LONDON’S FIRST POST

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1929, Page 4

LONDON’S FIRST POST

THE ROMANCE OF LETTERS. It is uncertain at what period the Crown undertook to be the regular carrier of letters, but the earliest recorded ’“post” office seems to have been that of the “postmaster to long Charles 1., who in 1635 had his office in Sherborne lane, writes Georgje Dowsett in the “Daily Telegraph.” Successive removals took the chief Post Office to Cloak Lane, Dowgatehill; to the Black Swan, Bishopgsate Street; in 1667 to the Two Black Pillars, Brydges Street, Covent Garden, and then in 1688 to the mansion of Sir Robert' Viner, a noted banker in Lonbard Street., • a In those early days the term post and “postmaster” had reference, not to the carriage of correspondence, but to the provision of horses for the King’s messengers who “rode post. Thus the location of the office of the postmaster in an inn which possessed stabling and the usual open yard tor coaches is easily explained. Sir Robert Viner’s mansion provided the accommodation for the purpose for 140 years, and when the great increase in the postal business called for the provision of more commodious quarters the area known as St. Martin’s le Grand was cleared for the erection of a great G.P.0., which itself took the name which is still a synonym for the chief Post Office.

WEEKLY DISPATCHES The early history of the post is somewhat nebulous. It originated, of course, in very early times as a courier service carrying proclamations, orders, and the correspondence of the Sovereign, and private letters were conveyed only surreptitiously or on suffierance. In 1481 King Edward IV. arranged for a string of couriers doing twenty-mile stages to carry intelljg ence as to the progress ■of the war in Scotland, and Richard HI. improved that service. . There is a good deal of uncertainty about the matter, but the first “Master of the Posts” was probably appointed as early as 1516, and, in 1581 Sir Thomas Randolph is named as the chief postmaster of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen’s Regulations of 1603 gave to postmasters the monopoly of providing mounts for the Royal messengers riding “in post”—that is, with hom and guide, allowing them to make a charge per horse of 21d per mile, “besides the guide’s groat,” but leaving them free to make their own terms with private travellers. They were required to keep at least two horses and to be prepared to dispatch the “post boy” in not more than fifteen minutes after his arrival. Private letters were, of course, carried secretly by travellers, commercial agents, carriers, or soldiers, and as the number of private letters increased many attempts were made to create a monopoly of the service, not at first with the idea of obtaining a revenue, but rather for the purpose of establishing the right of surveillance over the private correspondence of foreigners and subjects alike. In 1643 Parliament sanctioned a plan for a General Post Office, devised by Edmund Prideaux, Attorney-General to the Commonwealth. He was appointed Chief Postmaster by the ordinance of both Houses, and notable results followed. He established a regular weekly conveyance of letters along eight main roads with a minimum charge of twopence. By 1657 the Commonwealth Parliament had placed the Post Office on a statutory basis. The preamble of the measure is curious and runs: “Whereas it is expedient to establish one general post office for the transmission and receipt of letters; for besides being a benefit to commerce, and convenient in conveying public dispatches, it will be the best means of discovering and preventing many dangerous and wicked designs against the Commonwealth.” By this Act the monopoly for providing post horses was continued, a Postmaster-General was appointed, and the office was farmed for £lO,OOO, afterwards increased to £40,000. The rates varied from 2d to 8d for a single sheet. There were no cross-road posts, so that except between towns on the same route letters had to pass through London, and thus became subject to a fresh charge. In 1720 “humble Ralph Allen,” of Bath, whose name deserves to bo remembered, invented a system of crossroad posts—a great advance —and made £12,000 a year from it. He died in 1764, and the Government took over his work. The post horse monopoly was abolished in 1749, by which time stage coaches were running. The mails were still carried on horseback by post boys, and this continued until John Palmer, the lessee and manager of the Bath Theatre, instituted the mail coach, the first of which ran in 1784 from Bristol to London in seventeen hours. For sixty years these coaches were the fastest things on the road, and the annual procession of mail coaches on the King’s birthday from the G.P.O. to St. James’s Palace was one of the sights of London.