Post and Postal Services

Witherings' rates on the single letter were as follows : d.

Under 8o miles . . ........ .

2 8o to 140 miles . ......... 4 Over 140 miles . . ........ . 6 On the borders and in Scotland ..... . . . 8 In Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 For letters carried on the branch posts an additional 2d. was charged. Witherings, owing to some intrigue, was removed from office in 1637; but he continued to be connected with the postal service for some years, and he appears to have. succeeded in corn bining efficient administration with a certain amount of personal profit.

After some years of improved postal services the possibility of developing the post office as a source of revenue was taken up by the Government, and in 1653 it was decided to let the posts out to farm. In view of the fact that the rates charged by the farmers were fixed, this measure, while convenient to the State, was free from the objections usually inherent in the farming of public services. The successful tenderer paid 110,000 a year, and the system was continued under the Restoration until 1667. The revenue of the post office, however, was not considered simply as a contribution to the general expenses of government. In 1663 it settled on the duke of York and his male heirs, and some what later was charged with a number of pensions ; e.g., the duchess of Cleveland received 14,700 and the duke of Schomberg £4,000. In 1713 these pensions amounted to £22,120, or one third of the total net revenue. The system had a singularly long life, as the last of these pensions, that payable to the duke of Grafton as successor to the duchess of Cleveland, was continued until 1856, when it was commuted for £91,000.

London Penny Post, 1680.

The next great reform came from outside the post office. In 1653 Louis XIV. had authorized the establishment of a local post in Paris at a charge of one sou (which by a notable anticipation was paid by means of a postage stamp). Profiting no doubt by this example a London merchant, William Dockwra, brought into existence in 1680 the London penny post. A rate of id., to be prepaid, was charged on all packets up to I lb. in weight, the packets being insured up to 1 ro. Some

hundreds of receiving offices were opened, from which an hourly collection was made, the letters being brought into 6 central offices, where they were sorted and date-stamped, and sent out for deliv ery. There were 4 to 8 deliveries a day in the greater part of Lon don and I o or 12 in the business centres. The area covered by this service extended from Hackney to Lambeth and from Blackwall to Westminster; and there was also a daily delivery, for which an additional id. was charged, to places io or 15 miles from London. The staff employed in London by Dockwra considerably exceeded that employed by the post office in the whole kingdom. This truly remarkable enterprise gave London a postal service which in some respects has never been equalled before or since.

For some time Dockwra struggled with serious financial difficul ties; but no sooner had the penny post begun to show a profit than the duke of York, on whom the Post Office revenues were settled, asserted his monopoly. Dockwra was condemned to pay damages and his undertaking was incorporated in the General Post Office; but the London penny post long survived its creator and was maintained until 18or.

The First Postmaster General.

The act of 1657, to which reference has already been made, was the first comprehensive attempt to regulate the postal service by statute. It established a government monopoly, provided for the post of postmaster gen eral, regulated the treatment of letters brought by private ship and prescribed the rates of postage, both inland and foreign. The act was renewed with practically no alteration, immediately after the Restoration. The inland rates were somewhat lower than those charged by Witherings, the maximum rate being 6d. for a single letter to or from Ireland.

Another Post Office Act was passed in 1711, uniting the post offices of England and Scotland, which had been separated in 1695, regulating the postal service in New York, the West Indies and the other American colonies, prohibiting post office officials from taking part in politics and lastly increasing substantially the rates of postage in order to provide for the expenses of the war with France.