Inventing the post office: A bit of British history

Posted on by

Britain’s post office was established in 1660, under Charles II. Or in 1630, under Charles I. Or in 1711, under Queen Anne. Or in 1516, under Henry VIII.

All those dates have at least a semi-rational claim. One of the things I love about history is how clear-cut everything is. 

Let’s start with Henry. What he set up was a national network that would serve the court, although one website dates it to 1512, not 1516, and Cardinal Woolsey gets the credit instead of Henry, but we’re at least all talking the same language here, so it’s close enough for our purposes. 

The system involved relays of horses and messengers, and this was revolutionary stuff–the internet of its day. Up until then, if you wanted to send a letter, you had to send your own damn courier or find someone going in the right direction who’d carry your letter or package through the airport scanner for you. (“Did you pack your own luggage, sir?” “Of course not. I have minions who do that for me.” “Of course, sir. No problem, but you still can’t take your sword on the plane.”)

Or maybe Henry’s system wasn’t so new. According to WikiWhatsia, the first postal service was in Egypt, in 2400 BCE, and Persia had one in 550 BCE. Ancient Rome, ancient China, the Mongol Empire, and assorted other political entities can also stake early claims. Whether anyone in England knew about them at the time is up for grabs.

For us, it doesn’t matter. The system was new to England and people who were important enough to get close found ways to slip their own letters in with the court documents. 

Irrelevant photo: A camellia escaping a neighbor’s back yard in early February.

 

The service goes public

In 1630, the ill-fated Charles I (lost his head in the civil war) opened the service to the public. Or someone did it for him. Monarchs always get the credit for other people’s work, possibly because the initiative was theirs but possibly because they didn’t get in the other people’s way.

Never mind. Here’s how it worked: First we shift into the present tense, because it’s so much more exciting and because you want to drop Mom a note saying you’ll be home next Monday and what’s the point of doing that if Monday’s already in the past? You write your letter and take it somewhere–the write-ups aren’t clear on this, but it wasn’t your local post office and it wasn’t a mailbox, since neither exist yet. Probably to the nearest post, which is not a piece of wood driven into the ground but a place that’s part of the (ahem) postal network. The mail goes from one post to another, and the postmaster at each one pulls out the mail–sorry, the post–for his area and sends the rest on. 

We’re probably correct here in saying “his,” not “his or hers,” “theirs,” or some other awkward variation, although I can’t swear to that. Let’s let it stand this time.

England and Scotland have six main post roads, and letters travel along them, so if you and Mom aren’t that far apart but are in different postal areas that aren’t joined by a post road, your letter will first go to a post before it heads more or less backward to reach her. But it’s not all inefficiency, because the service works night and day, literally. 

Once your letter reaches the post in Mom’s area, it’s handed to a postboy, who’ll deliver it, either on horse or on foot, and if Mom wants it she’ll have to hand over some money, otherwise forget it: no letter. Of course, by the time it reaches her you might already be home, so she can save herself the expense.

How much does she save? It depends on weight and distance. When the system started, the charge was 2d for 80 miles for a single sheet of paper. 

A d? For no reason a rational person will ever remember, that stands for a penny, so 2 pence, or a day’s wage for a skilled tradesman. In other words, not cheap.

How fast was the system? (You’ll notice we’re in the past tense again, having forgotten all about you and your mother. Hope you had a nice visits.) A letter sent from Edinburgh to London might get a reply in something like two months. 

The system had competition from private carriers–hundreds of them, although I haven’t found any information on their systems, costs, or speed.

 

The Civil War and the Restoration

You’d think the English Civil War (it started in In 1642) might’ve distracted people, but staying connected mattered at least as much as it ever did, and the Commonwealth’s postal service covered England, Scotland, and Ireland. In 1657, the General Post-Office was granted a monopoly, getting rid of those pesky competitors, and a fixed rate was established for letters. No one seems to list this as one of the post office’s many founding dates, but it strikes me as having a reasonable claim. 

That carries us to Charles II and another founding date. 

In this telling, Charles–or at least his government–gets credit for not just founding the General Post Office (no hyphen this time–think how much time and ink that saved) but for rolling it out across the country, although it sounds like the Commonwealth had already done that.  

How was this different from the hyphenated post office set up by the Commonwealth? Haven’t a clue. It might’ve been a major improvement and it might just be a case of the Commonwealth’s work not being taken as seriously as the monarchy’s. You’re on your own. 

It was under Charles II that postmarks became standard. They showed the date a letter was mailed, pushing the carriers not to stash a bundle at the pub for a week or two when things got busy.

That brings us to postboys, the final link in the delivery chain and a problematic one, which they’d continue to be until late into the 18th century. They were badly paid and some of them dealt with that creatively, by robbing their post bags. Give them an A for initiative. 

However risky it was, it wasn’t uncommon for people to send cash. How else were you going to get money from Point A to Point B? Cheques weren’t used in England until 1640, the first checkbook wasn’t issued until 1830, and checks didn’t circulate widely until the late 1800s. 

But postboys weren’t the only people who thought of looking inside the post bags: highwaymen regularly attacked carriers and stole the mail.  

Even if no money was stolen and the mail wasn’t stashed at the pub for a week or two, the service was slowed down by roads that could be pot-holed, ankle-deep in mud, and in general a mess. And we’re talking about a 24-hour service, remember. In the dark, it wouldn’t have been easy to tell the road from the countryside around it. 

 

Following the money

In 1711, under Queen Anne, a bill created a single post office of the United Kingdom and set postage rates and delivery times, which is why some sources give that as the founding date. The Post Office (what the hell, let’s use caps here*) was now a branch of the Treasury and its goal was to raise money for the state.

Where had the money gone before that? During the Restoration, it was used to pay pensions to court favorites. After the Revolution (I think this means the Glorious Revolution, so 1688-1689) it paid pensions to peers and statesmen. By 1699, a third of the Post Office’s income went to pay pensions. Compare that to what the postboys and highwaymen stole and they’ll come across as minor-league players.

The bill took that nice little pot of money and put it in the state’s hands so it could do something useful with it, like fund a war. 

What war? I find two: Queen Anne’s War, where England and France fought for control of North America, and the War of the Spanish Succession, where assorted countries fought over, um, the Spanish succession. (You’d never have guessed that without my help, would you?) If I’ve missed any, feel free to pencil them in yourself. The point is, think what an improvement this was.

 

I’m bored. Could we have a scandal?

Oh, always. 

From the Restoration on, it was accepted practice for MPs and Lords to send and receive letters for free. That’s called franking, which comes from Latin francus, or free, and I had to look it up too.

By the 18th century, MPs (and I assume Lords) were sending other people’s mail for free under their signed covers–it was a nice little favor they could do for friends and supporters and general hangers-on–and by 1754  that was costing the post office £23,600 in lost revenue, which in 2023 money would be something north of £4,000,000. 

How did the post office deal with that? Why, it set up a system to look for abuse of the system, of course, and that brought in a new way to abuse the system. It could almost make a person cynical, couldn’t it? In 1735, opposition MPs complained that their mail was being opened in the post office on behalf of the ministry. 

What ministry? Damned if I know. Apparently it’s too obvious to need saying, but this was the government snooping on the opposition under cover of being sure they didn’t abuse their franking privileges.

This led to the revelation that the inspector of franks, Edward Cave, had been gathering material for his own publication, The Gentleman’s Magazine, from the newsletters and gazettes that passed through his hands on their way to (or possibly from) MPs. And although I’ve lost the link by now, one source mentioned money being stolen from the mail in the House of Commons post office. By the person in charge of it. In the name of being sure no one was misusing their franking privileges.

To deal with the problem, the Commons decried abuse of the franking system. We can all guess how effective that was. Then in 1764, an act dealing with franking set up “harsh penalties for those trying to defraud the Post Office, including transportation to the colonies.”

I can’t find a record of a single MP or Lord being transported under the act. I’m sure you’re as surprised as I am.

 

Want a bit of corruption that doesn’t qualify as a scandal?

Throughout the 18th century, the post office had two postmasters at a time. These were patronage positions: lucrative places to drop people you owed a favor to and who you knew had no interest in doing any real work. Most of the postmasters were peers or the sons of aristocrats at the end of their careers. One, Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde of Hindon (later earl of Clarendon), called it “a very good bed for old courtiers to rest in,” 

Why isn’t that a scandal? It was business as usual. It’s only a scandal if enough people are shocked.

 

* My capitalization of post office is wildly inconsistent, but you know what? I’ve worked as a copyeditor and I’m  retired now. That means I officially don’t have to give a fuck. Whee.

39 thoughts on “Inventing the post office: A bit of British history”

  1. Just to poke something into the works…there used to be a story floating about, related to (in)famous highwayman, Dick Turpin [early C18th ] in which it was purported (posh word meaning no verifiable facts) that he was able to evade capture for years because of his fast horse, formerly ridden by a post carrier.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  2. Pingback: Inventing the post office: A bit of British history – Ethnographic House Shtraklevo

    • Funny you should mention that–it’s part of my next post. And since everyone seems to set their own start date for this bit of history, why not credit the Victorians? I’m not sure what they added–I declared the thing well and truly founded before they came along–but everyone seems to have something in their favor here.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

  5. As I’m sure you know, the whole Harry Potteresque predecimalization (sorry for my US spelling habits) system was referred to as the Lsd system, allegedly standing for Pounds, shillings, pence (but in Latin) but actually for the chemical that whoever came up with it had ingested.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Ah! I wonder if I’d been introduced to it under the influence whether it wouldn’t have made more sense to me. As for your spelling habits, I cling to my Zs as well. I have a sizable stash of them in the back room. I can’t imagine life without them.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

  6. Ben Franklin is usually credited with developing the postal service in The Colonies, and beyond that I guess I didn’t think much abut it, so this was really a history lesson ! Such a service is pretty self-evidently necessary that it’s no surprise it is credited with being “invented” in so many times and places.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • The post office was so much a part of the world I grew up in that I don’t think I ever gave a moment’s thought to who invented it. If my history textbooks mentioned Franklin–and they probably did–i bounced right over the top of it and absorbed nothing. They were written in a way that encouraged that–almost demanded it. It’s only now that I’m exploring history from the vantage point of my couch–and I credit the couch for this–that it occurs to me to wonder, Well, where’d that come from.

      I expect you’re right, though. A country whose parts are tied together does seem to demand something along those lines, at least at some point in history. This morning I found myself wondering if naming or numbering streets and houses only started when there was stuff to deliver to them or if it grew out of some earlier need.

      Like

      Reply ↓

      • Hmm…streets and house numbers.

        Of course many of us kids were excited by tales of the Pony Express where there were more dangers than aggressive dogs ! The Pony Express “operated from April 3, 1960 to Oct. 26,1861.”(wikipedia) Short-lived though it was (railroads and the telegraph increased in prominence during the Civil War) it looms large in Americana.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓

        • Mostly, I suspect, because of the westerns that dominated TV during the 50s. I was amazed when I learned (I can’t remember when, but as an adult) how short-lived it was. Talk about blowing something out of proportion.

          Like

          Reply ↓

  7. I wonder if franking brought about the first junk mail. (“Pardon me. Might I include this solicitation with your mail to the home district?) Scary thought that the government might be the source of all that.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Interesting question: When was the first junk mail. Or to put that another way, When was junk mail invented. When I edited a small writers magazine, I learned a bit about the discount that bulk mail gets. At the time, it needed to be sorted in all sorts of arcane ways, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than regular mail. And that, I expect, is the source of the problem.

      On the positive side, no self-respecting highwayman ever stole it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

  8. From somewhere in the distant recesses of memory, I seem to recall that until the Victorian invention of the penny post, postage stamps, pillar boxes and all the rest of it, the recipient of the mail paid for it on receipt (must have made for some interesting scenes on the doorstep). Presumably it was reversing that and making it cheaper that led to the explosion of uses for the mails, Valentine and Christmas cards, bulk mails and so on.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • The penny black–the first adhesive stamp–dates from 1840; the red pillar box from 1852. Both are safely in the Victorian age. It looks like the date for the sender paying the postage dates to 1840, giving you a perfect score. Making the postage cheaper meant that more people used it, which probably meant that it made more money, although I can’t say that definitively.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  9. Dear Ellen,
    For some obscure reason I keep finding your posts very interesting every time I come here and read them. I don’t know, maybe it’s because they actually … are ;)
    Seriously, you have a knack of writing the most fascinating things – like that part about the cost of mailing a sheet of paper being a full day’s pay. That’s the kind of thing which makes it personal and relatable! :)
    Wishing you all the best and a really great week!
    – Elena

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  10. I didn’t realise that the post had such a long history – I had this idea it had something to do with the Victorians and Anthony Trollope (wonderful name) who was a prolific author in his spare time as well as being Postmaster general. I think that “d” is short for denarius because everything was written in latin back in the day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • The d is indeed for denarius. I didn’t want to make a detour into that but couldn’t resist making a joke about it. As for the post office, I don’t think I’ve ever explored a corner of history where there’s this much authoritative contradictory history, and so many starting places.

      I’m not sure at what point the job of postmaster general became a real job–one that expected actual work from the seat’s occupant. By Trollope’s time it might have, but it might also have been a writers grant in disguise.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

  11. Merchants, especially those in the long distance trade, needed a safe way to transfer money. In the High Middle Ages one could turn towards the Knights Templar (as long as they existed), drop the dosh in e.g. Paris, and have it payed out in say Toledo, Warsaw, Rome, Jerusalem.
    Then there were the Lombards – isn’t still today something called “Lombard” in finance ?

    Sending letters is a bit more difficult, but merchants always took letters with them. The “Reichspost” exists since 1650, under the Emperor’s regal, but there were earlier networks between the Free Cities (“Reichsstädte”) ; similar networks existed between monasteries since the late Medieval Age, very likely earlier : All ways lead to Rome.

    The Middle Ages were not a time when people sat on their arses, there was a lot of mobility, and transfer of news. Of course it was organised only locally. Connected with the organisation of “post” is the circulation of newsletters, press, Zeitung – The German sentence “Der Posten bringt gute Zeitung” makes a lot of sense if one loves (and understands) the language. (18th century, admittedly.)

    BTW, what is wrong with a nice sinecure ? I’d like to have one – together with a nice Weindeputat !

    The days of denarii, shilling, feet and whatever nonsense based on twelve are finally over, the metric system won, otherwise use Werst, grain & troy. On the island of the Chosen Few. This is a 19th century “discussion”.

    For Something Completely Different
    Yes, I’ll try to put my fingers on a copy of your book …

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • I haven’t heard much from them lately–they’re too busy telling us what a huge success Brexit was and complaining about wokeness and immigrants and, oh, never mind the full list. You could finish it yourself. Where was I? There are still people who complain about the metric system and want to go back to the chaotic mess that preceded it. I have yet to hear a coherent argument about what’s wrong with the metric system. It’s too easy to work with, I guess. And it came from (gasp, shudder) abroad.

      As for sinecures, the problem is there aren’t enough to go around. And they generally go to people who don’t need them.

      Like

      Reply ↓

Leave a reply to doublegenealogytheadoptionwitness Cancel reply