BY J. C. HEMMEON, Ph.D. PUBLISHED FROM THE INCOME OF THE WILLIAM H. BALDWIN, JR., 1885, FUND Publishers' Seal CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published January 1912...

In justice to those principles which influenced the policy of the Post Office before the introduction of penny postage, it is perhaps unnecessary to call attention to the fact that no opinion as to their desirability or otherwise is justifiable which does not take into consideration the conditions and prejudices which then prevailed. Some of the earlier writers on the Post Office have made the mistake of condemning everything which has not satisfied the measure of their own particular rule. If t

THE POSTAL ESTABLISHMENT SUPPORTED DIRECTLY BY THE STATE The history of the British Post Office starts with the beginning of the sixteenth century. Long before this, however, a system of communication had been established both for the personal use of the King and for the conveyance of official letters and documents. These continued to be the principal functions of the royal posts until well on in the seventeenth century. Before the sixteenth century, postal communications were carried on by roya

THE POSTAL ESTABLISHMENT A SOURCE OF REVENUE TO THE STATE 1633-1711 For some time there had been dissatisfaction with the services rendered by the inland posts. It was said that letters would arrive sooner from Spain and Italy than from remote parts of the kingdom of England. [60] The only alternative was to send them by express and this was not only expensive but was not looked upon with favour by the Postmaster-General. The five great roads from London to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Bristol, Plymouth

THE POSTAL ESTABLISHMENT AN INSTRUMENT OF TAXATION 1711-1840 The year 1711 is an important landmark in the history of the British Post Office. England and Scotland had united not only under one king but under one Parliament, the war with France made a larger revenue necessary, the growth of the Colonies required better communication with the mother country and each other, and it was highly expedient that certain changes in the policy of the Post Office should receive parliamentary sanction. The

THE POSTAL ESTABLISHMENT AN INSTRUMENT OF POPULAR COMMUNICATION With the inauguration of inland penny postage the Postal Establishment ceased to exist primarily as a tax-collecting agency, and, although maintained as a whole upon a paying basis, certain of its recent experiments have, from a financial point of view, been far from successful. On the other hand, the simultaneous unification and reduction of rates, together with various other changes which have been adopted since 1840, have resulte

THE TRAVELLERS' POST AND POST HORSES The duty of providing horses for conveying letters and for the use of travellers on affairs of state was enforced from the beginning of the sixteenth century by orders and warrants issued by the Postmaster-General and the Privy Council to mayors, sheriffs, constables, and other officials. [327] Where ordinary posts were laid, the postmen themselves were supposed to have horses ready. Such at least was the understanding, not, however, invariably realized. In 1

ROADS AND SPEED Sir Brian Tuke, writing in 1533, said that the only roads in the kingdom over which letters were regularly conveyed were from London to Dover and London to Berwick. [362] The road to Berwick had been in use in 1509 [363] but had evidently been discontinued, for Sir Brian says in his letter that postmen were appointed to it in the year that he wrote. Regular posts were established between London and Portsmouth when the fleet was there and discontinued as soon as it left, so that i

SAILING PACKETS AND FOREIGN CONNECTIONS The Irish mail service was the first to boast a regular sailing packet. [430] The postal expenditure for the year 1598 included £130 for a bark to carry letters and despatches between Holyhead and Dublin, and an additional vessel was hired occasionally for the same purpose. [431] At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Queen Elizabeth ordered packets to be established at Milford Haven and Falmouth to ply between England and Ireland. This order was pro

RATES AND FINANCE After de Quester had been appointed Foreign Postmaster-General, he published, in 1626, an incomplete set of rates from and to various places on the continent. His charges for "packets," and by packets he meant letters or parcels carried by a special messenger, were as follows:— To the Hague £7. To Brussels or Paris £10. To Vienna £60. The ordinary rates were:— To or from any of the above places 30 s. To or from any part of Germany 6 s. From Venice for a single letter 9 d. [562]

THE QUESTION OF MONOPOLY The question of the state's monopoly and the opposing efforts of the interlopers to break this monopoly resolves itself into a consideration of the way in which private letters were carried, for the public letters were entirely at the disposal of the state to be dealt with as it saw fit. From the sixteenth century there were several ways in which private letters might be conveyed. Within the kingdom they might be sent by the common carriers, friends, special messengers,

THE TELEGRAPH SYSTEM AS A BRANCH OF THE POSTAL DEPARTMENT Previous to the acquisition of the telegraphs by the state, the different telegraphic companies carried on their business in comparative harmony, a harmony which was occasionally disturbed by the entrance into the field of competition of new claimants for the confidence of the public. By far the most important of these companies in 1855 were the Electric and International, and the British and Irish Magnetic, controlling between them about

THE POST OFFICE AND THE TELEPHONE COMPANIES The first telephone brought to England by Lord Kelvin in 1876 was a very crude instrument, useful only for experimental purposes and of interest only as a forecast of later development. In the following year two Post Office officials introduced some machines which had been presented to them by the American inventor Bell, and although not very efficient, they were of some commercial use. The Post Office made arrangements with the agents of the inventor

CONCLUSION The important points in the history of the British Post Office are necessarily somewhat obscured by the great mass of less important characteristics which accompanied its development. Organized at the beginning of the sixteenth century as a means for the conveyance of state letters, its messengers, by tacit consent, were allowed to carry the letters of private individuals. The advantage so afforded for the control of seditious correspondence led to the monopolistic proclamations of th

This list does not contain a complete record of all the authorities consulted. It merely brings together, with a fuller statement of title, the more important references scattered through the footnotes. Unless it is otherwise stated, London is to be understood as the place of publication for the English books here cited. PRINTED RECORDS—PARLIAMENTARY DOCUMENTS—REPORTS Acts of Parliament. Acts of the Parliament of Scotland. 12 vols., 1814-75. Acts of the Privy Council of England. New Series, ed.