chairman of the Stock Exchange, highly approved of
the plan ; but, though it evoked much interest, and
came up again as a public question more than once
in later years, no progress was made. Were State

AT THE POST OFFICE 235

purchase of the railways to become the law of the
land, solution of the difficulty might yet be discovered.

One of the measures Rowland Hill hoped to see
accomplished was the conveyance of mails on one
of the principal lines by special trains absolutely
limited to Post Office service. The cost would be
moderate if the companies could be induced to join
in an arrangement under which, the bare additional
expense in each instance being ascertained by a
neutral authority, a certain fixed multiple of that
amount should be paid. Captain (afterwards Sir
Douglas) Galton, of the Board of Trade, and Sir
William Cubitt heartily approved of the plan, the
latter estimating the cost in question at is. to is. 3d.
a mile, and advising that two and a half times that
amount should be offered. Under this rule the Post
Office would pay less for the whole train than it
already paid for a small part of one. The plan of
charge by fixed scale found little favour with the
companies ; but the proposed special mail service was
ultimately adopted.

The Postmaster-General (Lord Canning's) Com-
mission in 1853 on the Packet Service — which included
among its members Lord Canning himself and the
then Sir Stafford Northcote — did much useful work,
and published an able Report giving a brief history
of "contract mail-packets"; explaining why, under
older conditions, heavy subsidies were necessary, and
expressing their opinion that, as now the steamers
so employed carry passengers and freight, these large
subsidies could no longer be required. When a new
route has been opened for the extension of commerce,

236

SIR ROWLAND HILL

further continuance of the Service, unless desirable on
account of important political reasons, should depend
on its tendency to become self-supporting. Among
other recommendations made were the omission in
future contracts of many conditions whose effect is
increase of cost ; a reduction of the contract to an
undertaking (subject to penalties for failure) to convey
the mails at fixed periods and with a certain degree
of speed, and an agreement that, except in the case
of a new route, contracts should not be allowed to
exist for a long period.

When at last the management of the Packet
Service was transferred from the Admiralty to the
Post Office, a useful — indeed necessary — reform was
accomplished. While in the hands of the former
Department, the Service had become a source of
very heavy expense, owing, in great part, to its
extension for political reasons very far beyond postal
requirements.

Great inconvenience had resulted also from the
slight control possessed by the Post Office over the
Service. In 1857, for example, the contract with the
West Indian Packet Company was renewed without
the knowledge of either the Postmaster-General or
of Rowland Hill. The absence in the contracts of
stipulations as to punctuality likewise had ill effects.
The most punctual service at this time was that
between Devonport and the Cape of Good Hope,
as the Union Steamship Company, into whose
contract such stipulations had been introduced in
strong form, made during 1859 every one of its
voyages within the appointed time.

AT THE POST OFFICE 237

Investigation of the Packet Service accounts
showed how abundant was the room for diminution of
cost. The annual charge to the Home Government
for conveying the mails to and from Honduras was,
as a consequence, readily cut down from ^"8,000 to
^2,000, and eventually to .£1,500. There had always
been a heavy loss on the foreign and colonial service.
That to the Cape of Good Hope and Natal was
reduced in six years from ^28,000 to ^5,400 per
annum. Much of the merit of this diminution of
cost, as regards the Packet Service, was always
attributed by my father to his youngest brother
Frederic ; and while that department remained under
the latter's control the large annual loss was reduced
by more than ^"200,000 — one-half the sum — by the
cutting down of expenditure, the other half by increased
yield from the correspondence. The cost to the
British taxpayer was further lightened by calling upon
the colonists, who had hitherto been exempt from all
such charges, henceforth to bear their fair share of
the expense. Thus both punctuality and economy
were insisted upon.

About 1857 a persistent demand arose for a mail
service to Australia by the Panama route, the Press
vigorously taking up the agitation, and the Govern-
ment being accused of " red tapeism " because they did
not move in the matter, or not until the outcry grew so
loud that it was deemed expedient to apply to the
shipping agencies for tenders. Being one day at the
Athenaeum Club, Rowland Hill met a friend, a man of
superior education and varied knowledge, who had
long held an important post in the Far East, almost

238 SIR ROWLAND HILL

on the shores of the Pacific. "Why," asked this
friend, " do you not establish an Australian mail
by the Panama route?" " Why should we?" was
the counter-question. " Because it is the shortest,"
replied the friend. At once Rowland Hill proposed
an adjournment to the drawing - room, where stoo(
a large globe ; the test of measurement was applied,
and thereupon was demonstrated the fallacy of a wide-
spread popular belief, founded on ignorance of the
enormous width of the Pacific Ocean — a belief, as this
anecdote shows, shared even by some of those who
have dwelt within reach of its waters.1

But convincing friends was of far less moment than
convincing the public ; and Rowland Hill drew up a
Report on the subject which, backed by the Postmaster-
General, Lord Colchester, had the desired effect of
preventing, for the time being, what would have been
a heavy and useless expenditure of public money.2

1 " It is curious," says my father, " how inveterate is the mistake
in question. Columbus expected to reach Cathay more quickly by
sailing westward, but was stopped by the American continent.
The projectors of the * Darian Scheme ' hoped to enrich themselves
by making their settlement a great entrepot between Europe and the
East Indies ; and Macaulay, in his interesting narrative of the
enterprise (c History of England,' vol. v. p. 200), considers their
mistake to consist mainly in the assumption that Spain would permit
a settlement on its territory; but it seems not to have occurred
to him that, in any event, the scheme was intrinsically hopeless,
seeing that the old route by the Cape of Good Hope, besides
avoiding the cost and delay of transhipment, surpasses the Darian
route even in shortness" ("Life," ii. 292). It is also well known
that the discoverer of certain rapids on the great river St Lawrence
believed himself to be nearing the country of Confucius when
he called them " La Chine."

a Thus the agitation for an "all red route " is a mere revival.

Id, . ^j'rui*

w

AT THE POST OFFICE 239

It is found that great public ceremonies affect
the weekly returns of the number of letters passing
through the post. Sometimes the result is a per-
ceptible increase ; at other times a" decrease. The
funeral of the great Duke of Wellington was held
on the 1 8th November 1852, and " all London "was
in the streets to look at it. The weekly return,
published on the 22nd, showed that the number of
letters dispatched by the evening mail from the
metropolis on that memorable i8th fell off by about
100,000. The next day's letters were probably
increased by an extra 10,000. The revolutionary
year, 1848, also had a deteriorating influence on
correspondence, the return published in 1849 for the
previous twelvemonths showing a smaller increase
than, under ordinary circumstances, might have been
expected.

In 1853 Docker's ingenious apparatus for the
exchange of mail - bags at those railway stations
through which trains pass without stopping was
introduced. The process is described by the postal
reformer as follows : — " The bags to be forwarded,
being suspended from a projecting arm at the station,
are so knocked off by a projection from the train
as to fall into a net which is attached to the mail
carriage, and is for the moment stretched out to
receive them ; while, at the same time, the bags to be
left behind, being hung out from the mail carriage,
are in like manner so struck off as to be caught in a
net fixed at the station ; the whole of this complex
movement being so instantaneous that the uninformed
eye cannot follow it." It was this inability to under-

24o SIR ROWLAND HILL

stand the movement which led to a ridiculous error.
On the first day of the experiment people assembled
in crowds to witness it. At Northallerton " half
Yorkshire " gathered — according to the mail inspector
— and many were under the impression that the
outgoing set of bags they saw hanging to the
projecting arm in readiness for absorption by the
passing train, and. the incoming set hanging out from
the mail carriage, ready to be caught in the net fixed
at the station, were one and the same thing. Though
what useful purpose could be served by the mere
"giving a lift" of a hundred yards or so to one
solitary set of bags is rather hard to perceive.

The invention was not altogether a success, very
heavy bags — especially when the trains were running
at great speed — being sometimes held responsible for
the occurrence of rather serious accidents. It even
became necessary to cease using the apparatus till
the defect, whatever it might be, could be put right.
Several remedies were suggested, but none proved
effectual till my brother, then only twenty-one years
of age, hit upon a simple contrivance which removed
all difficulties, and thenceforth the exchange - bag
apparatus worked well. Sir William Cubitt, who had
unsuccessfully striven to rectify matters, generously
eulogised his youthful rival's work.

The stamp - obliterating machines which super-
seded the old practice of obliteration by hand were
also my brother's invention. In former days the
man who could stamp the greatest number of letters
in a given time was usually invited to exhibit his
prowess when visitors were shown over the office.

AT THE POST OFFICE 241

The old process had never turned out impressions
conspicuous for legibility, and means of improve-
ment had been for some time under consideration.
But it was a trial presided over by Lord Campbell
in 1856 which precipitated matters. An important
question turned upon the exact date at which a
letter had been posted, but the obliterating stamp
on the envelope was too indistinct to furnish the
necessary evidence. Lord Campbell sharply ani-
madverted upon the failure, and his strictures caused
the Duke of Argyll — then Postmaster - General — to
write to Rowland Hill upon the subject. The use
of inferior ink was supposed to be responsible for the
trouble, and various experiments were tried, without
effecting any marked beneficial result. Objection was
made to abolition of the human hand as stamper on
the ground that thus far it had proved to be the
fastest worker. Then my brother's mechanical skill
came to the rescue, and complaints as to clearness
and legibility soon became rare.1 By the machines
the obliterations were made faster than by the best
hand-work, the increase of speed being at least 50
per cent. About the year 1903 my brother's
machines began, I am told, to be superseded by
others which are said to do the work faster even
than his. Judging by some of the obliterations
lately made, presumably by these later machines,
it is evident that, so far as clearness and legibility
are concerned, the newer process is not superior to
the older.

My brother was a born mechanician, and, like

1 Sixth Annual Report of the Postmaster-General.

Q

242 SIR ROWLAND HILL

our uncle Edwin Hill, could, out of an active brain,
evolve almost any machine for which, in some
emergency, there seemed to be need. To give free
scope to Pearson's obvious bent, our father had, in
his son's early youth, caused a large four - stalled
stable adjoining our house at Hampstead to be
altered into a well-equipped workshop ; and in this
many a long evening was spent, the window being
often lighted up some hours after the rest of the
family had retired to bed, and my brother being
occasionally obliged to sing out, through the one
open pane, a cheery " good-night " to the passing
policeman, who paused to see if a burglarious con-
spiracy was being devised during the nocturnal small
hours, from the convenient vantage-ground of the
outhouse.

The dream of my brother's life was to become
a civil engineer, for which profession, indeed, few
young men could have been better fitted ; and the
dream seemed to approach accomplishment when,
during a visit to our father, Sir William (afterwards
first Lord) Armstrong spoke most highly of Pearson's
achievements — he had just put into completed form
two long-projected small inventions — and offered to
take the youth into his own works at Newcastle-on-
Tyne. But the dream was never destined to find
realisation. Sir William's visit and proposal made
a fitting opportunity for the putting to my brother
of a serious question which had been in our father's
head for some time. In his son's integrity, ability,
and affection, Rowland Hill had absolute trust. Were
the younger man but working with him at the Post

AT THE POST OFFICE 243

Office, the elder knew he could rely on unswerving
support, on unwavering fidelity. The choice of
callings was laid before my brother : life as a civil
engineer — a profession in which his abilities could
not fail to command success — or the less ambitious
career of a clerk at St Martin's - le - Grand. Our
father would not dwell upon his own strong leaning
towards the latter course, but with the ever-present
mental image of harassing official intrigues against
himself and his hard-won reform, it is not difficult
to picture with what conflicting emotions he must
have waited his son's decison. This was left entirely
in the young man's hands ; and he chose the part
which he knew would best serve his father. The
cherished dream was allowed to melt into nothing-
ness, and my brother began his postal career not
as a favoured, but as an ordinary clerk, though one
always near at hand, and always in the complete con-
fidence of his immediate chief. Whatever regrets
for the more congenial life Pearson may have
harboured, he never, to my knowledge, gave them
audible expression, nor could any father have had a
more loyal son. When, many years later, it seemed
desirable that some official should be appointed to
report on the value of the mechanical inventions
periodically offered to the Post Office, and to super-
vise those already in operation, it seemed when my
brother was selected for that post as if he had only
received his due, and that merely in part.

He had also administrative ability of no mean
order ; and when only twenty-eight years of age
was selected by the Postmaster-General to go to

244

SIR ROWLAND HILL

Mauritius to reorganise the post office there, which
through mismanagement had gradually drifted into
a state of confusion, apparently beyond rectification
by the island authorities. He speedily brought the
office into good working order ; but perhaps his
Mauritian labours will be best remembered by his
substitution of certain civilised stamps — like those
then used in some of the West Indian isles — in place
of the trumpery red and blue, penny and twopenny,
productions which were the handiwork of some local
artist, and which are now so rare that they command
amazingly large sums of money in the philatelist
world.

By permission of the Proprietor of Flett's Studios, late London School
of Photography.

PEARSON HILL.

To Jace p.

CHAPTER VIII

AT THE POST OFFICE — Continued

THE important Commission appointed in 1853 to
revise the scale of salaries of the Post Office em-
ployees held many sittings and did valuable work.1
Its report was published in the following year.
Rowland Hill's examination alone occupied eight
days ; and he had the satisfaction of finding the Com-
missioners' views in accordance with his own on the
subject of patronage, promotion, and classification.

On the score that the business of the Post Office
is of a kind which peculiarly requires centralisation,
the Commission condemned the principle of the
double Secretariate, and recommended that the
whole should be placed under the direction of a
single secretary; that in order to enable "every
deserving person " to have within his reach attainment
to "the highest prizes," the ranks of the Secretary's
Office should be opened to all members of the
establishment ; and that throughout the Department
individual salaries should advance by annual incre-
ments instead of by larger ones at long intervals : all
advancements to be contingent on good conduct.

1 The Commissioners were Lord Elcho, Sir Stafford Northcote,
Sir Charles Trevelyan, and Mr Hoffay.

245

246 SIR ROWLAND HILL

It was also advised that, to attract suitable men,
prospects of advancement should be held out ; that im-
provement in provincial offices — then much needed —
should be secured by allowing respective postmasters,
under approval and in accordance with prescribed
rules, to appoint their own clerks ; and that promotion
should be strictly regulated according to qualification
and merit — a rule which in time must raise any
department to the highest state of efficiency. The
abolition of a crying evil was also advised. At
the time in question all appointments to the office
rested not with the Postmaster - General but with
the Treasury, the nomination being in effect left to the
Member of Parliament for the district where a vacancy
occurred, provided he were a general supporter of
the Government. It was a system which opened
the way to many abuses, and was apt to flood the
service with " undesirables." The Commissioners
advised the removal of the anomaly both for obvious
reasons and " because the power which the Post-
master-General would possess of rewarding meritorious
officers in his own department by promoting them
to the charge of the important provincial offices would
materially conduce to the general efficiency of the
whole body." The relinquishment of patronage — a
privilege always held dear by politicians — was con-
ceded so far as to allow to the Postmaster- General the
appointing of all postmasterships where the salary
exceeded ^"175 a year, thus avoiding the application
in all cases where the Post Office is held in con-
junction with a private business or profession. A
subsequent concession reduced the minimum to £120.

AT THE POST OFFICE 247

The relinquishment of so much patronage reflected
great credit on the Administration then in power.1

It is pleasant to remember that when, in after
years, the postal reform, by its complete success, had
proved the soundness of its author's reasoning, the
Conservatives and " Peelites," who of old had opposed
the Penny Postage Bill, seemed sometimes to go
out of their way to show him friendliness. One of
the kindest of his old opponents was Disraeli — not
yet Earl of Beaconsfield — who, as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, invited the reformer to share his
hospitality, and especially singled out the new guest
for attention. The first Postmaster-General to invite
Rowland Hill to his house was his second chief, the
Tory Lord Hardwicke, who had also asked Colonel
Maberly, but was careful to put the two men one
at each end of the very long table.

When, therefore, at last (in 1854) my father was
given the post Colonel Maberly had so long filled,
and became thenceforth known to the world as
Secretary to the Post Office, it was with deep
gratification that he recorded the fact in his diary
that "all those to whom I had on this occasion to
return official thanks had been members of the
Government by which, twelve years before, I had
been dismissed from office.2 I could not but think
that the kind and earnest manner in which these
gentlemen now acted proceeded in some measure

1 " Life," ii. 245-249.

2 These were, of course, the "Peelites" — the members who,
together with their leader, had seceded from the Tory party on
the Free Trade question.

248

SIR ROWLAND HILL

from a desire to compensate me for the injustice of
their former leader ; and this view made me even
more grateful for their consideration."

The old hostility between Colonel Maberly and
Rowland Hill was scarcely likely to decrease while
they remained, to use the sailor Postmaster-General's
favourite expression, " two kings of Brentford."
Colonel Maberly had never been sparing of his
blows during the long agitation over the postal
reform previous to its establishment ; and a dual
authority is hardly calculated to transform opponents
into allies. It was therefore fortunate that the
peculiar arrangement, after enduring, with consider-
able discomfort, for seven and a half years, was
brought to a close.

We all have our strong points ; and one of
Colonel Maberly's was a happy knack of selecting
heads of departments, the chief Secretary's immediate
subordinates. They were an able staff of officers,
unto whom my father always considered that the
good reputation the Post Office enjoyed while he
was its permanent head was largely due. With their
aid the reformer devised and matured measures of
improvement more rapidly than before — more rapidly
because there was now far less likelihood, when once
authorisation had been obtained for carrying them
out, of seeing his proposals subjected to tiresome
modifications or indefinite delays, too often leading
to entire abandonment. Thus he was enabled to give
most of his time to the work of organisation, to him
always, as he has said, "of all occupations the least
1 "Life,"ii. 225, 226.

AT THE POST OFFICE 249

difficult and the most pleasant." He encouraged his
newly-acquired staff "to make what proved to be a
valuable change in their mode of proceeding; for
whereas the practice had been for these officers
simply to select the cases requiring the judgment of
the Secretary, and to await his instructions before
writing their minutes thereon, I gradually induced
them to come prepared with an opinion of their own
which might serve in a measure for my guidance."
This placing of confidence in able and experienced
men had, as was but natural, excellent results.

The arrangement of secretarial and other duties
being now settled, reforms proceeded satisfactorily ;
new and greatly improved post offices were erected,
and older ones were cleared of accumulated rubbish,
and made more habitable in many ways. It was
found that at the General Post Office itself no sort
of provision against the risk of fire existed — an
extraordinary state of things in a building through
which many documents, often of great value and
importance, were continually passing. Little time
was lost in devising measures to remedy this and
other defects.

But, strange to say, in 1858 the construction and
alteration of post office buildings was transferred
by the Treasury to the Board of Works. Knowing
that the change would lead to extravagance, Rowland
Hill essayed, but quite unsuccessfully, to effect a
reversal of this measure ; and in support of his views
instanced a striking contrast. A new post office had
been erected at Brighton, the cost, exclusive of a
moderate sum expended to fit it up as a residence,

250 SIR ROWLAND HILL

being about £1,600. A similar building had now to
be put up at Dundee, whose correspondence was half
that of Brighton. The Board of Works' estimate
came to four or five times that amount, and all that
Rowland Hill could accomplish was to bring the cost
down to ,£5,700.

The first of the long series of "Annual Reports
of the Postmaster-General" was published in 1854.
It was prefaced with an interesting historical sketch
of the Post Office from its origin, written by Matthew
Davenport Hill's eldest son Alfred, unto whom my
father was further beholden for valuable assistance as
arbitrator in the already mentioned disputes between
the Post Office and the railway companies. The
modern weakness of apathy — most contagious of
maladies — seemed after a while to settle even on the
Post Office, for, late in the 'nineties, the issue was
for a time discontinued.

One passage alone in the First Report shows how
satisfactory was the progress made. " On the first
day of each month a report is laid before the Post-
master-General showing the principal improvements
in hand, and the stage at which each has arrived.
The latest of these reports (which is of the usual
length) records 183 measures, in various stages of
progress or completed during the month of December
1854. Minor improvements, such as extension of
rural posts, etc., are not noticed in these reports."1

Another small periodical publication first appeared

in 1856, which, revised and issued quarterly, is now

a well-known, useful little manual. This was the

1 "Life,"ii. 267.

AT THE POST OFFICE 251

British Postal Guide. Its acceptability was made
evident by its ready sale, amounting, not long after
its issue, to 20,000 or 30,000 copies. Two years
later an old publication known as the Daily Packet
List was rearranged, enlarged, and turned into a
weekly edition, which, as the Postal Circular, accom-
plished much useful service. Had the Treasury
allowed the extension of the sphere of this little work,
as recommended by the Postmaster - General and
Rowland Hill, it could have been so extended as
to become a postal monitor, correcting any possible
misconceptions, and keeping the public constantly
informed as to the real proceedings of the Post Office.
By November 1854 the diarist was able to write
that his " plan has been adopted, more or less
completely, in the following States : Austria, Baden,
Bavaria, Belgium, Brazil, Bremen, Brunswick, Chile,
Denmark, France, Frankfort, Hamburg, Hanover,
Lubeck, Naples, New Grenada, Netherlands, Olden-
burg, Peru, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia,
Saxony, Spain, Switzerland, Tuscany, United States,
and Wurtemberg." It seems worth while to repeat
the long list just as my father gave it, if only to show
how much, since that time, the political geography
of our own continent has altered, most of the tiny
countries and all the "free cities " of mid-nineteenth-
century Europe having since that date become
absorbed by larger or stronger powers. It will be
noticed that Norway and Sweden had not yet
followed the example of the other western European
countries. But the then "dual kingdom "did not
long remain an exception.

252 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Among the first European powers to adopt the
postal reform were, strange to say, Spain and Russia,
neither of which was then accounted a progressive
country. In September 1843 the Spanish ambassador
wrote to Rowland Hill asking for information about
postal matters, as his Government contemplated
introducing the postage stamp, and, presumably, a
certain amount of uniformity and low rates. Not
long after, news came that Russia had adopted
stamps. The chief motive in each case was, however,
understood to be the desire to prevent fraud among
the postmasters.

Although Spain moved early in the matter of
postal reform, Portugal sadly lagged behind, no new
convention having been effected with that country,
and, consequently, no postal improvements, save in
marine transit, made for fifty years. In 1858, however,
mainly through the good offices of the British Ministers
at Madrid and Lisbon, and of Mr Edward Rea, who
was sent out from London by the Postmaster-General
for the purpose, better postal treaties were made, both
with Spain and Portugal. Even with such countries
as Belgium, Germany (the German Postal Union),
and the United States, progress in the way of treaties
was very slow.

The postal revenues of all these European
countries were smaller than our own, Portugal's
being less than that of the city of Edinburgh. Small
indeed is the connection between the amount of a
country's correspondence and the number of its popu-
lation. According to an official return published in the
Journal de St Petersburg in 1855, the letters posted

AT THE POST OFFICE 253

during the year throughout the huge empire of
Russia were only 16,400,000, or almost the same
number as those posted during the same year in
Manchester and its suburbs.

By J^53 a low uniform rate of postage was
established over the length and breadth of our even
then vast Indian Empire ; a few outlying portions
alone excepted. For many years after the introduc-
tion of the new system, involving, as it did, complete
adoption of Rowland Hill's plan, the Indian Post
Office did not pay expenses; but by 1870 it became
self-supporting.1

It has sometimes been asserted that, in his
eagerness to make his reform a financial success,
Rowland Hill cut down the wages of the lower strata
of employees. Nothing could be more untrue.
Economy, he believed, was to be obtained by simpler
methods and better organisation, not by underpaying
the workers. While at the Post Office he did much
to improve the lot of these classes of men. Their
wages were increased, they had greater opportunity
of rising in the service, a pension for old age com-
bined with assistance in effecting life assurance,
gratuitous medical advice and medicines,2 and an
annual holiday without loss of pay. The number
of working hours was limited to a daily average of
eight, and a regulation was made that any letter-

1 "Life,"ii. 317.

2 A medical man had now been added to the staff, the first
so appointed being Dr Gavin, a much - esteemed official, who
perished untimely, if I remember rightly, at Newcastle-on-Tyne,
during the awful visitation there of the cholera epidemic of 1853.

254 SIR ROWLAND HILL

carrier who, taking one day with another, found
his work exceed that limit,, should be entitled to
call attention to the fact and obtain assistance. An
exhaustive enquiry was made as to the scale oi
wages paid, the hours of work required, etc. ; an<
the report, when published, told the world that
the men of similar rank in other callings, such
policemen, railway porters, and several more, wen
not so well treated as their brethren in the post?
service. So clearly, indeed, was this proved thai
public endorsement of the fact was at once evidence<
by a marked increase of applications for situation*
as sorters, letter-carriers, etc.

A striking proof of this recognition of a trutl
came at first hand to Rowland Hill's knowledg<
He was consulting an old medical friend, and in th<
course of conversation the latter said that his footmai
wished to obtain an appointment as letter - carrier.
Whereupon my father pointed out that the man waj
better off as footman, because, in addition to receiving
good wages, he had board, lodging, and many othei
advantages. This, answered the doctor, had alread]
been represented to the man ; but his reply was that
in the Post Office there was the certainty of continuity
of employment and the pension for old age. The fact
that the employees in a public department are not,
like many other workers, liable at any moment to
sent adrift by the death or impoverishment of theii
employers, constitutes one of the strongest attraction!
to the service. Has this circumstance any connectioi
with the growing disinclination of the poorer classes t<
enter domestic service ?

AT THE POST OFFICE 255

In 1854 rural distribution was greatly extended,
500 new offices being opened. This extension, it
may be remembered, was one of several measures
which were persistently opposed by the enemies of
the postal reform. How much the measure was
needed, and, when granted, how beneficial were its
results, is shown by the fact that it was followed by
the largest increase of letters which had taken place in
any year since 1840, or a gain on 1853 of 32,500,000.

The measure affected several hundreds of different
places and a very large percentage of the entire
correspondence of the United Kingdom. Formerly
there were to every office limits, sometimes narrow,
sometimes wide, beyond which there was either no
delivery, or one made only at additional charge,
generally of a penny a letter : an arrangement which,
in spite of my father's repeated efforts to amend it,
outlived the introduction of the new postal system
for more than fourteen years, and in the districts
thus affected partially nullified its benefits. Not until
this and other survivals of the older state of things
were swept away could his plan be rightly said to
be established.

London — whose then population formed one-tenth
and its correspondence one - fourth of the United
Kingdom — was also not neglected. It was divided
into ten postal districts,1 each of which was treated as
a separate town with a local chief office in addition
to its many minor offices. The two corps of letter-
carriers — the general postmen and those who belonged
to the old " twopenny post" — which till this time
1 Afterwards diminished to eight.

256 SIR ROWLAND HILL

existed as distinct bodies of employees, were at last
amalgamated; their "walks" were rearranged, and a
new plan of sorting at the chief office was instituted,
while the letters and other missives intended for the
different districts, being sorted before they reached
London, were no longer, as of old, sent to St
Martin's-le-Grand, but were at once dispatched for
distribution to the local chief office whose initials
corresponded with those upon the covers. Door
letter-boxes increased in number in the houses of
the poorer as well as of the richer classes ; and the
use, in addition to the address, on the printed head-
ing of a letter of the initials denoting the postal
district from which it emanated, and on the envelope
of that where it should be delivered — a use to which
the public generally accustomed itself kindly — greatly
facilitated and expedited communication within the
1 2 miles circuit, so that thenceforth it became possible
to post a letter and receive its reply within the space
of a few hours — a heartily appreciated boon in the
days when the telephone was not. As a natural
consequence, the number of district letters grew
apace, and the congestion at St Martin's-le-Grand
was perceptibly lessened. At the same time, the
Board of Works to some extent amended the
nomenclature of the streets and the numbering of
houses. The most important delivery of the day,
the first, was accelerated by two hours ; in some oi
the suburbs by two and a half hours. That is, the
morning's letters were distributed at nine o'clock
instead of at half-past eleven. Since that time, and
for many years now, the delivery has been made at

AT THE POST OFFICE 257

or before eight o'clock. Nothing facilitated these
earlier deliveries more than the sorting of letters
en route ; and the practice also enabled more frequent
deliveries to be made. Improved communication with
the colonies and foreign countries, through better
treaties, was likewise effected ; and each improvement
was rendered easier by the rapid growth everywhere
of railways and shipping companies, and the increased
speed of trains and steam-ships.

In 1855 "the system of promotion by merit,"
recommended by my father and endorsed with
approval by the Civil Service Commissioners "was
brought into full operation. In the three metro-
politan offices, when a vacancy occurred application
for appointment was open to all ; the respective
claims were carefully compared, and, without the
admission of any other consideration whatever, the
claim which was adjudged to be best carried the day.
To keep our course free from disturbing influences,
it was laid down that any intercession from without
in favour of individual officers should act, if not
injuriously, at least not beneficially, on the advance-
ment of those concerned." . . . " By the transfer to
the Post Office of appointment to all the higher
postmasterships, opportunity for promotion was greatly
enlarged, and posts formally bestowed for political
services now became the rewards of approved merit.
This change obviously involved great improvement
in the quality of the persons thus entrusted with
powers and duties of no small importance to the
public. In the provincial offices a corresponding
improvement was, in great measure, secured by

258 SIR ROWLAND HILL

delegating the power of appointing their subordi-
nates, under certain restrictions, to the respective
postmasters, who, being themselves responsible for
the good working of their offices, were naturally led
to such selection as would best conduce to that
end. This delegation, so far as related to clerks,
was made on the recommendation of the Civil Service
Commissioners ; and the trust being satisfactorily
exercised, was subsequently extended to the appoint-
ment of letter-carriers also." The measure worked
well. " From the different departments of the metro-
politan offices, and from the provincial surveyors the
reports of its operation were almost uniformly satis-
factory. Officers were found to take more personal
interest in their duties, to do more work without
augmentation of force, to make up in some degree
by additional zeal for the increased yearly holiday
that was granted them, and to discharge their duties
with more cheerfulness and spirit, knowing that good
service would bring eventual reward."

The new system of promotion by merit worked
far better than that of the Commissioners' examina-
tions for admission to the Civil Service. As regards
the letter-carriers, it has always been found that the
men best fitted for this duty were those whose
previous life had inured them to bodily labour and
endurance of all kinds of weather. The new educa-
tional requirements in many instances excluded these
people, while giving easy admission to shopmen,
clerks, servants, and others accustomed to indoor
and even sedentary life, who were little fitted to
1 "Life,"ii. 298-301.

AT THE POST OFFICE 259

perform a postman's rounds. The Duke of Argyll,
then Postmaster - General, requested the Commis-
sioners to adopt a somewhat lower standard of
acquirement. At the same time he authorised the
subjection of candidates for the office of letter-carriers
to a stricter test as regards bodily strength, with the
result that about one man in every four was rejected.
By these means, and the greater attention paid to
the laws of sanitation in offices and private dwellings,
the health of the department gradually reached a
high standard.

That the plan of confining admission to the service
to candidates who have passed the Civil Service
examinations is not without its drawbacks, is seen
by the following extract from a Report by Mr Abbott,
Secretary to the Post Office in Scotland. " Consider-
ing," he says, " the different duties of the account, the
secretary's and the sorting branches, I am inclined to
believe that the examination should have more special
reference to the vacancy the candidate is to fill than
to his general knowledge on certain subjects proposed
for all in the same class, more especially as regards
persons nominated to the sorting office, where manual
dexterity, quick sight, and physical activity are more
valuable than mere educational requirements."1

As may be surmised by the foregoing, Rowland
Hill was one of the many clear-sighted men who
declined to yield unquestioning approbation to the
system of competitive examinations introduced by
the Civil Service Commissioners ; nor did longer

1 "Life," ii. 300. At this time the Post Office staff numbered
over 24,000, of whom more than 3,000 served in the London district.

260 SIR ROWLAND HILL

acquaintance with it tend to modify his opinion on
the subject. The scheme, he thought, " worked
unsatisfactorily, the criteria not being the best, and
the responsibility being so divided that no one is
in effect answerable for an appointment made under
it. The consequence of its adoption has been, in
many instances, the rejection of men who gave
promise of great usefulness, and the admission of
others whose usefulness has proved very small.1
If no way had been open to the public service but
through competitive examination as now conducted,
I cannot say what might have been my own chance
of admission, since on the plan adopted, no amount
of knowledge or power in other departments is
regarded as making up for deficiency in certain
prescribed subjects. Under such a system neither
George Stephenson nor Brindley would have passed
examination as an engineer, nor perhaps would
Napoleon or Wellington have been admitted to any
military command. The principle, if sound, must be
equally applicable to manufacturing and commercial

1 A thirty or more years old example of this rejection returns to
memory. A young man — a born soldier, and son to a distinguished
officer in the Engineers — failed to pass the inevitable Army examina-
tion. The subject over which he broke down was some poem of
Chaucer's, I think the immortal Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
— that wonderful collection of masterly-drawn portaits of men and
women who must have been living people over five hundred years
ago. Even an ardent lover of him " whose sweet breath preluded
those melodious bursts that fill the spacious times of great Elizabeth
with sounds that echo still," has never yet been able to perceive
what connection the strains of "Dan Chaucer, the first warbler,"
can have with the science of modern warfare. The born soldier,
it was said, was fain to turn ranchman in the American Far West.

AT THE POST OFFICE 261

establishments, but I have heard of none that have
adopted it. Indeed, a wealthy merchant lately
declared (and I believe most of his brethren would
agree with him) that if he had no clerks but such
as were chosen for him by others, his name would
soon be in the Gazette. I have always been of
opinion that the more the appointments to the
Post Office, and indeed to other departments, are
regulated on the principles ordinarily ruling in
establishments conducted by private individuals, the
better it will be for the public service. The question
to be decided between candidates should be, I
think, simply which is best fitted for the duties to
be performed ; and the decision should be left to
the person immediately answerable for the right
performance of the duty."1

1 As regards this oft-discussed matter, it seems that Herbert
Spencer was of like mind with my father. Speaking in his
"Autobiography of Edison," the great philosopher says that "that
remarkable, self-educated man" was of opinion that "college-bred
men were of no use to him. It is astonishing," continues Herbert
Spencer, "how general, among distinguished engineers, has been
the absence of education, or of high education. James Brindley
and George Stephenson were without any early instruction at all :
the one taught himself writing when an apprentice, and the other
put himself to school when a grown man. Telford too, a shepherd
boy, had no culture beyond that which a parish school afforded.
Though Smeaton and Rennie and Watt had the discipline of
grammar schools, and two of them that of High Schools, yet in
no case did they pass through a curriculum appropriate to the
profession they followed. Another piece of evidence, no less
remarkable, is furnished by the case of Sir Benjamin Baker, who
designed and executed the Forth Bridge — the greatest and most
remarkable bridge in the world, I believe. He received no regular
engineering instruction. Such men who, more than nearly all
other men, exercise constructive imagination, and rise to distinction

262 SIR ROWLAND HILL

While tranquillity reigned at St Martin's-le- Grand
from, and long after, 1854, not only among the
heads of departments, but generally throughout the
office, and while reports from all quarters, metropolitan
and provincial, bore testimony to efficient work
accomplished and good conduct maintained, it was
inevitable that in a body so numerous as was that
of the lower* grade employees some amount of dis-
content should arise. Promotion by merit, in what-
ever class, has few charms in the eyes of those
who are deficient in the very quality which insures
promotion, and who, perhaps for many years, have
drawn steady payment for ordinary duty so performed
as to become scarcely more than nominal. In every
large community there are certain to be some "bad
bargains " who, though practically useless as workers,
have often abundant capacity for giving trouble,
especially, maybe, in the way of fomenting a spirit
of mutiny. l

only when they are largely endowed with this faculty, seem thus
to show by implication the repressive influence of an educational
system which imposes ideas from without instead of evolving them
from within." ("Autobiography," i. 337, 338.) The remarks are
the outcome of Herbert Spencer's perusal of a biographical sketch
of the celebrated engineer, John Ericsson. In this occurred a
significant passage : " When a friend spoke to him with regret
of his not having been graduated from some technical institute,
he answered that the fact, on the other hand, was very fortunate.
If he had taken a course at such an institution, he would have
acquired such a belief in authority that he would never have been
able to develop originality and make his own way in physics and
mechanics."

1 In writing of the discontents which occasionally troubled the
postal peace during the mid-nineteenth century, it must be clearly
understood that no allusion is intended to those of later times.

AT THE POST OFFICE 263

At the Post Office this spirit manifested itself
even while every care was being taken to ameliorate
the condition of this multitudinous class of employees,
and to rectify individual cases of hardship, and while,
even during the time of insubordination, many re-
spectable men outside the postal walls were showing
their appreciation of the advantage of a letter-carrier's
position over that of men of like class in other
callings, by applying for appointment to that corps.
Misrepresentation is a principal factor in stimulating
disaffection, and, for reasons other than sympathy
with the alleged victims of supposed tyrannical
employers, is sometimes, though, happily, rarely,
employed by those who, as non-officials, are sheltered
by anonymity as well as by extraneity from participa-
tion in such punishment as may befall the better-
known disaffected.

From an early period of Rowland Hill's career
at the Post Office he was subjected to almost constant
personal attacks on the part of a certain weekly
newspaper. Many were written with considerable
plausibility, but all were void of substantial truth,
while others were entire fabrications. All too were
of the sort which no self-respecting man condescends
to answer, yet which, perhaps all the more on account
of that contemptuous silence, do infinite harm, and
by an unthinking public are readily believed. Many
of these attacks were traced to men who had left

In this story of an old reform the latest year at the Post Office
is 1864 ; therefore, since this is a chronicle of " ancient history " only,
comments on the troubles of modern days, which the chronicler
does not profess to understand, shall be scrupulously avoided.

264 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the postal service — to the no small advantage of that
service — and whose dismissal was supposed to be
the work of the permanent postal head ; and one
such man at least, a scribe with a ready pen, and
ink in which the ingredient gall was over-liberally
mingled, vented his spleen during a long succession
of years with a perseverance worthy a better cause.
As the newspaper in question had rather a wide
circulation — since when did harmful literature fail to
meet ready sale ? — and the postal employees were,
in many cases, no wiser than their fellow-readers, it
was perhaps not unnatural that the attacks, which
were directed more frequently and angrily against
the postal reformer than against his colleagues, should
meet with credence. "It certainly was rather ill-
timed," says Rowland Hill, on hearing1 of a
particularly vicious libel, " for in the previous month
(November 1858) I had induced the Treasury to
abandon its intention of issuing an order forbidding
the receipt of Christmas boxes, and also had obtained
some improvement in their scale of wages, the
Treasury granting even more than was applied
for."2

It was not long before the agitation assumed a still
more serious form, no fewer than three anonymous
letters threatening assassination being received at
short intervals by the harassed reformer. The heads
of the different postal departments, becoming alarmed

1 He never wasted his time in reading the attacks, even when
some good-natured friend occasionally asked : " Have you seen what
Blank has just written about you ? "

2 "Life,"ii. 328.

AT THE POST OFFICE 265

for the safety of the permanent chiefs life, advised his
temporary absence from the Office ; and Mr Peacock,
its solicitor, who knew that an expert had satisfied
himself and others that the handwriting of the first
of these letters could be traced to a certain postman
who had been giving much trouble of late, proposed
immediate arrest and prosecution. But, on comparing
the suspected man's actual handwriting with that,
disguised though it was, of the anonymous letter,
Rowland Hill disagreed with the expert's view, and
refused assent to so drastic a proceeding ; happily
so, for later circumstances seemed to point to justifica-
tion of the adverse opinion. My father also declined
to absent himself from the Office, and even when
a fourth letter appeared, in which were mentioned
the place, day, and hour when the fatal blow would
be struck, he still, as was his custom, walked the
last half mile of his way to work, armed only with
his umbrella, and on the fateful occasion passed the
indicated spot without encountering harm of any
kind. Later than this, somehow, word of the anony-
mous letters reached my mother's ears, though not,
of course, through her husband ; and thenceforth she
made it her daily practice to drive down to the
Post Office, and accompany him home.

This episode would hardly be worth the telling did
it not serve to show how little need there generally
is to pay attention to letters, however threatening,
when written by persons who dare riot reveal their
identity. On occasions of this sort memory brings
back to mind the story of the brave Frenchman
who at the time of the Franco-German war wrote

266 SIR ROWLAND HILL

to the then newly - proclaimed German Emperor,
William I., at Versailles, to remind him of sundry
ugly passages in his life, and to threaten him with
condign punishment — the writer being a near neigh-
bour, and appending to his letter his actual name
and address. This man at least had the courage
of his opinions. The anonymous scribbler is seldom
so valorous.

In 1858 "The Post Office Library and Literary
Association " was established, the institution being
aided by the delivery of lectures, an enterprise in
which several of the leading officials participated.
Mr West gave a fascinating discourse on etymology ;
and Rowland Hill took his turn by lecturing on the
annular eclipse of the sun (" visible at Green-
wich ") which happened in that year.1 In 1859 similar
institutions were started at most of the London district
offices, and in some provincial towns.

When the volunteer movement was in the heyday
of its youth, the Post Office was one of the earliest
of the great public departments to establish a corps
of its own, .whose exploits were humorously related
by " Ensign " Edmund Yates, under the heading
"The Grimgribber Rifle Volunteers," in several

1 Some of us enjoyed a capital view of the eclipse at Swindon
in fine weather and pleasant company. Our friend, Mr W. H. Wills,
who was also present, wrote an amusing account of the eclipse —
appending to it, however, a pretty story which never happened —
in Household Words. The eclipse was soon over, but the great
astronomical treat of the year was, of course, Donati's unforgettable
comet, "a thing of beauty," though unfortunately not "a joy for
ever," which blazed magnificently in the northern hemisphere for
some few weeks.

AT THE POST OFFICE 267

•numbers of All the Year Round of the period. The
l:orps became amalgamated with the " Civil Service'1
•volunteer force, of which fine body it was perhaps
the pioneer company.

"I wrote," says Rowland Hill, "to the Post-
Imaster-General, Lord Colchester, on the subject (of
raising a volunteer corps), and obtained his ready
sanction. Upon my communicating with the heads
pf departments, I was told that there would be
readiness enough to volunteer if only the expenses
[could be provided for, or reduced to a low rate ;
fchat the men would willingly give their time,
put thought it somewhat unreasonable that there
[should be a demand for their money also. The
Idifficulty was overcome by the same means, and I
(suppose to about the same extent, as in other corps ;
but from that day to this I have been unable to
{understand the policy or propriety of making men
pay for liberty to serve their country, a practice
which must, in the nature of things, debar large
numbers from enrolment. The movement was not
limited to the chief office, and was especially
satisfactory at Edinburgh."1

In July 1859 Sir Edward Baines, proprietor of
the Leeds Mercury, wrote to introduce to Rowland
Hill the inventor of the Post Office Savings2 Bank
scheme, Mr (afterwards Sir) Charles Sikes, a banker

1 "Life,"ii. 334.

2 Here was another reformer from outside the Post Office. Yet
one more was Sir Douglas Galton, who first proposed that the Post
Office should take over the telegraphic system. His father-in-law,
Mr Nicholson of Waverley Abbey, sent the then Captain Galton's
paper on the subject to Rowland Hill in 1852. The communication

268 SIR ROWLAND HILL

of Huddersfield — a scheme which has been a great
convenience to people of limited means. Depositors
and deposits have increased, till the modest venture
launched in 1860, under the auspices of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Mr Gladstone, has grown into a
colossal undertaking. Sir Charles, with characteristic
lack of self-advertisement, never sought reward of
any kind for the good work he had initiated. He
was satisfied with the knowledge that it had proved
of immense benefit to his fellow - men. He long
survived the carrying into practical shape of his
scheme ; and now that he is dead, his invention has,
of course, been claimed by or for others.

The postal reform is one which, save as regards
its most salient features, has been established some-
what on the "gradual instalment system," each
instalment, as a rule, coming into operation after a
hard struggle on the part of its promoter, and
several years later than when first proposed. Pre-
payment of postage, for example, one of the most
essential parts of my father's plan, was long allowed
to remain optional, although he had " counted upon
universal prepayment as an important means towards

being private, my father replied also privately, giving the project
encouragement, and leaving Captain Galton to take the next step.
He submitted his plan to the Board of Trade, whence it was
referred to the Post Office. The Postmaster - General, Lord
Hardwicke, did not view the scheme with favour, and it was
dropped, to be resumed later within the Office itself. Had Captain
Galton's proposals been resolutely taken up in 1852, the British
taxpayers might have been spared the heavy burden laid upon them
when, nearly twenty years later, the State purchase of the Telegraphs
was effected " at a cost at once so superfluous and so enormous."
("Life,''ii. 251, 252.)

AT THE POST OFFICE 269

[simplifying the accounts, with consequent economy
of time and expense, the expedient of double postage
on post - payment being regarded as a temporary
mode of avoiding the difficulties naturally attending
a transition state ; and though hitherto deferring the
measure to more pressing matters, I had always
looked forward to a time suitable for taking the step
necessary to the completion of my plan. The almost
universal resort to prepayment had rendered accounts
of postage very short and easy, but obviously
universal practice alone could render them altogether
unnecessary." 1

The attempt to make prepayment compulsory was
renewed in 1859, the proportion of unpaid letters
having by that date become very small. But the
public generally were insensible to the advantage to
the service which economy of time and labour must
secure, while the few active malcontents who thought
themselves qualified to be a law unto themselves, if
not to others, raised so much clamour that it was
considered advisable to postpone issue of the edict.
An error of judgment, perhaps, since the public soon
becomes accustomed to any rule that is at once just
and easy to follow ; as indeed had already been shown
by the readiness — entirely contrary to official prediction
—with which prepayment had, from the first, been
accepted. After all, submission to compulsory pre-
payment of our postage is not one whit more slavish
than submission to compulsory prepayment of our
railway and other vehicular fares, a gentle form of
coercion to which even those of us who are the
i "Life," ii. 335.

270 SIR ROWLAND HILL

most revolutionary of mind assent with exemplary
meekness.

So far back as I8421 Rowland Hill had
recommended the establishment of a parcel post,
but, although renewing his efforts both in 1858 and
1863, he was forced to leave accomplishment of this
boon to later reformers. In the last - named year,
however, the pattern post came into operation.

In 1862 he was able to make important alterations
in the registration of letters. Allusion has already
been made to the ancient quarrel between a former
Postmaster-General and my father over the amount
of fee, the political head of the office wishing to keep
it at is., Rowland Hill to reduce it to 6d., a reduc-
tion easily obtained when in 1846 the latter entered
the Post Office. A largely increased number of
registered letters had been the result. The fee was
now still further reduced, the reduction being followed
by an even larger increase of registered letters ; while
the registration of coin - bearing letters was at last
made compulsory. Before 1862 coins had often been
enclosed in unregistered letters, at times so carelessly
that their presence was evident, and abstraction easy.
As a natural consequence, misappropriation was not
infrequent. After the passing of this necessary en-
actment the losses diminished rapidly ; the number of
letters containing money posted in the second half
of that year increased to about 900,000, and the
number of those which failed to reach their destina-
tion was only twelve.

1 "Report of the Select Committee on Postage (1843)," p. 41.
Also "Life,"ii. 336.

AT THE POST OFFICE 271

While it is undeniable that occasionally a letter-
carrier or sorter has been responsible for the dis-
appearance of some articles — at times of great value —
entrusted to the care of the department, the public
itself is frequently very far from blameless. As has
already been shown, carelessness that can only be
called culpable sometimes throws temptation in the
men's way. In the course of a single twelvemonths,
nearly 31,000 letters entirely unaddressed were posted,
many of which contained money whose sum total
amounted to several thousands of pounds.

The number of things lost in the post through
negligence to enclose them in properly secured covers,
or through placing them in covers which are im-
perfectly addressed or not addressed at all, so that
sometimes neither sender nor intended recipient can
be traced, is very great. In one twelvemonths alone
the accumulations at the Dead Letter Office sold
at auction by order of the Postmaster-General com-
prised almost every description of wearing apparel
from socks up to sealskin jackets and suits of clothing,
Afghan, Egyptian, and South African war medals,
a Khedive's Star, a pearl necklace, some boxes of
chocolate, a curious Transvaal coin, and several
thousands of postage stamps. Did none of the losers
dream of applying for repossession of their property
ere it passed under the auctioneer's hammer ; or did
they resign themselves to the less troublesome assump-
tion that the things had been stolen ?

Simply to avoid payment of the registration fee —
whose present amount can hardly be found burden-
some— people will hide money or other valuables in

272 SIR ROWLAND HILL

some covering material that is inexpensive, or that
may be useful to the recipient, such as butter,
puddings, etc., which are sent off by the yet cheaper
parcel post. One of the most flagrant cases of
deception was that of a lady living in Siam, who
dispatched to the old country several packages said
to contain stationery and walking-sticks, and valued
at £jt i os. od. Suspicion was aroused — perhaps by
the odd combination of treasures — and the parcels
were opened, when the " stationery and walking-
sticks " of modest value resolved themselves into a
superb collection of diamonds and other jewels worth
about .£25,000.

The Post Office is often reproached for slowness
or unwillingness to adopt new ways ; and, as a rule,
the accusations are accompanied by brilliant and
highly original witticisms, in which figure the con-
temptuous words " red tape." For the apparent lack
of official zeal, the reproaching public itself is often
to blame. Its passion — dating from long past times,
yet far from moribund — for defrauding the department
which, on the whole, serves it so well, yet with so
few thanks and so many scoldings, is one chief bar
to possible reforms. When, for example, the book-
post was established in I846,1 all sorts of things which

1 Professor de Morgan was one of the many literary and scientific
men who took an interest in the book-post when first proposed.
At the outset it was intended that no writing of any sort, not even
the name of owner or donor, should be inscribed in a volume
so sent, but the Professor descanted so ably and wittily on the
hardship of thus ruling out of transit an innocent book, merely
because, a century or more ago, some hand had written on its
fly-leaf, " Anne Pryse, her boke ; God give her grace therein to

AT THE POST OFFICE 273

had no right to be where they were found used to be
hidden between the pages. In one instance, a watch
was concealed in an old volume, within whose middle
leaves a deep hole had been excavated which was
artfully covered over by the outside binding and by
several pages at the beginning and end of the book.
To the casual observer it therefore presented an
innocent appearance, but fell victim to post-official,
lynx-eyed investigation.

" With every desire to give the public all possible
facilities," wrote my father in his diary, " we were
often debarred from so doing by the tricks and
evasions which too frequently followed any relaxation
of our rules/'

Even the great Macaulay transgressed strict
postal regulations, being in the habit, as his nephew
tells us in one of the most delightful biographies

loke," that not even the hardest-hearted official, and certainly not
my father, could have said him nay ; and by this time any writing,
short of a letter, is allowed. The Professor had a wonderfully-
shaped head, his forehead towards the top being abnormally
prominent. He was devoted to mathematics, and gave much time
to their study ; thus it used to be said by those who could not
otherwise account for his strange appearance, that the harder he
worked at his favourite study the keener grew the contest between
the restraining frontal bones and protruding brain, the latter
perceptibly winning the day. A delightful talker was this great
mathematician, also a pugilistic person, and on occasion not above
using his fists with effect. One day he was summoned for an
assault, and duly appeared in the police court. "I was walking
quietly along the street," began the victim, " when Professor de

Morgan came straight up to me " " That's a lie ! " exclaimed

the disgusted mathematician. " I came up to you at an angle of
forty-five degrees." This anecdote has been given to several eminent
men, but Professor de Morgan was its real hero.

s

274 SIR ROWLAND HILL

ever written, of sending him, when a school - boy,
letters fastened with sealing-wax, the seal hiding the
welcome golden "tip." As the use of seals has
almost entirely died out, and sealed missives, even in
Macaulay's time, were coming to be looked at with
suspicion — as probably containing something worth
investigation — by those through whose hands they
pass, the boy was fortunate in that his uncle's letters
reached him safely.

Very unreasonable, and sometimes downright
absurd, are many complaints made by the public.
A lady once wrote to the authorities saying that
whereas at one time she always received her letters
in the morning, they now only reached her in the
evening. The fact was that, through the making
of better arrangements, the letters which used to
come in with the matutinal tea and toast were now
delivered over-night.

The following is a rather curious story of theft.
The cook in a gentleman's family residing at Harrow
one day received an unregistered letter from Hagley,
near Birmingham, which, when posted, contained a
watch. On reaching its destination the cover was
found to enclose a couple of pebbles only. She at
once went to her master for advice. An eminent
geologist was dining at the house. When he saw
the enclosures, he said : " These are Harrow pebbles ;
no such stones could be found at Hagley." This
showed that the letter must have been tampered with
at the Harrow end of the journey. The postal
authorities were communicated with, and an official
detective was sent to Harrow to make enquiries.

AT THE POST OFFICE 275

Something about the letter had, it seems, attracted
notice at the local post office — perhaps the watch had
ticked — which proved that the packet was intact when
handed to the letter-carrier for delivery. He had not,
however, given the letter to the cook, but to the
butler, who passed it on to the cook. The delinquent,
then, must be either the letter-carrier or the butler.
The letter-carrier had been long in the postal service,
and bore an excellent character. Suspicion therefore
pointed to the butler. He was called into the dining-
room, and interrogated. He denied all knowledge of
the watch, and declared he had given the packet to
the cook exactly as he had received it. But while the
interrogation was proceeding, his boxes were being
examined ; and, although no watch was found in any,
the searchers came upon some things belonging to
his master. Taxed with their theft, the man pleaded
guilty, but once more disclaimed all knowledge of the
watch. On some pretext he was allowed to leave
the room, when he retired to the pantry, and there
committed suicide.

As time wore on, during the ten years which
followed 1854 and my father's appointment as Secre-
tary to the Post Office, he sometimes found that his
earlier estimate of former opponents was a mistake.
When on the eve of entering the Post Office in 1846,
he was, for instance, especially advised to get rid of
Mr Bokenham, the head of the Circulation Depart-
ment.1 The new-comer, however, soon learned to

1 By shear ability, industry, and steadiness, Mr Bokenham had
worked himself up from a humble position to high rank in the Post
Office. One day a rough but pleasant-looking man of the lower

276 SIR ROWLAND HILL

appreciate at their just value Mr Bokenham's sterling
qualities both in official and private life. So far from
" inviting him to resign," my father, unasked, moved
for and obtained that improvement in position and
salary which his ex -adversary so thoroughly well
deserved, and which any less disinterested man would
probably have secured for himself long before. Nor
was Mr Bokenham's the only instance of genuine
worth rewarded by well-merited promotion in position
or salary, or both.

Another former strong opponent had been Mr
William Page, unto whose efforts the successful
conclusion of that treaty, known as " The Postal
Union," which enables us to correspond with foreign
nations for 2|d. the half-ounce, was largely due. At
the present day 2-J-d. seems scarcely to deserve the
term "cheap" postage, but in the middle of the
nineteenth century it was a reduction to rejoice
over. No visitor was more welcome to our house
than Mr Page, who was one of the most genial
and least self-seeking of men. He was a staunch
" Maberlyite," and, even when most friendly with
us, never concealed his attachment to the man to
whom he owed much kindness, as well as his own
well-deserved advancement, and the appointment to
the postal service of his two younger brothers. This
unswerving loyalty to a former chief naturally made

agricultural class came to London from his and Mr Bokenham's
native East Anglia, and called at St Martin's-le-Grand. "What!
Bill Bokenham live in a house of this size ! " he exclaimed. He
had taken the imposing, but far from beautiful edifice built in 1829
for his cousin's private residence.

AT THE POST OFFICE 277

us hold Mr Page in still warmer esteem, since the
worship of the risen sun is much more common and
much less heroic than is that of the luminary which
has definitely set. When my father died, Mr Page,
at once and uninvited, cut short an interesting and
much-needed holiday in Normandy because he knew
we should all wish him to be present at the funeral.

But although the situation at the Post Office
greatly improved after the chief opponent's transla-
tion to another sphere of usefulness, the old hostility
to the reform and reformer did not die out, being
in some directions scotched merely, and not killed.

One of the most prominent among the irreconcil-
ables was the novelist, Anthony Trollope. But as
he was a surveyor, which means a postal bird of
passage or official comet of moderate orbit regularly
moving on its prescribed course, with only periodic
appearances at St Martin's - le - Grand, he did not
frequently come into contact with the heads there.
He was an indefatigable worker ; and many of his
novels were partly written in railway carriages while
he was journeying from one post town to another,
on official inspection bent. On one occasion he was
brought to our house, and a most entertaining and
lively talker we found him to be. But somehow
our rooms seemed too small for his large, vigorous
frame, and big, almost stentorian voice. Indeed, he
reminded us of Dickens's Mr Boythorn, minus the
canary, and gave us the impression that the one
slightly-built chair on which he rashly seated him-
self during a great part of the interview, must
infallibly end in collapse, and sooner rather than

278 SIR ROWLAND HILL

later. After about a couple of hours of our society,
he apparently found us uncongenial company ; and
perhaps we did not take over kindly to him, how-
ever keen our enjoyment, then and afterwards, of
his novels and his talk. He has left a record in
print of the fact that he heartily detested the Hills,
who have consoled themselves by remembering that
when a man has spent many years in writing
romance, the trying of his hand, late in life, at
history, is an exceedingly hazardous undertaking.
In fact, Trollope's old associates at the Post Office
were in the habit of declaring that his " Autobio-
graphy " was one of the greatest, and certainly not
the least amusing, of his many works of fiction.

But Anthony Trollope had quite another side to
his character beside that of novelist and Hill-hater,
a side which should not be lost sight of. In 1859
he was sent out to the West Indies on official
business ; and, although a landsman, he was able
to propose a scheme of steamer routes more con-
venient and more economical than those in existence,
"and, in the opinion of the hydrographer to the
Admiralty, superior to them even in a nautical point
of view."1 Nevertheless, the scheme had to wait
long for adoption. Indeed, what scheme for better-
ment has not to wait long ?

Whenever my father met with any foreign visitors
of distinction, he was bound, sooner or later, to ask
them about postal matters in their own country.
The examined were of all ranks, from the King of
the Belgians to Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, whom
1 " Life," ii. 288.

AT THE POST OFFICE 279

he met at a public banquet, and presently questioned
as to the prospects of penny postage in Italy.
Garibaldi's interest in the subject was but languid ;
the sword with him was evidently a more congenial
weapon than the pen — or postage stamp. When,
later, Rowland Hill told his eldest brother of the
unsatisfactory interview, the latter was greatly
amused, and said : "When you go to Heaven I fore-
see that you will stop at the gate to enquire of
St Peter how many deliveries they have a day, and
how the expense of postal communication between
Heaven and the other place is defrayed."

To the year 1862 belongs a veracious anecdote,
which, although it has no relation to postal history,
is worth preserving from oblivion because its heroine
is a lady of exalted rank, who is held in universal
respect. In connection with the Great Exhibition
of that year, whose transplanted building has since
been known as the Alexandra Palace of North
London, my father came to know the Danish Pro-
fessor Forchammer ; and, when bound for the Post
Office, often took his way through the Exhibition,
then in Hyde Park, and the Danish Section in
particular. One morning he found the Professor
very busy superintending a rearrangement of the
pictures there. A portrait had just been taken from
the line in order that another, representing a very
attractive-looking young lady, which had previously
been " skied," might be put into the more important
place. The young lady's father had not yet become
a king, and the family was by no means wealthy,
which combination of circumstances perhaps accounted

28o SIR ROWLAND HILL

for the portrait's former inconspicuous position. On
my father's asking the reason for the change, Professor
Forchammer replied that a great number of people
was expected to visit that Section to-day to look
at the portrait, and it was imperative that it should
be given the best place there, in consequence of the
announcement just made public that the original
was " engaged to marry your Prince of Wales."

My father parted with great regret from Lord
Clanricarde when the Russell Administration went
out of office. His kindness and courtesy, his aptitude
for work, his good sense and evident sincerity, had
caused the '* Secretary to the Postmaster-General,"
after a service of nearly six years, to form a very
high opinion of his chief.1

Lord Clanricarde's successor, Lord Hardwicke,
belonged to the rough diamond species ; yet he tried
his hardest to fulfil intelligently and conscientiously
the duties of his novel and far from congenial office.
He had a cordial dislike to jobbery of any kind,
though once at least he came near to acquiescing
in a Parliamentary candidate's artfully-laid plot sug-
gesting the perpetration of a piece of lavish and
unnecessary expenditure in a certain town, the out-
lay to synchronise with the candidate's election, and
the merit to be claimed by him. Happily, Lord
Hardwicke's habitual lack of reticence gave wiser
heads the weapon with which to prevent so flagrant
a job from getting beyond the stage of mere sug-

1 In Edmund Yates's " Recollections " many pleasant stories are
told of Lord Clanricarde, to whose kindness indeed the author owed
his appointment to the Post Office.

AT THE POST OFFICE

281

gestion. It was the man's kind heart and dislike
to give offence which doubtless led him into indiscre-
tions of the sort ; but amiable as he was, he had
at times a knack of making people feel extremely
uncomfortable, as when, in conformity with his own
ideas on the subject, he sought to regulate the mutual
relations of the two chief Secretaries, when he called
in all latchkeys — his own, however, included — and
when, during his first inspection of his new kingdom,
he audibly asked, on entering a large room full of
employees, if he had "the power to dismiss all
these men." The old sailor aimed at ruling the
Post Office as he had doubtless ruled his man-of-war,
wasted time and elaborate minutes on trivial matters
—such as a return of the number of housemaids
employed — when important reforms needed attention,
and had none of the ability or breadth of view of
his predecessor.

Lord Canning was my father's next chief, and
soon showed himself to be an earnest friend to postal
reform. It was while he was Postmaster-General,
and mainly owing to his exertions, that in 1854
fulfilment was at last made of the promise given
by Lord John Russell's Government, to place the
author of Penny Postage at the head of the great
department which controlled the country's correspond-
ence— a promise in consideration of which Rowland
Hill, in 1846, had willingly sacrificed so much.
When Lord Canning left the Post Office to become
Governor-General of India, my father felt as if he
had lost a life-long friend ; and he followed with
deep interest his former chiefs career in the Far

282 SIR ROWLAND HILL

East. During the anxious time of struggle with
the Mutiny, nothing pained my father more than the
virulent abuse which was often levelled at the far-
seeing statesman whose wise and temperate rule
contributed so largely to preserve to his country pos-
session of that " brightest jewel of the crown" at a
season when most people in Britain lost their senses
in a wild outburst of fury. Lord Canning's manage-
ment of India won, from the first, his ex-lieutenant's
warmest admiration. The judgment of posterity
—often more discerning, because less heated, than
contemporaneous opinion — has long since decided
that " Clemency Canning" did rightly. The nick-
name was used as a reproach at the time, but the
later title of "The Lord Durham of India" is
meant as a genuine compliment, or, better still,
appreciation.1

1 "The close of his career as Postmaster-General," wrote my
father many years later, "was highly characteristic. For some
reason it was convenient to the Government that he should retain
his office until the very day of his departure for the East. Doubtless
it was expected that this retention would be little more than nominal,
or that, at most, he would attend to none but the most pressing
business, leaving to his successor all such affairs as admitted of
delay. When I found that he continued to transact business just
as usual, while I knew that he must be encumbered with every kind
of preparation, official, personal, and domestic, I earnestly pressed
that course upon him, but in vain ; he would leave no arrears, and
every question, great or small, which he had been accustomed to
decide was submitted to him as usual to the last hour of his
remaining in the country. Nor was decision even then made
heedlessly or hurriedly, but, as before, after full understanding.
... In common with the whole world, I regarded his premature
death as a severe national calamity. He was earnest and energetic
in the moral reform of the Post Office, and had his life been longer

AT THE POST OFFICE 283

The Duke of Argyll — he of the " silvern tongue "
—succeeded Lord Canning, and showed the same
aptitude for hard work which had distinguished his
predecessors. His quickness of apprehension, prompti-
tude in generalisation, and that facility in composition
which made of his minutes models of literary style,
were unusually great. When he left the Post Office
he addressed to its Secretary a letter of regret at
parting — an act of courtesy said to be rare. The
letter was couched in the friendliest terms, and the
regret was by no means one-sided.

Lord Colchester, the Postmaster- General in Lord
Derby's short - lived second Administration, was
another excellent chief, painstaking, hard - working,
high-minded, remarkably winning in manner, cherish-
ing a positive detestation of every kind of job, and
never hesitating to resist pressure on that score
from whatever quarter it might come. His early
death was a distinct loss to the party to which he
belonged.

For Lord Elgin, who, like Lord Canning, left
the Post Office to become Governor - General of
India, my father entertained the highest opinion
alike as regarded his administrative powers, his
calm and dispassionate judgment, and his trans-
parent straightforwardness of character. "He is
another Lord Canning," the postal reformer used

spared, might perhaps have been the moral reformer of India. . . .
That such a man, after acquiring a thorough knowledge of myself,
should have selected me for the difficult and responsible post of
Secretary to the Post Office, and have continued throughout my
attached friend, is to me a source of the highest gratification."
(« Life," ii. 353-355-)

284 SIR ROWLAND HILL

to say ; and that was paying his new chief the
greatest compliment possible.

So far, then, as my father's experience entitled
him to judge, there are few beliefs more erroneous
than that which pictures these political, and therefore
temporary masters of the Post Office — or, indeed, of
other Governmental departments — as mere " orna-
mental figure-heads," drawing a handsome salary,
and doing very little to earn it. The same remark
applies to my father's last chief, who was certainly
no drone, and who was ever bold in adopting any
improvement which seemed to him likely to benefit
the service and the public.

Hitherto the reformer had been fortunate in the
Postmasters-General he had served under ; and by
this time — the beginning of the 'sixties — everything
was working harmoniously, so that Mr (afterwards
Sir John) Tilly, the then Senior Assistant Secretary,
when contrasting the present with the past, was
justified when he remarked that, " Now every one
seems to do his duty as a matter of course."

But with the advent to power in 1860 of the
seventh chief under whom my father, while at the
Post Office, served, there came a change ; and the
era of peace was at an end. The new head may,
like Lord Canning, have had knowledge of that
hostility to which the earlier Postmaster-General, in
conversation with Rowland Hill, alluded. But if
so, the effect on the later chief was very different
from that upon Lord Canning. At this long interval
of time, there can be no necessity to disinter the
forgotten details of a quarrel that lasted for four

AT THE POST OFFICE 285

years, but which will soon be half a century old.
Perhaps the situation may be best expressed in the
brief, and very far from vindictive reference to it
in my father's diary. "I had not/' he wrote, "the
good fortune to obtain from him that confidence and
support which I had enjoyed with his predecessors.'
Too old, too utterly wearied out with long years of
almost incessant toil and frequently recurring obstruc-
tion, too hopelessly out of health1 to cope with the
new difficulties, the harassed postal reformer struggled
on awhile, and in 1864 resigned.

He was sixty-eight years of age, and from early
youth upward, had worked far harder than do most
people. " He had," said an old friend, "packed into
one man's life the life's work of two men."2

1 He had been still further crippled in 1860 by a paralytic
seizure which necessitated entire abstention from work for many
months, and from which he rallied, but with impared health,
although he lived some nineteen years longer.

2 "Life," ii. 353-363. Yates, in his "Recollections," gives a
vivid character sketch of this political head of the office. The
portrait is not flattering. But then Yates, who, like other sub-
ordinates at St Martin's-le-Grand, had grievances of his own against
the man who was probably the most unpopular Postmaster-General
of his century, does not mince his words.

CHAPTER IX

THE SUNSET OF LIFE

IN February 1864, Rowland Hill sent in his resigna-
tion to the Lords of the Treasury. Thenceforward,
he retired from public life, though he continued to take
a keen interest in all political and social questions, and
especially in all that concerned the Post Office.1 In
drawing his pen-portrait, it is better that the judg-
ment of a few of those who knew him well should
be quoted, rather than that of one so nearly related
to him as his present biographer.

In the concluding part to the " Life of Sir
Rowland Hill and History of Penny Postage," partly
edited, partly written by Dr G. Birkbeck Hill, the
latter, while reviewing the situation, justly holds
that " In the Post Office certainly" his uncle "should
have had no master over him at any time." . . .
" Under the able chiefs whom he served from 1854
to 1860, he worked with full contentment." When
" this happy period came to an end, with the appoint-
ment of" the Postmaster - General under whom he
found it impossible to work, " his force was once

1 On leaving office he drew up a short paper entitled, " Results
of Postal Reform," a copy of which appears in the Appendix.

286

To face p. 236.

From o Portrait in " THE GRAPHIC.
SIR ROWLAND HILL.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 287

more, and for the last time, squandered. How
strangely and how sadly was this man thwarted in
the high aim of his life ! He longed for power ; but
it was for the power to carry through his great
scheme. ' My plan ' was often on his lips, and
ever in his thoughts. His strong mind was made
up that it should succeed." . . . " There was in him
a rare combination of enthusiasm and practical power.
He clearly saw every difficulty that lay in his path,
and yet he went on with unshaken firmness. In
everything but in work he was the most temperate
of men. His health was greatly shattered by his
excessive toils and his long struggles. For the last
few years of his life he never left his house, and
never even left the floor on which his sleeping
room was. But in the midst of this confinement,
in all the weakness of old age and sickness, he
wrote : ' I accept the evil with the good, and frankly
regard the latter as by far the weightier of the
two. Could I repeat my course, I should sacrifice
as much as before, and regard myself as richly
repaid by the result.' With these high qualities
was united perfect integrity. He was the most
upright and the most truthful of men. He was
often careless of any gain to himself, but the good
of the State never for one moment did he disregard.
His rule was stern, yet never without consideration
for the feelings of others. No one who was under
him ever felt his self-respect wounded by his chief.1

1 He was, indeed, never likely to err as once did the unpopular
Postmaster-General who summoned to his presence the head of one
of the departments to give an explanation of some difficult matter

288 SIR ROWLAND HILL

He left behind him in all ranks of the service a
strong sense of public duty which outlived even the
evil days which came after him. One of the men
who long served under him bore this high testimony
to the character of his old chief: 'Sir Rowland Hill
was very generous with his own money, and very
close with public money. He would have been
more popular had he been generous with the public
money and close with his own.' " l

When Mr Gladstone was Chancellor of the
Exchequer, my father often worked with him, their
relations being most harmonious. Shortly before the
postal reformer's resignation, the great statesman
wrote that "he stands pre-eminent and alone among
all the members of the Civil Service as a benefactor
to the nation." At another time Mr Gladstone
assured his friend that " the support you have had
from me has been the very best that I could give,
but had it been much better and more effective, it
would not have been equal to your deserts and
claims." And at a later season, when Rowland Hill
was suffering from an especially virulent outbreak
of the misrepresentation and petty insults which fall
to the lot of all fearlessly honest, job-detesting men,
the sympathising Chancellor wrote : "If you are at
present under odium for the gallant stand you make
on behalf of the public interests, at a period, too,

that was under consideration. The interview was bound to be
lengthy, but the unfortunate man was not invited to take a chair,
till Rowland Hill, who was also present, rose, and, by way of silent
protest against an ill-bred action, remained standing. Then both
men were asked to sit down.
1 "Life,"ii. 411-414.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 289

when chivalry of that sort by no means 'pays,' I
believe that I have, and I hope still to have, the
honour of sharing it with you."1 Writing soon after
my father's death, the then leader of the Opposition
used words which Rowland Hill's descendants have
always prized. " In some respects his lot was one
peculiarly happy even as among public benefactors,
for his great plan ran like wildfire through the
civilised world ; and never, perhaps, was a local
invention (for such it was) and improvement applied
in the lifetime of its author to the advantage of such
vast multitudes of his fellow-creatures." Ten years
later, the same kindly critic, in the course of a
speech delivered at Saltney in October 1889, said:
"In the days of my youth a labouring man, the
father of a family, was practically prohibited from
corresponding with the members of his household
who might be away. By the skill and courage and
genius of Sir Rowland Hill, correspondence is now
within reach of all, and the circulation of intelligence
is greatly facilitated."1

A very busy man himself, my father was naturally
full of admiration for Gladstone's marvellous capacity
for work and for attending to a number of different
things at once. One day, when the Secretary to

i«Life,"ii. 363, 400.

2 It is well to reproduce these remarks of one who could
remember the old postal system, because among the younger
generations who know nothing of it, a belief seems to be prevalent
that the plan of penny postage was merely an elaboration of the
little local posts. Gladstone was thirty when the great postal reform
was established, and was therefore fully qualified to speak of it as
he did.

T

2QO

SIR ROWLAND HILL

the Post Office went to Downing Street to transact
some departmental business with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, he found the latter engaged with
his private secretaries, every one of whom was hard
at work, a sculptor being meanwhile employed upon
a bust for which the great man was too much
occupied to give regular sittings. Every now and
then during my father's interview, Mrs Gladstone,
almost, if not quite, as hard-working as her husband,
came in and out, each time on some errand of
importance, and all the while letters and messengers
and other people were arriving or departing. Yet
the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed able to
keep that wonderful brain of his as clear as if his
attention had been wholly concentrated on the
business about which his postal visitor had come,
and this was soon discussed and settled in Gladstone's
own clear and concise manner, notwithstanding the
should - have - been - bewildering surroundings, which
would have driven my father all but distracted. A
characteristic, everyday scene of that strenuous life.
On Rowland Hill's retirement, he received many
letters of sympathy and of grateful recognition of
his services from old friends and former colleagues,
most of them being men of distinguished career.
They form a valuable collection of autographs, which
would have been far larger had not many of his
early acquaintances, those especially who worked
heartily and well during the late 'thirties to help
forward the reform, passed over already to the
majority. One letter was from Lord Monteagle, who,
as Mr Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer in

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 291

the Melbourne Administration, had proposed Penny
Postage in the Budget of 1839.

Prolonged rest gave back to Rowland Hill some
of his old strength, and allowed him to serve on
the Royal Commission on Railways, and to show
while so employed that his mind had lost none of
its clearness. He was also able on several occasions
to attend the meetings of the Political Economy
Club and other congenial functions, and he followed
with keen interest the doings of the Royal
Astronomical Society, to which he had belonged for
more than half a century.1 He also spent much
time in preparing the lengthy autobiography on
whose pages I have largely drawn in writing this
story of his reform. He survived his retirement
from the Post Office fifteen years ; and time, with
its happy tendency to obliterate memory of wrongs,

1 His love for " the Queen of all the Sciences " was gratified one
cloudless day in the late autumn of his life by following through his
telescope the progress of a transit of Mercury, which he enjoyed
with an enthusiasm that was positively boyish. An early lesson in
astronomy had been given him one wintry night by his father, who,
with the little lad, had been taking a long walk into the country. On
their return, young Rowland, being tired, finished the journey seated
on his father's back, his arms clasped round the paternal neck.
Darkness came on, and in the clear sky the stars presently shone
out brilliantly. The two wayfarers by and by passed beside a large
pond, in which, the evening being windless, the stars were reflected.
Seeing how admirable an astral map the placid waters made, the
father stopped and pointed out the constellations therein reproduced,
naming them to his little son. The boy eagerly learned the lesson,
but his joy was somewhat tempered by the dread lest he should fall
into what, to his childish fancy, looked like a fathomless black abyss.
Happily, his father had a firm grasp of Rowland's clinging arms, and
no accident befell him.

SIR ROWLAND HILL

enabled him to look back on the old days of storm
and stress with chastened feelings. Over several of
his old opponents the grave had closed, and for the
rest, many years had passed since they and he had
played at move and counter-move. Thus, when the
only son of one of his bitterest adversaries died
under especially sad circumstances, the news called
forth the aged recluse's ever ready sympathy, and
prompted him to send the bereaved parent a genuinely
heartfelt message of condolence. Increasing age and
infirmities did not induce melancholy or pessimistic
leanings, and although he never ceased to feel regret
that his plan had not been carried out in its entirety
— a regret with which every reformer, successful or
otherwise, is likely to sympathise — he was able in
one of the concluding passages of his Autobiography
to write thus cheerfully of his own position and
that of his forerunners in the same field : " When I
compare my experience with that of other reformers
or inventors, I ought to regard myself as supremely
fortunate. Amongst those who have laboured to
effect great improvements, how many have felt their
success limited to the fact that by their efforts seed
was sown which in another age would germinate
and bear fruit ! How many have by their innovations
exposed themselves to obliquy, ridicule, perhaps even
to the scorn and abhorrence of at least their own
generation ; and, alas, how few have lived to see
their predictions more than verified, their success
amply acknowledged, and their deeds formally and
gracefully rewarded ! "

1 "Life,"ii. 401.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 293

Owing to the still quieter life which, during his
very latest years, he was obliged to lead through
broken health, advancing age, and the partial loneli-
ness caused by the passing hence of his too eldest
brothers, one of his children, and nearly all his most
intimate friends, he was nearly forgotten by the
public, or at any rate by that vastly preponderating
younger portion of it, which rarely studies " the
history of our own times," or is only dimly aware
that Rowland Hill had " done something to the
Post Office." Many people believed him to be dead,
others that he was living in a retirement not altogether
voluntary. Thus one day he was greatly amused
while reading his morning paper, to learn that at a
spiritualist meeting his wraith had been summoned
from the vasty deep, and asked to give its opinion
on the then management of the Post Office. The
helm at that time was in the hands of one of the
bitterest of his old opponents, and sundry things
had lately taken place — notably, if memory serves
me aright, in the way of extravagant telegraphs
purchase — of which he strongly disapproved. But
that fact by no means prevented the spirit from
expressing entire satisfaction with everything and
everybody at St Martin's-le-Grand, or from singling
out for particular commendation the then novel
invention of halfpenny postcards. These the living
man cordially detested as being, to his thinking, a
mischievous departure from his principle of uniformity
of rate.1 Later, he so far conformed to the growing

1 A more recent instance of killing a man before he is dead, and
raising his spirit to talk at a seance, was that of Mr Sherman, the

294 SIR ROWLAND HILL

partiality for postcards as to keep a packet or two
on hand, but they diminished in number very slowly,
and he was ever wont to find fault with the
unfastidious taste of that large portion of mankind
which writes descriptions of its maladies, details of
its private affairs, and moral reflections on the foibles
of its family or friends, so that all who run, or, at
any rate, sort and deliver, may read.

During the quarter-century which elapsed between
Rowland Hill's appointment to the Treasury and his
resignation of the chief secretaryship to the Post
Office, many generous tributes were paid him by the
public in acknowledgment of the good accomplished
by the postal reform.

The year after the establishment of penny postage,
Wolverhampton, Liverpool, and Glasgow, each sent

American statesman. His ghost expatiated eloquently on the beauties
and delights of Heaven — with which region, as he was still in the
land of the living, he could hardly have made acquaintance — and
altogether uttered much unedifying nonsense. The following
veracious anecdotes show what hazy views on history, postal or
otherwise, some children, and even their elders, entertain. A school
mistress who had recently passed with honours through one of our
" Seminaries of Useless Knowledge," was asked by a small pupil if
Rowland Hill had not invented the penny post. "No, my dear,"
answered the learned instructress. "The penny post has been
established in this country for hundreds of years. All that Rowland
Hill did was to put the Queen's head on to a penny stamp." The
other story is of a recent viva voce examination in English history at
one of our large public schools. "Who was Rowland Hill ?" was the
question. " Rowland Hill," came without hesitation the reply, though
not from the grand-nephew who was present and is responsible for
the tale, " was a man who was burned for heresy." Could the boy
have been thinking of Rowland Taylor, a Marian martyr ? The fact
that my father was not exactly orthodox, lends piquancy to the story.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 295

him a handsome piece of plate, the Liverpool gift,
a silver salver, being accompanied by a letter from
Mr Egerton Smith, the editor of the local Mercury.
Mr Smith told my father that the salver had been
purchased with the pence contributed by several
thousands of his fellow-townsmen, and that Mr
Mayer, in whose works it had been made, and by
whom it was delivered into the postal reformer's
hands, had waived all considerations of profit, and
worked out of pure gratitude. The other pieces of
plate were also accompanied by addresses couched
in the kindliest of terms.

From Cupar Fife came a beautiful edition of the
complete works of Sir Walter Scott — ninety-eight
volumes in all. In each is a fly-leaf stating for whom
and for what services this unique edition was pre-
pared, the inscription being as complimentary as were
the inscriptions accompanying the other testimonials.
My father was a life-long admirer of Scott ; and
when the Cupar Fife Testimonial Committee wrote
to ask what form their tribute should take, he was
unfeignedly glad to please his Scots admirers by
choosing the works of their most honoured author,
and, at the same time, by possessing them, to realise
a very many years long dream of his own. As
young men, he and his brothers had always welcomed
each successive work as it fell from pen and press,
duly receiving their copy direct from the publishers,
and straightway devouring it. Younger generations
have decided that Scott is ''dry." Had they lived
in those dark, early decades of the nineteenth century,
when literature was perhaps at its poorest level, they

296 SIR ROWLAND HILL

also might have greeted with enthusiasm the creations
of "the Great Unknown," and wondered who could
be their author.1 My father set so high a value on
these beautiful presentation volumes that, from the
first, he laid down a stringent rule that not one of
them should leave the house, no matter who might
wish to borrow it.

The National Testimonial — to which allusion has
already been made — was raised about three years
after Rowland Hill's dismissal from the Treasury,
and before his restoration to office by Lord John
Russell's Administration, by which time the country
had given the new postal system a trial, and found
out its merits. In 1845 Sir George Larpent, in the
name of the Mercantile Committee, sent my father
a copy of its Resolutions, together with a cheque for
;£ 1 0,000, the final presentation being deferred till the

1 While we were children our father used often to read aloud to
us — as a schoolmaster and elocutionist he was a proficient in that
comparatively rare art — and in course of time we thus became
acquainted with nearly all these books. He probably missed the
occasional lengthy introductory chapters and other parts which well
bear pruning, for memory holds no record of their undeniable
tediousness. We certainly did not find Scott " dry." Why should
we? Through him we came to know chivalric Saladin, David of
Huntingdon, and tawny-haired Richard of the Lion's heart ; to love
the noble Rebecca, and to assist at the siege of Torquilstone Castle ;
to look on at the great fight between the Clan Chattan and the
Clan Quhele, and to mourn over Rothesay's slow, cruel doing to
death ; to know kings and queens, and companies of gallant knights
and lovely ladies, and free-booters like Rob Roy and Robin Hood,
and wits and eccentric characters who were amusing without being
vulgar or impossible. Also was it not Sir Walter who "discovered''
Scotland for our delight, and through that discovery contributed
largely to his native land's prosperity ?

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 297

accounts should be made up. This was done in June
1846, on the occasion of a public dinner at which were
assembled Rowland Hill's aged father, his only son —
then a lad of fourteen — and his brothers, in addition
to many of those good friends who had done yeoman
service for the reform. The idea of the testimonial
originated with Mr John Estlin,1 an eminent surgeon
of Bristol, and was speedily taken up in London by
The Inquirer, the article advocating it being written
by the editor, the Rev. Wm. Hinks. The appeal
once started was responded to by the country cordially
and generously.

Many pleasant little anecdotes show how heartily
the poorer classes appreciated both reform and
reformer. Being, in 1853, on a tour in Scotland, my
father one day employed a poor journeyman tailor of
Dunoon to mend a torn coat. Somehow the old man
found out who was its wearer, and no amount of
persuasion would induce him to accept payment for
the rent he so skilfully made good. A similar case
occurred somewhat earlier, when we were staying at
Beaumaris ; while a "humble admirer" who gave no
name wrote, a few years later than the presentation
of the National Testimonial, to say that at the time
he had been too poor to subscribe, but now sent a
donation, which he begged my father to accept. His
identity was never revealed. Another man wrote a
letter of thanks from a distant colony, and not
knowing the right address, inscribed the cover
"To him who gave us all the Penny Post." Even

1 The Mercantile Committee suggested a National Testimonial
in March 1844, but Mr Estlin's proposal was yet earlier.

298 SIR ROWLAND HILL

M. Grasset, when in a similar difficulty, directed his
envelope from Paris to " Rowland Hill — where he
is." That these apologies for addresses can be re-
produced is proof that the missives reached their
destination.1

It would be easy to add to these stories ; their
name is legion.

Tributes like these touched my father even more

1 A third letter to the postal reformer, also delivered, came
directed to the General Post Office to " Mr Owl O Neill." Owing
to the present spread of education, the once numerous (and
genuine) specimens of eccentric spelling are yearly growing fewer,
so that the calling of " blind man " — as the official decipherer of
illegible and ill-spelled addresses is not very appropriately termed
— is likely to become obsolete. It would surely have given any
ordinary mortal a headache to turn " Uncon " into Hong- Kong,
" Ilawait " into Isle of Wight, " I Vicum " into High Wycombe,
"Searhoo Skur" into Soho Square, or "Vallop a Razzor" into
Valparaiso. Education will also deprive us of insufficiently
addressed letters. " Miss Queene Victoria of England " did
perhaps reach her then youthful Majesty from some Colonial or
American would-be correspondent ; but what could have been done
with the letter intended for " My Uncle Jon in London," or that
to "Mr Michl Darcy in the town of England"? The following
pair of addresses are unmistakably Hibernian. " Dennis Belcher,
Mill Street, Co. Cork. As you turn the corner to Tom Mantel's
field, where Jack Gallavan's horse was drowned in the bog-hole,"
and " Mr John Sullivan, North Street, Boston. He's a man with
a crutch. Bedad, I think that'll find him." That the French
Post Office also required the services of " blind man " these strange
addresses, taken from Larouse's " Dictionnaire du XIX.e Siecle,"
vol. xii. p. 1,497, demonstrate. The first, "A monsieur mon fils a
Paris," reached its destination because it was called for at the chief
office, where it had been detained, by a young man whose explanation
satisfied the enquiring official. Whether the letter addressed to
Lyon, and arriving at a time of thaw, " A M. M., demeurant dans
la maison aupres de laquelle il y a un tas de neige " was delivered is
not so certain.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 299

deeply than the bestowal of public honours, although
he also prized these as showing that his work was
appreciated in all grades of life. Moreover, in those
now far-off days, "honours" were bestowed more
sparingly and with greater discrimination than later
came to be the case ; and merit was considered of
more account than money-bags. Thus in 1860
Rowland Hill was made a K.C.B., the suggestion of
that step being understood to lie with Lords Palmerston
and Elgin (the then Postmaster-General), for the
recipient had not been previously sounded, and the
gift came as a surprise.

After my father's retirement, the bestowal of
honours recommenced, though he did not assume the
title of " Lord Queen's head," as Mr Punch suggested
he should do were a peerage offered to him — which
was not at all likely to be done. At Oxford he
received the honorary degree of D.C.L.,1 and a little
later was presented by the then Prince of Wales with
the first Albert Gold Medal issued by the Society of
Arts. The following year, when Rowland Hill was
dining at Marlborough House, the Prince reminded
him of the presentation. Upon which the guest told
his host a little story which was news to H.R.H., and
greatly amused him. The successive blows required
for obtaining high relief on the medal had shattered
the die before the work was completed. There was
not time to make another die, as it was found impos-
sible to postpone the ceremony. At the moment of
presentation, however, the recipient only, and not the

i He had long before added to his name the justly-prized initials
of F.R.S. and F.R.A.S.

300 SIR ROWLAND HILL

donor, was aware that it was an empty box which,
with much interchange of compliments, passed from
the royal hands into those of the commoner.

From Longton, in the Staffordshire Potteries, came
a pair of very handsome vases. When the workmen
engaged in making them learned for whom they
were intended, they bargained that, by way of con-
tribution to the present, they should give their labour
gratuitously.

An address to Rowland Hill was voted at a
town's meeting at Liverpool, and this was followed
by the gift of some valuable pictures. Their selec-
tion being left to my father himself, he chose three,
one work each, by friends of long standing — his ex-
pupil Creswick, and Messrs Cooke and Clarkson Stan-
field, all famous Royal Academicians. Three statues
of the postal reformer have been erected, the first
at Birmingham, where, soon after his resignation, a
town's meeting was held to consider how to do honour
to the man whose home had once been there, the
originator of the movement being another ex-pupil,
Mr James Lloyd of the well-known banking family.
From Kidderminster his fellow-townsmen sent my
father word that they were about to pay him the
same compliment they had already paid to another
Kidderminster man, the famous preacher, Richard
Baxter. But this newer statue, like the one by
Onslow Ford in London,1 was not put up till after the
reformer's death. Of the three, the Kidderminster

1 This last statue had not long been unveiled when the street
boys — so reported one of our newspapers — began to adorn the
pedestal with postage stamps.

From a Pliotorjraph by the late, T. Ball.

THE STATUE, KIDDERMINSTER,
By Thomas Brock, R.A.

To face p. 301.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 301

statue, by Thomas Brock, R.A., is by far the best, the
portrait being good and the pose characteristic.
Mr Brock has also done justice to his subject's
strongest point, the broad, massive head suggestive
of the large, well-balanced brain within. That the
others were not successful as likenesses is not
surprising. Even when living he was difficult to
portray, a little bust by Brodie, R.S.A., when Rowland
Hill was about fifty, being perhaps next best to
Brock's. The small bust in Westminster Abbey set
up in the side chapel where my father lies is absolutely
unrecognisable. Another posthumous portrait was
the engraving published by Vinter (Lithographer to
the Queen). It was taken from a photograph then
quite a quarter-century old. Photography in the early
'fifties was comparatively a young art. Portraits were
often woeful caricatures; and the photograph in our
possession was rather faded, so that the lithographer
had no easy task before him. Still, the likeness was
a fair one, though the best of all — and they were
admirable — were an engraving published by Messrs
Kelly of the " Post Office Directory," and one which
appeared in the Graphic.

In June 1879, less than three months before his
death, the Freedom of the City of London was
bestowed upon the veteran reformer. By this time
he had grown much too infirm to go to the Guild-
hall to receive the honour in accordance with long-
established custom. The Court of Common Council
therefore considerately waived precedent, and sent to
Hampstead a deputation of five gentlemen,1 headed by
1 These were Mr Washington Lyon, mover of the resolution ;

302 SIR ROWLAND HILL

the City Chamberlain, who made an eloquent address,
briefly describing the benefits achieved by the postal
reform, while offering its dying author " the right
hand of fellowship in the name of the Corporation."
My father was just able to sign the Register, but the
autograph is evidence of the near approach to dissolu-
tion of the hand that traced it.

On the 27th of August in the same year he passed
away in the presence of his devoted wife, who, barely
a year his junior, had borne up bravely and hardly
left his bedside, and of one other person. Almost his
last act of consciousness was, while holding her hand
in his, to feel for the wedding ring he had placed upon
it nearly fifty-two years before.

My father's noblest monument is his reform which
outlives him, and which no reactionary Administra-
tion should be permitted to sweep away. The next
noblest is the " Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund,"
whose chief promoters were Sir James Whitehead and
Mr R. K. Causton, and was the fruit of a subscription
raised soon after the postal reformer's death, doubled,
eleven years later, by the proceeds of the two Penny
Postage Jubilee celebrations, the one at the Guildhall
and the other at the South Kensington Museum, in
1890. Had it been possible to consult the dead man's
wishes as to the use to be made of this fund, he
would certainly have given his voice for the purpose
to which it is dedicated — the relief of those among
the Post Office employees who, through ill-health,

Sir John Bennett, the seconder ; Mr Peter M'Kinley, the Chairman
of General Purposes Committee ; Mr (afterwards Sir Benjamin)
Scott, F.R.A.S., the City Chamberlain; and Mr (afterwards Sir
John) Monckton, F.S.A., the Town Clerk.

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 303

old age, or other causes, have broken down, and are
wholly or nearly destitute. For, having himself
graduated in the stern school of poverty, he too
had known its pinch, and could feel for the poor
as the poor are ever readiest to feel.

My father's fittest epitaph is contained in the
following poem which appeared in Punch soon after
his death. His family have always, and rightly,
considered that no more eloquent or appreciative
obituary notice could have been penned.

Jn /Ifcemoriam

ROWLAND HILL

ORIGINATOR OF CHEAP POSTAGE

Born at Kidderminster, 3rd December 1795. Died at Hampstead, 27th
August 1879. Buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of James
Watt, Thursday, 4th September.

No question this of worthy's right to lie

With England's worthiest, by the side of him

Whose brooding brain brought under mastery
The wasted strength of the Steam giant grim.

Like labours — his who tamed by sea and land

Power, Space, and Time, to needs of human kind,

That bodies might be stronger, nearer hand,

And his who multiplied mind's links with mind.

Breaking the barriers th^t, of different height
For rich and poor, were barriers still for all ;

Till " out of mind " was one with " out of sight,"
And parted souls oft parted past recall.

304 SIR ROWLAND HILL

Freeing from tax unwise the interchange

Of distant mind with mind and mart with mart ;

Releasing thought from bars that clipped its range ;
Lightening a load felt most i' the weakest part.

What if the wings he made so strong and wide
Bear burdens with their blessings ? Own that all

For which his bold thought we oft hear decried,
Of laden bag, too frequent postman's call,

Is nothing to the threads of love and light

Shot, thanks to him, through life's web dark and wide,
N Nor only where he first unsealed men's sight,
But far as pulse of time and flow of tide !

Was it a little thing to think this out ?

Yet none till he had hit upon the thought ;
And, the thought brought to birth, came sneer and flout

Of all his insight saw, his wisdom taught.

All office doors were closed against him — hard ;

All office heads were closed against him too.
He had but worked, like others, for reward.

"The thing was all a dream." "It would not do."

But this was not a vaguely dreaming man,
A windbag of the known Utopian kind ;

He had thought out, wrought out, in full, his plan ;
'Twas the far-seeing fighting with the blind.

And the far-seeing won his way at last,

Though pig-headed Obstruction's force died hard ;

Denied his due, official bitters cast,

Into the cup wrung slowly from their guard.

But not until the country, wiser far

Than those who ruled it, with an angry cry,

Seeing its soldiers 'gainst it waging war,
At last said resolutely, " Stand you by !

THE SUNSET OF LIFE 305

" And let him in to do what he has said,

And you do not, and will not let him do."
And so at last the fight he fought was sped,

Thought at less cost freer and further flew.

And all the world was kindlier, closer knit,
And all man's written word can bring to man

Had easier ways of transit made for it,
And none sat silent under poortith's ban

When severed from his own, as in old days.

And this we owe to one sagacious brain,
By one kind heart well guided, that in ways

Of life laborious sturdy strength had ta'en.

And his reward came, late, but sweeter so,

In the wide sway that his wise thought had won :

He was as one whose seed to tree should grow,
Who hears him blest that sowed it 'gainst the sun.

So love and honour made his grey hairs bright,
And while most things he hoped to fulness came,

And many ills he warred with were set right,

Good work and good life joined to crown his name.

And now that he is dead we see how great

The good work done, the good life lived how brave,

And through all crosses hold him blest of fate,
Placing this wreath upon his honoured grave !

— Punch, 2oth September 1879

APPENDIX

RESULTS OF POSTAL REFORM

BEFORE stating the results of Postal Reform it may be
convenient that I should briefly enumerate the more
important organic improvements effected. They are a
follows : —

1. A very large reduction in the Rates of Postage on a]
correspondence, whether Inland, Foreign, or Colonial. A
instances in point, it may be stated that letters are no\*
conveyed from any part of the United Kingdom to any othe
part — even from the Channel Islands to the Shetland Isle
— at one-fourth of the charge previously levied on letter
passing between post towns only a few miles apart j1 am
that the rate formerly charged for this slight distance — viz
4d. — now suffices to carry a letter from any part of th
United Kingdom to any part of France, Algeria included.

2. The adoption of charge by weight, which, by abolish
ing the charge for mere enclosures, in effect largely extende
the reduction of rates.

3. Arrangements which have led to the almost universa
resort to prepayment of correspondence, and that by mean
of stamps.

4. The simplification of the mechanism and accounts o
the department generally, by the above and other means.

1 When my plan was published, the lowest General Post rate wa
4d. ; but while the plan was under the consideration of Government,
the rate between post towns not more than 8 miles asunder was reduced
from 4d. to 2d.

306

APPENDIX 307

5. The establishment of the Book Post (including in its
operation all printed and much M.S. matter), at very low
rates ; and its modified extension to our Colonies, and to
many foreign countries.

6. Increased security in the transmission of valuable
letters afforded, and temptation to the letter-carriers and
others greatly diminished, by reducing the Registration Fee
from is. to 4d., by making registration of letters containing
coin compulsory, and by other means.

7. A reduction to about one-third in the cost — including
postage — of Money Orders, combined with a great extension
and improvement of the system.

8. More frequent and more rapid communication between
the Metropolis and the larger provincial towns ; as also
between one provincial town and another.

9. A vast extension of the Rural Distribution — many
thousands of places, and probably some millions of inhabitants
having for the first time been included within the Postal
System.

10. A great extension of free deliveries. Before the
adoption of Penny Postage, many considerable towns, and
portions of nearly all the larger towns, had either no delivery
at all, or deliveries on condition of an extra charge.

11. Greatly increased facilities afforded for the trans-
mission of Foreign and Colonial Correspondence ; by im-
proved treaties with foreign countries, by a better arrange-
ment of the Packet service, by sorting on board and other
means.

12. A more prompt dispatch of letters when posted, and
a more prompt delivery on arrival.

13. The division of London and its suburbs into Ten
Postal Districts, by which, and other measures, communica-
tion within the 12-miles circle has been greatly facilitated,
and the most important delivery of the day has, generally
speaking, been accelerated as much as two hours.

14. Concurrently with these improvements, the condition
of the employees has been materially improved ; their
labours, especially on the Sunday, having been very generally

3o8 APPENDIX

reduced, their salaries increased, their chances of promotion
augmented, and other important advantages afforded them.

RESULTS

My pamphlet on " Post Office Reform " was written in
the year 1836. During the preceding twenty years — viz.,
from 1815 to 1835 inclusive — there was no increase what-
ever in the Post Office revenue, whether gross or net, and
therefore, in all probability, none in the number of letters;
and though there was a slight increase in the revenue,
and doubtless in the number of letters, between 1835 and
the establishment of Penny Postage early in 1840 — an
increase chiefly due, in my opinion, to the adoption of
part of my plan, viz., the establishment of Day Mails to
and from London — yet, during the whole period of twenty-
four years immediately preceding the adoption of Penny
Postage, the revenue, whether gross or net, and the number
of letters, were, in effect, stationary.

Contrast with this the rate of increase under the new
system which has been in operation during a period of
about equal length. In the first year of Penny Postage
the letters more than doubled, and though since then the
increase has, of course, been less rapid, yet it has been so
steady that, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of trade, every
year, without exception, has shown a considerable advance
on the preceding year, and the first year's number is now
nearly quadrupled. As regards revenue, there was, of course,
at first a large falling off — about a million in gross and
still more in net revenue. Since then, however, the revenue,
whether gross or net, has rapidly advanced, till now it even
exceeds its former amount, the rate of increase, both of
letters and revenue, still remaining undiminished.

In short, a comparison of the year 1863 with 1838 (the
last complete year under the old system) shows that the
number of chargeable letters has risen from 76,000,000 to
642,000,000 ; and that the revenue, at first so much impaired,

APPENDIX 309

has not only recovered its original amount, but risen, the
gross from £2,346,000 to about £3,870,000, and the net
from ;£ i, 660,000 to about ;£ i ,790,000.!

The expectations I held out before the change were,
that eventually, under the operation of my plans, the number
of letters would increase fivefold, the gross revenue would
be the same as before, while the net revenue would sustain
a loss of about ^300,000. The preceding statement shows
that the letters have increased, not fivefold, but nearly
eight-and-a-half-fold ; that the gross revenue, instead of
remaining the same, has increased by about ;£ 1,500,000 ;
while the net revenue, instead of falling £300,000, has risen
more than ;£ 100,000.

While the revenue of the Post Office has thus more
than recovered its former amount, the indirect benefit to
the general revenue of the country arising from the greatly
increased facilities afforded to commercial transactions,
though incapable of exact estimate, must be very large.
Perhaps it is not too much to assume that, all things
considered, the vast benefit of cheap, rapid, and extended
postal communication has been obtained, even as regards
the past, without fiscal loss. For the future there must be
a large and ever-increasing gain.

The indirect benefit referred to is partly manifested
in the development of the Money Order System, under
which, since the year 1839, the annual amount transmitted
has risen from £313,000 to £16,494,000, that is, fifty -two-fold.

An important collateral benefit of the new system is
to be found in the cessation of that contraband convey-
ance which once prevailed so far that habitual breach of
the postal law had become a thing of course.

It may be added that the organisation thus so greatly

1 In this comparison of revenue, the mode of calculation in use
before the adoption of Penny Postage has, of course, been retained — that
is to say, the cost of the Packets on the one hand, and the produce of the
impressed Newspaper Stamps on the other, have been excluded. The
amounts for 1863 are, to some extent, estimated, the accounts not having
as yet been fully made up.

3io APPENDIX

improved and extended for postal purposes stands available
for other objects ; and, passing over minor matters, has
already been applied with great advantage to the new
system of Savings Banks.

Lastly, the improvements briefly referred to above, with
all their commercial, educational, and social benefits, have
now been adopted, in greater or less degree — and that
through the mere force of example — by the whole civilised
world.

I cannot conclude this summary without gratefully ac-
knowledging the cordial co - operation and zealous aid
afforded me in the discharge of my arduous duties. I must
especially refer to many among the superior officers of the
department — men whose ability would do credit to any
service, and whose zeal could not be greater if their
object were private instead of public benefit.

ROWLAND HILL.

HAMPSTEAD,
2yd February 1864.

INDEX

ABBOTT, Sec. P.O., Scotland, 259

Aberdeen, 54, 206

Abolition of postal tolls over Menai
and Conway bridges and Scottish
border, 161 ; of money prepayment,
228

Account-keeping, official (blunders in),
I74> 175 5 postal, 62-64, 105, 106,
175 ; practically revolutionised, 219

Accountant-General, the, 175

Adelaide, South Australia, 19

Adhesive stamps. (See Postage stamps)

Admiralty, the, 174, 236

Advertisement duty, the, 97

Adviser to the P.O., 214

Afghanistan, war in, 176

Aggrieved lady, an, 274

Air-gun, the, 200

Airy, Sir G. B., Astronomer Royal, 34

Albert Gold Medal, story of an, 299

Algeria, 14

Algerine Ambassador, the, 14

Allen, Ralph, postal reformer, 55,71,
77

All the Year Round, 267

Amalgamation of two corps of letter-
carriers, the, 41, 155

"Ambassador's bag," the, 43

Ambleside, 132, 204

American Chamber of Commerce, the,
68

colonies, revolt of the, 17; and

the paper-duty stamp, 188

rancher, an, 260

Amiens, the Peace of, 35, 88
Angas, Mr G. F., 19
"Anne Pryse, her boke," 272
Annual motion, Mr Villiers', 24

Reports of the Postmaster -

General, 171, 176, 250

Annular eclipse of the sun, 266
Anonymous letters, 225, 264, 265
"Anti-Corn-Law Catechism, "the, 143 ;
League, the, 142, 143, 178

Appointments, the power to make,
transferred to Post Office, 246 ;
excellent appointments made by
Colonel Maberly, 248 ; best rules for,
209, 261

Archer's perforation patent, 200

Argyll, Duke of. (See Postmasters-
General)

Armstrong, Sir Wm. (Lord Armstrong),
242

Army and Navy, the, 176 ; letters and
money orders (Crimean War), 140

Arnott, Dr Niel, 28

Artist, a puzzled, 203

Ashburton, Lord, 39, 124

Ashley, Lord. (See Shaftesbury)

Ashurst, Mr Wm., 114

" As if they were all M.P.s," 131

Association for abolition of taxes on
knowledge, 97

Astronomical Society, the Royal, 291

Astronomy, 6, 81 ; an early lesson in,
291

Athenaeum Club, 31, 237 ; newspaper,
29.

Atterbury, trial of Bishop, 114

Auction sale of lost articles, 271

Augean stable, an, 180

Augier, M., 79

Australia, 19, 65 ; mails to, 237, 238

Austria, 37 ; adopts postal reform, 251

Authors who draw on their imagination
for their facts, 186-189

"Autobiographic Sketches," De
Quincey, 16

Average postage on letters, the, 41, 165

BACK-STAIRS influence, 178-181
Bacon, Mr (Messrs Perkins, Bacon

& Co.), 207

Bad bargains, the State's, 262
Baden adopts postal reform, 251
Baines family, the (Leeds Mercury}^ 117,

267

312

INDEX

Baker, Sir B., 261

Balcombe, Miss B., 27, 28

Bancroft, United States' historian, 134

Bandiera, the brothers, 1 14

Bankers' franks, 45

" Barbary Corsairs, The," 15

Baring brothers, the, 114

, Sir F., 138 ; a zealous chief,

145 ; first interview with, 149 ; dis-
cusses terms of engagement with R.
H., 149-153 ; his friendly attitude,
154 ; distrusts principle of prepay-
ment, 1 60 ; suggests compulsory use
of stamps, 161 ; satisfied with result
of tentative rate, 162 ; uneasy at
increase of expenditure, 171 ; his
indignation at R. H.'s dismissal,
178 ; dreads possible raising of postal
rates, 181 ; on suggested revival of
old system, 212

" Barnaby Rudge," 224

Bates, Mr (Messrs Baring Brothers), 114

Bath, 71, 77,82

Bavaria adopts postal reform, 25 1

Baxter, Richard, 300

Beaumaris, 297

" Bedchamber Difficulty," the, 144

Belated letter, a, 148

Belgians, King of the, 278

Belgium, 109 ; adopts postal reform,
251, 252

Bennett, Sir J., 302

Bentham, Jeremy, 13, 34

Bentinck, Mr, M.P., 211

Bernadotte, 14

Bertram, Mr, " Some Memories of
Books," 59

Bianconi, "the Palmer of Ireland," 88

Bible, the, 72

Birmingham, 7, 8, 10, II, 66,67, 84,
88, 113, 133, 162, 274

Blackstone on our criminal code, 9

Black wall, 75

Blanc, Louis, 38

"Blind man," the, in England and
France, 298

Blue Books, 100, 102 ; a model one, 129

Blue Coat School, the, I

Board of Stamps and Taxes (Inland
Revenue), the, 119, 188, 197

Trade, 268

Works, 249, 250, 256

Bodichon, Mme. B. L. S., 36, 118

Bokenham, Mr, Head of the Circula-
tion Department. 164, 275, 276

Bolton-King, Mr, 114

" Bomba," King, 37

Bonner, post official, 84

, A. and H. B., 195

Book post, the, 272, 273

Boswell's " Life of Johnson," 112

Bourbons, the, 114

Bowring, Sir J., 35

Boythorn, Mr, 277

Brandram, Mr, 18

Brawne, Fanny, 29

Brazil adopts postal reform, 251

Breakdown prophesied, a, 122

Bremen adopts postal reform, 25 1

Brewin, Mr, 41, 42, 67

Bridport, 130, 213

Brierley Hill, 50

Bright, John, 143

Brighton, 30, 182-184, 249, 250

Brindley, Jas., 260, 261

Bristol, 84, 124, 297

British Linen Co., the, 66

"British Postal Guide," the, 251

Brobdingnagian and Lilliputian letters,
116

Brock, Thos., R.A., 301

Brodie, Wm., R.S.A., 301

Brompton, 57

Brookes, Mr, 167

Brougham, Lord, 36, 80, 139, 140

Brown, Sir Wm., 39, 124

Browning, Eliz. Barrett, 163

Bruce Castle, 14, 16, 18, 95

Brunswick adopts postal reform, 251

Budget of 1839, penny postage pro-
posed in the, 135

Building and correspondence, relative
sizes of, 121

Bull-baiting, etc., 25

Burgoyne, Sir J., 44

Burke, Edmund, 35

Burritt, Elihu, 229

Busy day, a, 289, 290

Butler, S., " Hudibras," 5

CABFUL of Blue Books, a, 100

Calais, 56

Calverley, 22

Cambridge, 19

, Duchess of, 164 ; Princess Mary

of, 164

Campbell-Bannerman, Lady, 141
Campbell, Lord, 85, 241
Canada, postal rates to, 56 ; extension

of Money Order System to, 220
Canals and Railway charges, 230, 231
" Candling" letters, 52, 54, 64, 105
Canning, Lord. (See Postmasters -

General)

INDEX

Cape of Good Hope, Steamship Co.,
236, 237, 238

Carlyle, Thos., 114

Carrick-on-Shannon, 77

Carriers and others as smugglers, 66-
69

" Carroll, Lewis," 179

Carter, Rev. J., 25

"Castle Rackrent," etc., 34

Catholic Emancipation, 26, 81, 88

gentleman despoiled, a, 88

Causton, Mr R. K., M.P., 302

Caxton Exhibition, the, 22

Celestial and other postal arrangements,
278

Census return (1841), 166

"Century of progress," the, 91

Chadwick, Sir E., 28

Chalmers, Mr, M.P., 120

, Jas., 189-193

, P., 193, 194

"Chambers' Encyclopaedia, " 192, 193
— , Wm. and Robert, 31, 140

Chancellors of the Exchequer —

Spring Rice (Lord Monteagle), III,

135, 138, 145
Sir F. Baring, 138, 145, 149-153,

154, 160, 161, 162, 171
H. Goulburn, 173, 177
Sir Geo. Cornwall Lewis, 219
B. Disraeli, 247. (See also Disraeli)
Gladstone, 268, 288, 289. (See also
Gladstone)

Chancery Lane, 21, 22

"Change of style, the," 81

Channel Isles, 77, 156

Charing Cross and Brompton, postage
between, 57

Charles II., 173

"Chartist Day," 223, 224

Chaucer, 8, 260

Chester, 74

Chevalier, M., 159, 160

Cheverton, Mr, 198

Chile adopts postal reform, 251

China, war with, 176

Cholera at Haddington, 4

Christmas-boxes, 264

"Chronicles," Second Book of, 72

Civil Service Commissioners and ex-
aminations, 257-261

war in the United States predicted,

230

Claimants to authorship of postal reform
or postage stamps, 49, 53, 189-195

Clanricarde, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

Clark, Professor, 206

, Sir Jas., 34

, Thos., 7

Claude, 17, 33, 34

Clerks, duties of, under old system, 64

Coaches. (See Mail coaches)

Cobden, R., 65, 109, 141 ; his letters
to R. H., 143, 178

Club, 19

Coin-bearing letters, 270

Colby, General, 123

Colchester, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

Cole, Mr (Sir Henry), 114, 115, 190,
191, 198

Coleridge, S. T., 29, 60

Collection of postage in coin, 62, 63,

I05

Colonial penny postage, 230
Colonies, the, 17, 188, 230
Colonisation Commissioners for South

Australia, 19
Comet of 1858, the, 266
Commission on Packet Service, the, 235
on Railways, 291

to revise salaries of postal

employees, 245, 246

Commissioners, Civil Service. (See
Civil Service, etc.)

of Inland Revenue, Reports of

the, 63, 95

of Post Office Inquiry, the, 98,

99, 142, 196, 197

Committee of Inquiry (1788), 80
on Postage, the Select (1838), 42,

58, 65, 67-69, 103, 119, 121-130,

142, 169, 270; on Postage (1843),

142, 169
on canal and railway charges, 230,

231

Compulsory prepayment of postage, 269
Congestion at St Martin's-le-Grand, 256
Conservatives and Peelites, 247
Constantinople, 57
Conveyance of inland mails. (See

Mails)

Conway bridge, 54, 161
Cooke, Wm., R.A., 34, 300
Corn Laws, the, 81, m, 141, 143,

169
Corporal punishment abolished at

Hazelwood, 12

Correction "removed by order," a, 175
Correspondence and building : should

they agree in size? 121
Cost of conveyance of letters between

London and Edinburgh, 103

3*4

INDEX

Coulson, Mr, 34

Cowper, Mr E., 21

Cox, David, 18

Craik, Mrs (Mulock, Miss), 31

Creswick, Thos., R.A., 13, 34, 300

Crimean War, 140, 182

"Criminal Capitalists," Edwin Hill,

95

Croker, J. W., 112
Cross-posts, the, 55
"Crowd" of petitions, a, 113
Crowe family, the, 30
Crump, Mrs Lucy, 112
Crusaders and others, 40, 41
Cubitt, Sir Wm., 235, 240
Cupar-Fife, testimonial from, 295

DAILY NEWS, the, 30

Daily Packet List, the, 25 1

Darian Scheme, the, 238

Davenport, Mrs, 4

Davy's, Sir H., mother and Penzance,

31

"Dead" letters, 220; auction sale at

office of, 271
Deal, 44

Debating society, a youthful, 9
"De Comburendo Heretico" Act, 81
Decrease of price : increase of con-
sumption, 101, 104

of prosecutions for theft, 83, 219

Definition of local penny post area, 75,

76

Degree of D.C.L. (Oxon.), 299
De La Rue & Co., Messrs, 95, 201
Deliveries, acceleration and greater

frequency of, 256
" Denis Duval," Thackeray, 83
Denman, Lord, 36
Denmark adopts postal reform, 251
Deputation to Lord Melbourne, 133,

134
Deputy Comptroller of the Penny Post,

84

Designs for postage stamps, 197
Dttemi^ a, 35

Dickens, Chas., 31, 163, 164, 277
"Dickinson" paper, the, 197
"Dictionary of National Biography,"

the, 192, 193
" Dictionnaire du XIXe Siecle," 79,

1 86, 298
Dilke, C. W., antiquary, journalist,

etc., 29
Dillon, Mr (Messrs Morrison and

Dillon), 115
Dining in hall, 31

Discontent at P.O., 262-265 ; at

tentative rate, 162
" Discourse on Our Digestive Organs,"

a, 132

"Dismal Science," the, 28
Disraeli, B. (Lord Beaconsfield), viii.,

247

Distribution an only function, 106
Districts, London divided into, 74, 255
Docker's mail-bags exchange apparatus,

239

Dockwra, Wm., postal reformer, 71 ;
inventor of local penny posts, intro-
duces delivery of letters, divides city
and suburbs into postal districts,
opens over 400 receiving offices,
introduces parcel post, etc., his rates
lasting till 1801, then raised to swell
war-tax, 74, 75 ; falls victim to Duke
of York's jealousy, loses situation,
ruined by law-suit, pensioned, pension
revoked, he sinks into poverty, 76 ;
his penny post falls upon evil days,
83 ; remarks on his dismissal, 80,
179, 213

Dodd, Rev. Dr, 46

Donati's comet, 266

Dover Castle, 18

Doyle, Sir A. C., "The Great
Shadow," 10

Drayton Grammar School, I

Dubost, M., 157

Dublin, 83, 206, 228

Dudley, 50

Duncannon, Lord, 138, 139, 141

Duncombe, T., M.P., 114, 212

Dundee, 189, 190, 191, 250

Dunoon, 297

Duty stamp on newspapers, 46, 47, 95

EAGERNESS for postal reform among
the poor, 124

Eclipse, Mr Wills and the, 266

Economy, how best secured, 253

Edgeworth, Maria, 34, 35, 163

Edinburgh, 54, 58, 59 ; one letter to,
66, 78, 83, 85 ; cost of letter con-
veyance to, 103 ; a mail-coach's
postal burden, 115, 116, 233; postal
revenue larger than that of Portugal,
252

Edinburgh Review, the, 112

Edison, 261

Education, impetus given to, 166-168

Edwards, Mr E., 15

Egerton-Smith, Mr, 295 ft

Egypt, postal rates to, 56

INDEX

315

Eight hours movement, an, 253

Elcho, Lord, 245

Elgin, Lord. (See Postmasters-General)

Ellis, Mr Wm., 115

Elmore, A., R.A., 34

Emery, Mr, his evidence, 124

Emigrants and emigrant ships, 20

Employees, number of, in London, 259

" Encyclopedia Britannica," the (ninth
edition), mistakes in article on Post
Office, 186-189, J93> I96> 201

" Engaged to marry your Prince of
Wales," 279

England and Wales, Scotland and
Ireland, letters in, 66, 138. (See also
Number of letters)

Envelopes, 51, 52, 186, 187

Eothen, 35

Episode of a wedding ring, 302

Epping, 5°

Ericsson, 262

"Essays of a Birmingham Manu-
facturer" (Sargent), 16

"Esther, The Book of," 72

Estlin, Mr J., 297

Etymology, lecture on, 266

Euclid's Elements, 5

Evasions, losses, and thefts, 57-60, 66-
69, 106, 146, 147, 272-275

Every division should be self-support-
ing, 125

Examinations, Civil Service, 257-261

Exchange of bags apparatus (Docker's),
239, 240

Excursion and express trains, etc., 183

Executions outside Newgate, 10

Expenditure, increase of, 109, 170-172

Extension of penny postage to Colonies,
230

FACILITATING life insurance for staff,

219
" Facts and Estimates as to the Increase

of Letters," 135
Faggot vote, a new kind of, 3
" Fallacious return," the, 174
Faraday, 206, 207
" Feats on the Fiords," 15
Fergusson, Sir Wm., 34
Field, MrE. W., 32
" Fifty Years of Public Life," 198
Fire at Hazel wood, 18
First letter posted under new system,

162

Fitzgerald, Lord, 175
Fitzmaurice, Lord, 184
Foot and horse posts, 79

Footman prefers public to domestic

service, 254

Forchammer, Professor, 279, 280
Ford, Onslow, R.A., 300
Foreign letters, reduction in postage of,

165; foreign postal revenues, 156,

252, 253

pupils, 14

Forging gun barrels, 10

Forster, Mr M., M.P. ; Mr J., M.P.,

36

Forth bridge, the, 261
Forty miles an hour, 232
Four ounces weight limit, 108
France, 14, 18, 35, 36, 79, 87 ; old

postal system, 155-157; travelling in

during the 'thirties, 158 ; adopts

postal reform, 251, 266
Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 37
Francis, Mr J. C., 93, 95
Franco-German War, the, 265
Frankfort adopts postal reform, 251
Franking system, the, 42-44, 45, 48,

49, 100, 107 ; proposed return to, 211
Franklin Expedition, the, 40
Frauds and Evasions. (See evasions,

etc.)

Freedom of the City of London, 301
Free library, etc., at Wolverhampton,

25 ; at Hampstead, 33
trade and protection, vii., viii.,

24, 101

traders favour postal reform, 140

Freniantle, Sir T., 120

French Post Office, the, 155-158, 221

revolutions. (See Revolution, etc.)

Frenchman, a brave, 265

Fry, Elizabeth, 117

Funeral of the Duke of Wellington, 239

GALLENGA, 37

Gallon, Sir D., 235, 267

Garibaldi, 37, 278, 279

Gavin, Dr, 253

Gazette^ the, 261

George I., 74 ; III., 47, 188

German Postal Union, the, 252

Germany, street letter-boxes in, 156

Gibbets, II

Gibraltar, 56

Gladstone, Mrs, 141, 290

, W. E., vii., viii., 37, 112, 268,

288, 289, 290
Glasgow, 54, 68, 233, 294
Gledstanes, Mr, 115
Globe, the, 19
Gordon riots, the, 224

3i6

INDEX

Goulburn, H. (See Chancellors of the

Exchequer)

Gradual instalments, 268
Graham, Thos., Master of the Mint, 34
" Grahamising" letters, 114
Graphic, the, 301
Grasset, M., 158, 298
Gravesend, newspapers sent vidt 46
Great Exhibition of 1851, 95 ; of 1862,

279

Northern Railway, 232

" Great Shadow, The,"— Conan Doyle,

10

Greece, 14, 113
Greenock's first member, 98, 119. (See

also Wallace, etc.)
Gregory XIII., Pope, 8 1
"Grimgribber Rifle Corps," the, 266
Grote, Geo., M.P., 113
Guildhall, the, 53, 76, 302
" Guy Mannering," 50, 78

HACKNEY, 76

Haddington, 4

Hale, Sir Matthew, 81

Half-ounce letters of eccentric weight,
197 ; half-ounce limit, 108

Hall, Captain Basil, 13

Hall-door letter-boxes, 106, 131, 256

Hamburg adopts postal reform, 251

Hampstead, 29, 30, 32

Hanover adopts postal reform, 251

"Hansard," 43, 80, 99, 121, 176, 212

Hardwick, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

Harley, Dr G. , 34

Harlowe, another Clarissa, 3

Hasker, 84

Hawes, Sir B., 36

Hazelwood school and system, 12-16

" Heart of Midlothian, The," 66

Henslow, Professor, 167, 225

Henson, G., 39

"Her Majesty's Mails"— W. Lewins,
66

" Here comes Dickens ! " 164

Hereford, 221

Herschel family, the, 34, 117

High postal rates mean total prohibition,

133

Highgate, 50
Hill, Alfred, 250

, Arthur, 18, 29, 297

brothers, 8-16, 93, 94, 133

, Caroline (born Pearson), 22, 23,

26; Mr Wallace's congratulations,
141 ; ** mother of penny postage,"

142 ; her help, unselfishness, and
courage, 182, 212, 265 ; the wedding
ring, 302
Hill, Caroline (Mrs Clark), 16

, Edwin, 93 ; his help, a mechanical

genius, supervisor of stamps at Somer-
set House, machines for folding and
stamping newspapers, folding en-
velopes, embossing Queen's head,
etc., author of " Principles of
Currency," "Criminal Capitalists,"
etc., 94, 95 ; anecdotes, 95, 96, 242,

293> 297

, Frederick, 237, 297

, Dr G. B., author of " Life of Sir

Rowland Hill," and editor of "The
History of Penny Postage," viii, 17,
38, 71, 112, 120, 193, 286-288

, James, 2, 4, 5

, John, postal reformer, 74

, the younger, 3

, Matthew Davenport, 4, 9, 21 ;

helps reform, 93 ; first Recorder of
Birmingham, 94 ; advises R. H. to
publish pamphlet, 96 ; his reply to
Croker, 112, 132, 150; "prophets
who can assist in fulfilment of their
own predictions," 150 ; an admirable
letter, 152 ; on questioning Garibaldi,
279, 293, 297

— — , Miss Octavia, 28

, Pearson, his help in preparing

this book, ir. ; pamphlets, etc., 39,
47, 50, 56, 57, 65, 66, 120, 145, 180,
181, 188, 193; on writings upon
postal reform, 187 ; perfects Docker's
exchange-bags apparatus, is comple-
mented by Sir Wm. Cubitt, invents
stamp-obliterating machine, 240,241 ;
Sir Wm. Armstrong's offer, 242 ; P.
H. renounces true vocation and
enters Post Office, appointed to
examine mechanical inventions sent
there, 243 ; reorganises Mauritius
post office, 244, 297

, R. and F., the Misses, authors

of " Matthew Davenport Hill," etc.,
96

, Rev. Rowland, preacher, I

, Sir Rowland (Lord Hill), warrior,

I

} Lord Mayor of Lon-
don, i

, postal reformer, birth,

7 ; weakly childhood, love of arith-
metic, early ambition, helps in school,

INDEX

Hill, Sir Rowland, continued —
8-16; writes "Public Education"
14 ; scene-painter, etc., wins drawing
prize, 17; thrilling adventure, 18;
takes home news of Waterloo, 88 ;
joins Association for abolition of
taxes on knowledge, 97 ; becomes
Secretary to South Australian Com-
mission, 1 8 ; the rotatory printing
press, 21, 22 ; a young lover, 23 ;
some of his friends, 28-37 ; his con-
nection with the London and Brighton
railway, 38, 182-184; the heavy
burden of postal charges, 44 ; the
franking system, 48 ; first to propose
letter postage stamps, 49 ; Coleridge's
story, 60 ; reformers before him, 70-
91 ; many callings, 71 ; his penny
post not identical with that of
Dockwra, 75; on "the change of
style," 81 ; doing something to the
mail-coaches, 87 ; in mid-'twenties
proposed travelling post office, 92 ;
later conveyance of mail matter by
pneumatic tube, 93 ; discussed
application of lighter taxation to
letters, his brothers' help, 93, 94;
M. D. H. advises writing pamphlet,
Chas. Knight publishes it, M.D.H.'s
influential friends, 96; Mr Wallace
and R. H., 98; Blue Books, 100 ;
reasons out his plan, 100-108; Com-
missioners of P.O. Inquiry and
R. H.'s evidence and plan, 98; cost
of conveyance of letters, 102-105 ;
pamphlet issued, 109 ; plan privately
submitted to Government and offered
to them, declined, in, 149; Quarterly
Review attacks plan, M. D. H.
defends it in Edinburgh Review,
112; the great mercantile houses,
Press, etc., support reform, 116-118 ;
Parliamentary Committee formed, j
119; R. H. under examination, 119-
120; in after years excuses P.O.
hostility, 126 ; the Committee's good
work, 129 ; penny postage to be
granted, 134 ; writes two papers for
Mercantile Committee, in House of
Commons during debate, door-
keepers on voting prospects, 135 ;
R. H. writes to Duke of Wellington,
present at third reading of Bill, 138 ;
in House of Lords during debate,
141 ; appointment in Treasury, 145 ;
the outsider as insider, old opponents
later become friends, 146, 147 ;

adventures of a letter, 148 ; terms of
engagement, 149-153 ; visits M. D.
H. at Leicester, the latter's letter,
151, 152; R. H.'s goal, 153; first
visit to P.O., 154 ; finds building de-
fective, early attendance at Treasury,
'55 J visits Paris, 155-160; suggests
adhesive stamps, 107, 135, 138, 160,
196 ; accepts responsibility for pre-
payment, 1 60 ; by stamps or money ?
stamp troubles last for twelve months,
161 ; tentative rate satisfactory,
uniform penny postage established,
162 ; congratulatory letters, 162
163; royal visitors to P.O., 164;
testimony to benefits of reform, 166-
169, etc ; delay in issue of stamps,
170; lavish increase of expenditure,
official evasions, 171-176; visit to
Newcastle - on - Tyne prevented, the
"fallacious return," 174; error in
accounts, 175 ; receives notice of
dismissal, 176; offers to work with-
out salary, 177 ; public indignant at
dismissal, 177-179; R. H. and regis-
tration fee, 178; leaves Treasury,
179* 180; Lord Canning's curious
revelation, ix., 181 ; will Peel raise
postal rates? 181 ; joins London and
Brighton Railway Directorate, 182-
184 ; hears of M. de Valayer's inven-
tion, 189 ; Mr Chalmers' correspond-
ence with R. H., 192; R. H.'s pro-
posals as to stamps, 196 ; Treasury
decides to adopt them, 198 ; stamp
obliteration troubles, 205-208 ; absurd
fables, 209 ; Peel's Government falls,
restoration to office of reformer de-
manded, appointed to P.O., 211 ;
compares his own case with that
of Dockwra and Palmer, 213 ; Mr
Warburton on terms, 214; R. H.
willingly sacrifices good income for
sake of reform, interview with Lord
Clanricarde and Colonel Maberly,
215; reorganises Bristol post office,
also entire Money Order System,
turns deficit into profit, many im-
provements effected, 215-219;
missives that go astray, 220 ; relief
of Sunday labour, 222 - 227 ; the
Chartists, 224 ; relief to Hong Kong
officials, 228 ; post offices at railway
stations suggested, 229 ; Parlia-
mentary Committee on railway and
canal charges, 230 ; efforts to obtain
reasonable railway terms, 230-235 ;

INDEX

Hill, Sir Rowland, contimted —

Steamship Co.'s heavy charges, 230 ;
tries to obtain use of all railway trains,
an acceleration of North - Western
night mail train, and adoption of
limited mails, 232 ; suggests fines
for unpunctuality and rewards for
punctuality, etc., 233, etc. ; also
Government loans to Railway Com-
panies, 234 ; proposes trains limited
to P.O. use, 235 ; Packet Service
contracts : these often made without
P.O. knowledge or control, 236;
route to Australia by Panama longer
than rival route, R. H.'s report to
that effect, 238; exchange of mail-
bags operation, 239 ; stamp-oblitera-
tion experiments, 240 ; workshop
fitted up for P. H., who renounces
prospects as civil engineer, 242-243 ;
R. H. examined by Commission to
revise postal employees' salaries, 245 ;
good work done by Commission, 246 ;
Conservatives and Peelites, R. H.
becomes Secretary to the P.O., 247 ;
his love of organisation, 248 ; en-
courages staff to independence of
opinion : excellent results, new post
offices erected and old ones improved,
provision against fire made, building,
etc., transferred to Board of Works :
consequent increase of expenditure,
249; publication of "Annual
Reports" begins, 250 ; minor reforms
made, postal reform adopted by many
countries, 251, 252 ; R. H. advocates
economy by better organisation, a
medical officer appointed, 253 ;
secures better terms for employees
253, 254 ; his doctor's footman, 254 ;
London divided into districts, 255 ;
R. H. on Civil Service examinations,
257-261 ; era of peace, discontent and
threatening anonymous letters, libels
by dismissed officials, worse threats,
R. H.'s coolness, uneasiness of
colleagues, 262-265 ; lecture on the
annular eclipse, 266; P.O. volunteer
corps, is introduced to inventor of
Post Office Savings Bank scheme,

267 ; reform by gradual instalments,

268 ; compulsory prepayment of
postage, 268, 269 ; again recommends
parcel post, pattern post established,
registration fee reduced, and com-
pulsory prepayment at last obtained,
270; decrease of losses, tricks and

evasions, 271 ; old opponents friends,
Messrs Bokenham, Page, etc., 275-
277 ; R. H. and Garibaldi, 278 ; R.
H. and a Danish professor, 279 ; on
successive Postmasters-General, 280-
285 ; final breakdown in health,
resignation, 285 ; pen-portraits and
appreciations, 286-289 ; letters of
sympathy, 290 ; joins Royal Com-
mission on Railways, his early lesson
in Astronomy, prepares his auto-
biography, 291 ; his remarks on own
career, 292 ; his spirit at a stance
293 ; honours, testimonials, etc., 294-
302 ; two stories of a torn coat, 297 ;
strange adresses, " Mr Owl O'Neill,"
etc., 298 ; vases from Longton,
pictures from Liverpool, statues, etc.,
300; photographs, etc., presentation
of the Freedom of the City of
London, 301 ; death, his two noblest
monuments, two Jubilee celebrations,
302; his fittest epitaph, 303-305;
"Results of Postal Reform," 286,
307-311

Hill, Sarah (Lea), 4, 7, 8, 10

(Symonds), 4, 6

, Thos. Wright, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15,

16, 17, 94, 138, 291, 297

" Hillska Scola," a, 14

Hincks, Rev. Wm., 297

" History of England, The," Macaulay,
238

"History of Our Own Times, The,"
Justin M'Carthy, 75, 92, 133

"History of the Post Office, The,"
H. Joyce, 42, 45, 55, 56, 63, 70,
7i, 72, 73, 75, 76, 92

"History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
The," H. Martineau, 40, 41

Hodnet, Shropshire, I

Hoffay, Mr, 245

Hogarth, 81

Holland, 109. (See also Netherlands)

Holyhead, 54, 233

" Home Colonies and Extinction of
Pauperism, "etc., 109; home colonies
in Belgium and Holland, 109

Hong Kong post office, 228; clerks'
holiday, 229

Honours, testimonials, etc., 294, 302

Hood, "Gentle Tom," 178, 179

Hostility of P.O. (See Opposition,
etc.)

Hourly deliveries, 107

House of Commons, 43, 72, 96, III,
113, 114, n6; Committee on Postage,

INDEX

319

House of Commons, continued —

121-130; debates on Penny Postage

Bill, 135, 138, 178, 224
House of Lords, 43, 96, in, 136, 139 ;

passes Penny Postage Bill, 141, 224
Household Words, 163, 266
Huddersfield, 268
"Hudibras," 5
Huguenot Knight, Millais', 7
Hume, J., M.P., 133, 134, 212
Hungarian refugees, 37
''Hungry 'Forties," the, 61, 169
Hunt, Leigh, 35, no
Hutchinson, Mr, 234
Hydrographer to the Admiralty, the,

278

ICELAND, 15

Iddesley, Lord. (See Northcote, Sir S.)

Impetus to education and trade, 166-169

Improvement in locomotion, viii.

Improvements in Money Order system,
account-keeping, holidays, 219; in
life insurance and other funds, 219,
220 ; in lot of letter-carriers, sorters,
etc., 253, 254, etc.

Income, a poor man's daily, 42

Increase of employment, pay, and
prosperity, 101 ; of postal expendi-
ture, 109, 170, 171, 172; of deliveries,
256 ; of facilities and speed in con-
veyance, 69, 257

Indian Mutiny, the, 282 ; P.O. becomes
self-supporting, 253

Indignation at R. H.'s dismissal, 177-
179

Industrial emancipation, Gladstone on,
vii., viii.

Inglis, Sir R. H., M.P., 138

Inland letters most profitable part of
P.O. business, 169

Revenue Board, the, 119, 188,

197

Inquirer, the, 297

" Intercourse, Liberation of," vii., 125

"Invasion of the Crimea, The,"

Kinglake, 35

Ireland, 44, 54, 66, 73, 74, 77, 133, 233
Irish famine, the, 81

haymakers and harvesters, 133

in Manchester, 65

Iron horse more formidable than foe

on battlefield, 137

JAMAICA Bill, the, 144
James II., 76, 77
Jansa, Herr, 37

Jefferson, President, 14

"John Halifax," Miss Mulock, 31

John O'Groat's, 234

Johnson, post official, 84

, Dr, 112

Jones, Loyd (Lord Overstone), 39, 124
Journal de St Pdtersbourg, Le, 252
Joyce, Mr Herbert, "The History of

the Post Office," 42, 45, 55, 56, 63,

70, 71, 72, 76, 92
Jubilee, Queen Victoria's first, 39
of the Uniform Penny Postage,

57, 120
Jullien, M., 14

KAYE, Sir J., 195

Keats, John, 29

Kelly, Messrs ("The London Direc-
tory"), 301

Kidderminster, 3, 7, 300, 303

King Edward's head (postage stamp),
199

Kinglakes, the, 35

Kinkel, Gottfried, 38

Knight, Charles, 32 ; publishes "Post
Office Reform," 96 ; first to propose
use of impressed stamp, 107, 158,
168, 189

Kossuth, 37

Kubla Khan, 72

LABOUCHERE, H. (Lord Taunton),

138

Lachine Rapids, 238
Lamb, Chas. , 29
Lambeth, 76
Land's End, 234
Larousse, ' ' Dictionnaire du XlXf

Siecle," 79, 1 86, 298
Larpent, Sir Geo., 296
Last woman burnt, 9
Lea, Provost, 4 ; Sarah (see Hill,

Sarah) ; William, 4
Ledingham, Mr, 207
Leeds Afercury, the, 117, 226, 267
Lefevre, J. S. (First Lord Eversley), 19
Leitrim, 77
Letter, adventures of a, 148, 149

boxes, door, 106, 107, 131, 256

carriers, 41, 62, 63, 105, 106 ;

improvement in lot of, 220, 253, 254,
etc. ; letter-carrier and footman, 254;
amalgamation of two corps of, 255,
256 ; the right sort of men as, 258,

275

folding a fine art, 52

smuggling, 66-69, 121, 133

[20

INDEX

" Letters, Conversations, and Recollec-
tions of S. T. Coleridge," 60
"Letters of George Birkbeck Hill,"

Mrs L. Crump

Letters subjected to protective rates,

54; refused, mis-sent, etc., loss on,

62 ; no delivery before Dockwra's

time, 74; losses of, 146, 147, 221 ;

number of, after reform, 133, 165, 168,

169, 239; after extension of rural

distribution, 255 ; sorted en route,

227 ; strangely addressed, 297, 298

Lewins, Mr, " Her Majesty's Mails," 66

Lewis, Sir G. C. (See Chancellors of

the Exchequer)

Liberation of Intercourse, vii., 125
Lichfield, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

" Lie Waste," the, II
" Life endurable but for its pleasures,"

219
"Life of Lord Granville," Lord Fitz-

maurice, 184

" Life of Sir Rowland Hill, and History
of Penny Postage," G. B. Hill,viii.,
38, etc.

Limited Liability Act, the, 32
Lines, Mr, 162
Liverpool, 24, 39, 68, 83, 227, 294,

300, 301
Liverpool Mercury, the, 117, 295 ; Post

and Mercury, 52
Lloyd, Mr Jas., 300
Local posts, 53, 74, 75, 76, 83, 84
Lombard Street office, 74
London and Brighton railway, 38, 182-
184, 185

divided into postal districts by

Dockwra, 74 ; by Rowland Hill, 255

, pop. one - tenth, correspond -

ence, one-fourth of the United
Kingdom, 255
London School Magazine, 17
London University, 130
Londonderry, 54

Long distance runs in the 'forties, 232
Longton, Staffordshire Potteries, 300
Lonsdale, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

" Lord Queen's Head," 299
"Lord's Day Society's" mistaken action,

223

Lords of the Treasury, 190, 220
Losses of letters, etc., 146, 147, 220,

221, 271
Loughton, 50
Louis Philippe, King, 157

Louis XIV., 187

Lowther, Lord. (See Postmasters-
General)

Lubeck adopts postal reform, 251
Lyell, Sir Chas., 34
Lyon, Mr W., 301

MABERLY, Colonel (Sec. to the P.O.)
disapproves of postal reform, 121,
122, 150, 155, 173, 214, 215 ; Yates
on, 154; commands at P.O. on
"Chartist Day," at time of Sunday
labour question, 223; leaves P.O.,
247 ; excellent appointments, 248

MacAdam, 85

Macaulay, 112, 114, 131,226, 238, 273

Macdonald ( Times'}^ 22

Mackenzie family, the, 5

Madrid, 78

Mahony, Mr, M.P., 120

Mails, the, by land— coaches, 64, 79,
82-90, 98, 103, 170; railways, 109,
115, 122, 227, 240; cost of convey-
ance of, 109, etc., 230-235

, by sea. (See Packet Service)

Majority of 102 for Penny Postage Bill,
136

Manchester, 39, 65, 83, 84 ; number of
letters equals that of all Russia, 252

Manchester G^^ard^an, the, 117

" Manchester School," the, 134

Mander, Mr J. , 25

Manning, "The Queen's Ancient
Serjeant," 36

" Manual of Geography," a, 5

Map of Europe, political changes in,

251
I Marco Polo's travels : the posts, 72

Margate postmaster's report, 69

Marian martyr, a, 294

Married Women's Property Act, 118

Martineau, Harriet, 15, 34, 40, 41, 55,
60, 131, 162

Master of the Posts (Witherings), 73

"Matthew Davenport Hill," by his
daughters, 96

Mauritius post office reorganised, 244

Maury, Mr, 68

Mayer, Mr, 295

Mayor, the Lord, 113

Mazzini, 37, 114

M'Carthy, J., "History of Our Own
Times," etc., 75, 92, 133

M'Kinley, Mr P., 302

Mediterranean, postal rates to the, 56

Melbourne, Lord. (See Prime Ministers)

Mellor, Mr Justice, 36

INDEX

321

Mendi bridge, 54, 161

Mercantile Committee, the, 114, 135,
136, 137, 179, 190, 200, 296

houses and postal reform, 114

Mercury, a transit of, 291

Merit, promotion by, 257, 258, 262

Mexico, 14

Mezzofanti, Cardinal, 230

Miles, Mr Pliny, 230

Milford, 54

Mill, James and John Stuart, 34

Millais, Sir J. E., 7

Millington's hospital, 2, 4

Moffat, Mr Geo., M.P., 113, 134, 137,
181

Monckton, Sir G. , 302

Money Order System, 140 ; how
founded, unsatisfactory financial con-
dition, 217 ; R. H. undertakes its
management, it becomes self-support-
ing, increase of business, decrease of
fraud, unclaimed money orders made
use of, etc., 216-222 ; extension of
system to colonies, 220

Monteagle, Lord, 175, 290. (See also
Spring Rice)

Morgan, Professor de, 272, 273

Morley, John, M.P., vii.

Morning Chronicle, the, 56, 116

Morrison, Dillon, & Co., Messrs, 115

" Mother of Penny Postage, the," 142

Mulready, W., R. A., 34 ; his envelope,
204, 205

Murray, R., postal reformer, 70, 74

My grandmother's brewings jeopar-
dised, 10

NAPIER, Sir Wm., i

Naples (the two Sicilies) adopts postal

reform, 251
Napoleon, story of, 27, 28 ; the

dttenus, 35, 36, 260
Natal, 237

National Gallery, the, 33
Navigation Act, repeal of the, vii.
Netherlands, the, adopts postal reform,

25r
"New Annual Directory for 1800,

The," 53, 76

Brunswick postmaster, 199

Newcastle-on-Tyne, 77, 173, 253
Newgate, executions outside, 10
New Grenada adopts postal reform, 251

industries created, 169

meaning of the word " post," 72

South Wales, 65

York, 68

Newsbearers, coaches as, 87, 88
Newspapers, 46, 47, 57-6o, 97, 116,
117, 129 ; stamp duty on, 46, 47, 95.
(See also Press)
Newton, Sir Isaac, 104
Nicholson, Mr, inventor, 21

, Mr (Waverley Abbey), 267

Nightingale, Florence, 117
Nineteenth Century, the, viii.
Ninth part of a farthing, the, 104

Report of the Commissioners of

P.O. Inquiry, 98, 196
Nominations, system of, 246
" Nonsense of a Penny post," 131
"No Rowland Hills wanted," 185
North British Railway, 233
North-Western Railway, 227, 232
Northcote, Sir Stafford (Lord Iddesley),

235, 245

Northern diligence, the, 78
Norway, 15, 251
Norwich, 77

Notes and Queries, 9, 52, 93
Number of letters after reform, 133,
165, 168 ; in two years' time, 169 ;
in seventh year of reform number
delivered in and round London equal
to those for the entire United King-
dom under old system, 214, 239;
after extension of rural distribution,
255, 256

OBLITERATION by hand (stamping),

206, 240, 241
Ocean penny postage, 229
O'Connell, Daniel, M.P., 88, 132, 133;

M. J., M.P., 120, 127
Offer (R. II.'s) to give plan of postal

reform to Government, ill, 149; to

give services at Treasury gratuitously,

15°

Official account-keeping and " blun-
ders," 174, 175, 176
Old opponents become friendly, 147,
246, 247, 275

postal system, the, 39-69 ; in

France, 155-157

Oldenburg adopts postal reform, 251
" Oldest and ablest officers, the," So
"On the Collection of Postage by Means

of Stamps," 135, 200
Opening letters in the P.O., 114, 115
Opposition honest and dishonest, 93,
120-122, 125, 126, 145-147, 202,

212, 275-278

" Origin of Postage Stamps, The," 50,
i 88, 193

X

322

INDEX

Oscar, Prince, 14

Osier, Mr Follett, 13

Oswald, Dr and Miss, 38

Ounce limit, the first proposal, 108

Outsiders as reformers, 146, 265, 267

Owen, Robert, 34, 114

Oxford, 299

" PACE that killed, the," 85
Pacific Ocean's enormous width, 238
Packet Service, the, 174, 175 ; Com-
mission sits on, contract mail-packets,
etc., management transferred to
P.O., evils of Admiralty control,
West Indian packet service, Union
Steamship Co., services to Cape of
Good Hope, Honduras, Natal, reduc-
tions in cost, Australia vid Panama
not the shortest route, cost of convey-
ance, 230, 235-238 ; improved com-
munication, foreign and colonial, 257
Page, Mr Wm., 276, 277 ; Messrs E.

and H., 276

Palmer, John, postal reformer, 71 ;
favours Bath, increases number of
coaches, 77 ; proposes abolition of
foot and horse posts, causes stage to
become mail coaches, 79 ; a visionary,
80; placed in authority, by 1792 all
coaches new, first quick coach to
Bath, 82 ; robbery nearly ceases,
traverses the entire kingdom, 83 ;
looks to newspaper and penny posts,
84 ; coaches said to go at dangerous
speed, reach highest level of pro-
ficiency, 85; are beaten by "iron
horse," 86 ; remarks on his dismissal,
80, 179, 213, 214 ; a born organiser,
220

"Palmer of Ireland, The," Bianconi,
88

Palmerston, Lord. (See Prime Ministers)

Panama, mails vid, 237, 238

Panizzi, Sir Antonio, 37

Paper-duty, the, 97 ; stamps for " the
American Colonies," 188

Parcel post recommended, 270

Paris, 56, 155-158, 1 86, 221

Parker, Mr, M.P., 212

, Mr, M.P. (Sheffield), 120

Society, the, 168

Parricide and matricide, 226

Parsons, Mr, 206

, MrJ. M., 183, 184

Patent Office, the, 21

Patronage, relinquished, 246

Pattern post introduced, 270

Pattison, MrJ., 115
Peabody : American philanthropist, 188
Peace of Amiens, the, 35, 88
Peacock, Mr, Solicitor to the P.O. 121,

126, 265

Pearson, Alex., 27, 28; Caroline,
(see Hill); Clara, 26; Joseph,
23-26

Pease, Mr, M.P., 120
Peculation rife under old system, 63
Peel, Sir Robert, 48, 138, 144. (See

also Prime Ministers)
Peelites and Conservatives, 247
Pegasus, wreck of the, 5
Penny postage proposed in Budget of
I839, 135; passes in Commons, 138,
in Lords, 142 ; established, 162 ;
education encouraged, severed ties
reknit, 166, 167 ; beneficial effect
on trade, etc., 168, 169 ; other than
inland, 230; and Garibaldi, 227,
228 ; two Jubilee celebrations, 302

posts, Dockwra's, 74, 75 ; other

local, 33, 76, 83, 84
Perkins, Bacon, & Co., Messrs, 198,

200, 201, 206, 207
Peru adopts postal reform, 251
" Peter Plymley's Letters," Sydney

Smith, 89
Petitions in favour of penny postage,

113, 124

Phillips, Professor, 207
Pickford, Messrs, 168
Pictures from Liverpool, 300
Pillar and wall letter-boxes. (See Street

letter-boxes)

Pirate States and pirate raids, 14, 15
Piron, M., Sous Direct eur des Pastes

aux Lettres, 157, 158, 187, 188
Place, Mr, and " Post Office Reform,"

no

Plampin, Admiral, 27
Plymouth, 20, 77 ; the postmaster of,

225

Pneumatic tubes, 93
Poerio, 37
Political Economy Club, the, 19, 120

heads of P.O. no drones, 284

Poole, Mr S. L., "The Barbary

Corsairs," I

Poo

166

Poor Law Official Circular, The,"

Poor sufferers from dear postage, 42,

55, 59-62, 123
Pope, Alex., 55, 71
"Popular Tales," Miss Edgeworth,

35

INDEX

323

Portugal adopts postal reform, 251;
postal revenue smaller than that of
Edinburgh, 252

Post, new meaning of the word, 72

Postcards, 293

Post Circular, the, 190, 191

Post Office — account-keeping, 62-64,
105, 106 ; authorities oppose reform,
120-122, 125, 126, etc. ; Money
Order system during Crimean war,
140 (see also Money Order system) ;
becomes servant to entire nation,
144, 209 ; only department not show-
ing deficiency of revenue, 176 ; P.O.
-versus Stamp Office, 202; Widows'
and Orphans' Fund, 220 ; trans-
ference of appointments to, 246 ;
unjust accusations against, 272

" Post Office Directory, The," 301

, Indian, self-supporting,

253

Library and Literary

Association, the, 266

"Post Office of Fifty Years Ago,
The," 39, 47, 5$, 65, 66, 145

" Post Office Reform," 40, 63, 64, 99,
101, 104, 106, 107, 109, no, in,
143, 192, 196, 213

Savings Bank, the, 220,

267

surveyors, the, 222

Offices, etc., great increase in

number of, 156

, Registrars' districts with-
out, 64, 65

officials fear increase of business,

121

Postage "single," "double," " treble,"
etc., 49-52, 55, 57

stamps, 49, 51, ""53 ; impressed

and embossed, 95 ; description of
adhesive, 107, 135, 160 ; delay in
issue, 170; their collection, mis-
leading accounts in the " Encyclo-
paedia Britannica," and elsewhere,
1%5~193> etc. ; envelopes, M. de
Valayer's private post, 186 ; doings
of Sardinian P.O., 187 ; stamps on
newspaper wrappers, 107, 158, 189 ;
stamps useless without uniformity
of rate and prepayment, 189, etc. ;
R. H.'s proposals, 196, 198, etc. ;
adhesive stamps recommended in
"Post Office Reform," and " Ninth
Report of the Commissioners of
Post Office Inquiry," official approval
of prepayment by stamps, 196;

Treasury invites public to send in
designs, results disappointing, why
monarch's portrait was chosen, 199 ;
precautions against forgery, 197-199 ;
description of stamp-making, 200 ;
Messrs Perkins & Co. make stamps
first forty years of new system, are
succeeded by Messrs De La Rue,
stock nearly destroyed by fire, 201 ;
changes of colour, 201, 208 ; why
issue delayed, 202 ; eagerly adopted
when issued, where to stick Queen's
head ? anecdotes, 203 ; uncancelled
stamps, the Mulready envelope, 204 ;
cleaning off obliterations, 205-208 ;
public interested, many experiments
and suggestions, 206, 207 ; the
black penny becomes red, 208 ;
public prefer adhesive to embossed,
absurd fables, 209

Postal Circular, the, 251

Postal contribution to war-tax, the,

47, 55, 76

districts, London divided into,

74, 255

Postal Guide, the British, 251
Postal Parliament, a, 222

rates. (See Postage "single,"

etc., and other headings)

reform and reformers, 7°-9°,

100, 108, 127, 129, 144, 180, etc.

revenue. (See Revenue, etc.)

Service, advantages of, 254

Union, the, 276

Postmaster-General on crutches, a,

221

Postmasters-General —
Lord Lichfield, 120, 139
Lowther, 120, 178, 182

Clanricarde, 212, 213, 214,

215-219, 224, 229, 230, 280

Hardwicke, 247, 248, 268,

286, 281

Canning, ix., 181, 235, 281,

282, 284

Duke of Argyll, 184, 234, 241, 259,
283

Lord Colchester, 220, 238, 267, 283

Elgin, 283, 284, 299

A later Postmaster-General, 284,

285

Postmen. (See Letter-carriers)
Potatoes at Kidderminster, 3, 7,
Prepayment of postage, 49, 105, 106,

107, 124, 160, 162, 189, 196, 202,

203, 228, 268, 269, 270
Press-gang, the, 10, II

324

INDEX

Press, the, generally favours postal

reform, 116; on R. H.'s dismissal,

177. (See also newspapers)
Priestley, Joseph, 6, 7
Prime Ministers —

Lord Melbourne, in, 133, 134, 135,
136, 138, 139, 141, 144, 145, 171,
173, 291

Sir Robert Peel, 143, 177, 180, 181,
182, 184, 211

Lord John Russell, 211, 212, 280,
281, 296

Palmerston, 299

W. E. Gladstone, 289. (See also

Chancellors of the Exchequer)
Prince of Wales, the, 280, 299
Princess's portrait, a, 279
"Principles of Currency," Edwin

Hill, 95

Printing press, the rotatory, 21, 22, 71
Private penny post, M. de Valayer's,

157, 158, 186-188

Profitless expenditure, 51, 60-62, etc,
Promotion by merit, 257, 258, 262
Prophecies and prophets, 80, 130
Protection applied to correspondence,

54» 161

Protestant despoiler, a, 88
Prussia adopts postal reform, 251
Public buildings barricaded, 224
" Public Education," 14
Pulteney, Sir Wm., 66
Punch, 136, 1 80, 184, 299, 303-305
Pump, story of a, 146, 147
Puritans, the, 4, 6

Q UA R TERL y RE VIE W, the, 112, 187
Queen Adelaide, 19

Anne, 76

Caroline's trial, 87

Victoria, 39, 40, 64, 66, 119

Queen's head : postage stamp, 95, 167,

199, 205, 208, 294
Quincey, De, 16, 35

RADICAL Row, 144

Radnor, Lord, 113, 135

Raikes Currie, Mr, M.P., 120, 127

Railway, London and Brighton, etc.
(See other headings)

Railways, supersede coaches, 89, 109 ;
conveyance of mails by train dearer
than by coach, mails first go by rail
(1838), 109; heavy subsidies to, 170,
171, etc. ; sorting of letters on, 227,
228 ; applications made to, accelera-
tion of night mails, companies

demand increased payments, twenty-
one separate contracts, trains limited
to P.O. service, 231-235 ; improved
communication, 257

Ramsey, Mr, 221

Rea, Mr E., 252

"Recollections and Experiences," E.
Yates, 154, 280, 285

Recovery of gross revenue, 122, 165

Reform Bill of 1832, the, 23, 98

" Reformer, the," 195

Registrars' districts without post offices,
64,65

Registration of letters, 99; fees, 178,
270

' ' Registration, The Transfer of Land
by," 19

Relays of horses, 82

Relief to Hong Kong officials, 228, 229

Rennie, Sir J., 261

Report of the Committee of Inquiry
(1788), 80; of the Committee on
Postage (1843), 169

Reports of the Commissioners of Inland
Revenue, 63, 95 ; of the Com-
missioners of Post Office Inquiry,
98, 196, 197 ; of the Select
Committee on Postage (1838), 42,
58, 64, 65, 67, 69, 103, 123-126,
129, 130

" Results of Postal Reform," 286, 307-

311
Revenue from coaches, increase of, 102

, National, 72, 97

, Postal, 42, 43 ; in seventeenth

century, 72, 73, 102, 108, 109, 122,

126, 165, 169, 175, 176, 252 ; foreign,

102, 156
Revolution, the French, of 1789, 14,

17 ; of 1848, 158, 221
Richmond, the Duke of, 137
Rintoul, R. S., the Spectator, 116,

117; his daughter, 117
Riots at Birmingham, 7
Ritchie, Mrs Richmond, 34
Roberts, David, R.A., 32
Robespierre's Secretary, 14
" Robinson Crusoe," 5
Roebuck, J. A., M.P., 36, 43
Rogers, S., c< the banker poet," 32
Roget, Dr, "The Thesaurus," 35
Romance in a culvert, 23 ; in a coach,

89, 90

Romantic lawsuit, a, 159, 160
Romilly, Sir S., 10
"Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund,

The," 302

INDEX

325

" Rowland Hill : where he is," 298

Rufini, 37

Rural distribution, 166, 167, 170, 172,

255
Russell, Lord John (Earl Russell), 36,

I34> 135> 2O5' (See also Prime

Ministers)
Russia adopts postal reform, 251, 252 ;

number of letters in 1855, 253

S. G. O.'s LETTERS, 169

Sabden, 65

Sabine, Sir E., 34

St Alban's and Watford mails, 227

St Colomb, Cornwall, 7 1

St Helena, Napoleon at, 27, 28

St Martin's-le-Grand, 153, 154, 163,

228, 243, 248, 250, 253, 256, 262,

263-265, 277, 293
St Peter, 279
St Priest, M., 158
Salisbury, Lady, 141
Saltney, Gladstone at, 289
San Francisco, 57
Sardinia, 187, 188, 251
Sargent, Mr W. L., 16
Saturday night deliveries, 227
Savages in England, n
Savings Bank. (See Post Office, etc.)
Saxony adopts postal reform, 251
Say, three generations, 158
Scholefield, Mr, M.P., 113
Schoolmistress, an ill-informed, 294
Scotland, 54, 66, 73, 74, 297
Scotsman, the, 117
Scott, Sir Benjamin, 302

— , Sir Walter, 50, 66, 78, 79, 99,

295, 296

Secretary to the P.O., Scotland, 21 1
" Sedition made easy," 1 12
" Seminaries of Useless Knowledge,"

294

Settembrini, 37
Seven miles an hour ! Preposterous !

79
Seymour, Lord (Duke of Somerset),

120, 128, 138
Shaftesbury, Lord, 48
Sheffield, near Rotherham, 84
Sherman, Mr, 293
Shiel, Mr, 114
Shrewsbury, 2
Siberia, postal rates to, 57
Sibthorpe, Colonel, M.P., 136
Sikes, Sir Chas., 267
Simplicity versus complications, 105
Smeaton, 261

Smith, Mr B., M.P., 36

" Smith, John," and friend's fraud, 58,

60, 69

, MrJ. B., M.P., 36, 143

, Southwood, Dr, 28

— -, Sydney, i, 89, 131

Smithfield and the martyrs, 157

Smuggling letters, 66-69, 121, 133

Smyth, Admiral, 34

Snooks ! 203

"Society for the Diffusion of Useful

Knowledge," the, 139

of Arts, the, 299

"Some Memories of Books," a story

from, 59

Somerset House, 94, 95
Somerville, Mary, 117
Sorters, improvement in their lot, 253,

254
Sorting in travelling post offices, 92,

227, 228

Southampton, the press-gang at, 1 1
South Australian Commission, the, 19,

148

Kensington Museum, the, 191,

302

South- Western Railway Co.'s offer, 215
Spain, 14; adopts postal reform, 251,

252

Spanish gentlemen to the rescue, 29
Spectator, the, Il6
Spencer, Herbert, 261, 262
Spirits called from the vasty deep, 293
Spring Rice. (See Chancellors of the

Exchequer)
Spy, taken for a, 18
Squire's firewood, the, 3
Stamp obliteration, 241

— Office versus P.O., 202
"Stamped covers, stamped paper, and

stamps to be used separately," 197
Stamps and Taxes (Inland Revenue)

Office, 119, 1 88, 197

, postage. (See Postage stamps)

Stanfield, Clarkson, R.A., 32, 300
Stanley Gibbons & Co., Messrs, 201

of Alderley, Lord, 284, 285

Stationery and walking-sticks, 272
Statues at Birmingham, Kidderminster,

and London, 30x5

Steamship Co.'s. (See Packet Service)
Stephenson, Geo., no, 260
Stockholm, 14

" Story of Gladstone's Life, The," 133
Stow & Co., '217
Stowe, John, I
Stracheys, the, 5

326

INDEX

Strangely addressed letters, 297, 298

Street letter-boxes, 147, 156, 187

Sun, the, 226

Sunday labour relief measures, 222-227

Survivals of the Old System, 255

Sweden, 14, 251

Swift, Dean, 52

Swindon, 266

Switzerland adopts postal reform, 251

Symondses, the, 2, 4, 5

TAUNTON, Lord. (SeeLabouchere, Mr)
"Taxes on knowledge," 47, 97, 189
"Taxing" letters, 49, 105, 106, 116,

125

Taylor, R. (Marian martyr), 294
Telegraphs, State purchase of, 267,

268, 293
Telford, 85, 261

Tentative fourpenny rate, 133, 161
Tenth January 1840, scene at the

General Post Office, 162
Testimonials and honours, 294-302
Tettenhall Road and the culvert, 23
Thackeray, 30, 31, 34, 35, 83
Thayer, M., 221
Theft, story of a, 274
" There go the Corn Laws ! " 141
"Thesaurus, The," Dr Roget, 35
Thompson, Colonel Perronet, 143, 225

SirtL, 34

Thomson, Poulett, M.P. (Lord Syden-

ham), 120, 128

Thornley, Mr Thos., M.P., 24, 120
Throckmorton, Mr, 24
Thurso, 54

Tichborne claimant, the, 194
Tilly, Sir J., 284
Times, the, 116, 129, 216, 226
Tipping the little Hills with gold, 184
Torn coat, two stories of a, 297
Torrens, Colonel, 19

, Sir R., 19

Tottenham, 14

Travelling in France in the 'thirties,

158

post offices, 92, 227, 228

Travers, Mr J., 115

Treasury, the, invites public to send

in designs for stamps, 194, 197, 249,

251, 286
Trevelyan, Sir Chas., 245

Sir Geo., 273

Trial by jury at school, 12
Tripolitan ambassador, the, 14
Trollope, Anthony, 277, 278
Turner, J. W. M., R.A., 18, 33, 34

Tuscany adopts postal reform, 251
Twenty-one separate contracts, 234
Two sympathetic door-keepers, 135,

136

" Two Letters," Gladstone's famous, 37
Two thousand petitions, 113
Twopenny post, the, 84, 161, 255
rate, proposed and carried,

129

Tyburn, 46
Tyson, Mr, 52

UMBRELLA, story of an, 33
Unclaimed money and valuables, 219,

220
Uniformity of postal rates, 105, 108,

125, etc.
" Union of my children has proved

their strength, the," 94

Steamship Co. , the, 236

United States, 56; mails to, 68, 69;

civil war predicted, 230 ; adopts

postal reform, 251, 252
Unjust accusations, P.O., 272
Unpaid letters in 1859, 269
Uselessness of postage stamps before

1840, 49, etc.

VALAYER, M. de, 157, 158, 186-188

Vases from Longton, 300

Vaughan, Dr, 225

Victorian women, the early, 117, 118

Villiers, Hon. C. P., M.P., 24, in,

120, 149
Vinter, Mr, 301
Virginia, the University of, 14
Vision of mail-coaches, a, 86, 87
Voluntary work at Hazelwood, 13 ; at

the P.O., 222-224
Volunteers, the P.O., 266

WAGES, increase of. (See Improve-
ments, etc.)
Wakefield, E. G., 19
Walcheren Expedition, the, 159
Wales, the Princess of, 279
Wall letter-boxes. (See Street, etc.)
Wallace of Kelly, R., M.P., postal
reformer, 90 ; proposes charge by
weight, public competition in mail
coach contracts, appointment of
Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry
(Postage), establishment of day mails,
registration of letters, reduction of
postal charges, more frequent mails,
etc., 98, 99 ; advocates R. H.'s plan,
sends him Blue Books, 100 ; Chair-

INDEX

327

Wallace of Kelly, R. , continued —
man of Committee, 119; his two
casting votes, 127, 128; his zeal
and toil, favours penny rate, 129 ;
supports Penny Postage Bill, 138 ;
writes to Mrs Hill on its passing,
141 ; urges Lord Melbourne to give
appointment to R. H., 145, 181 ;
retirement and death, 212

Walmsleys, the, 37, 143

Walsall, 67

"Walter Press," the, 22

War with France, 10, 18, 47

War-tax, postal contribution to the,

47, 55, 76

Warburton, Hy., M P., 120, 127 ; serves
on Parliamentary Committee and
writes report, 129; favours penny
rate, "Philosopher Warburton" at
home, 130 ; on deputation to Lord
Melbourne, questions Government in
House, " Penny Postage is to be
granted," 134 ; advises R. H. to
attend debate, 125 ; supports Bill,
138 ; urges giving appointment to
R. H., 145 ; and restoration to office,
212 ; interviews Postmaster- General,
214

Watch-smuggling, 273 ; a stolen, 274,

275

Waterloo, the battle of, I, 88
Watford and St Albans' mails, 227
Watson, Mr, 207
Watt, James, 261, 303
" Waverley," 78
Wedding ring, episode of a, 302
Weighing letters, 125
Weight of chargeable letters one-fourth

of the entire mail only, 103 ; average

carried and capable of being carried

by coach, 123
Wellington, Duke of, I, 136, 137, 138,

141, 224, 239, 260
Wesley, John, 81
West Indian Packet Service, 236

West, Mr, on Etymology, 266
Westminster, 76; the Hall, 156; the

Abbey, 301, 303
Wheatstone, Sir Chas. , 34
Whitehead, Sir Jas., 302
Whiting, Mr, 189, 198
Widows' and Orphans' Fund, the P.O.,

220

Wild and visionary scheme, a, 120
Wilde, Sir Thos. (Lord Truro), 36
Wilkinson, Mr W. A., 115
William I., German Emperor, 266

III.,8i; IV., 19, 119

Wills, Mr W. H., 31, 163, 266; Mrs

Wills, 31

Wilson, Mr L. P., 115
Window immortalised by Dickens, a,

163

Witch mania, the, 81
Witherings, postal reformer, gives new

meaning to the word "post," made

"Master of the Posts," an able

administrator, dismissed, 72, 73, 78 ;

remarks on his treatment, 80, 179
Wolverhampton, II, 23, 25, 26, 50, 52,

133, 294
Wolves, 159
Wood, Mr J. (Stamps and Taxes

Office), 188

, Mr G. W., M.P., 120

Works of Reference, 185, 186, 192,

195, 196
Wreckage, postal reform narrowly

escapes, 127, 129

Wurtemberg adopts postal reform, 251
Wyon, Wm., R.A., 199

YATES, Edmund, 154, 266, 280, 285
"Year of Revolutions, The," 221, 239
York, 74, 77

, James, Duke of, 76

Yorke, Hon. and Rev. G., 225
Young, Arthur, 78

ZERFFI, Dr, 37

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