Not only could coaches travel eight miles an hour, Palmer further proposed that the coaches be guarded by men armed with blunderbusses to ensure their safe arrival. Palmer’s plan was to convey the mail by coaches in the same way that packages were delivered. In 1784, a plan to speed up mail delivery and make it more reliable was devised by John Palmer, a proprietor of the Bath theater. In order to speed the delivery of their letters, some would package them in a parcel so they could be delivered by one of the coaches that ran from one town to another, rather than trusting them to the postal service. Post boys were often attacked by highwaymen who made off with the post bags, sometimes wounding or even killing the unlucky post boy in the process. The roads that they travelled on were in exceedingly poor repair with deep ruts and so dark at night that the road was almost impossible to distinguish from the surrounding countryside, slowing their journey even more. They carried letters on horseback and, being so poorly paid, they sometimes robbed the post bags they carried. Post boys were an endless source of trouble. The London mail system was absorbed into the Post Office.īy latter half of the eighteenth century, the post system had grown and the cost of a letter had gone up, but little else had changed. Dockwra’s efforts were put to and end when he was taken to court and found to be guilty of infringement in a judgement that found in favour of the Duke of York who had been the recipient of the revenue of the official post office since 1663. Letters under one pound were collected from various offices hourly and were delivered in the most populated parts of the city ten or twelve times a day. The city was divided into seven postal districts, each with a sorting office. In 1685, William Dockwra established a penny post within London, since all post within the city had previously travelled by private messenger. Those not wanting to pay the postage could refuse the letter. Under these early schemes, the receiver had to pay the postage on their letter, rather than the sender and the rate was based on the distance the letter had travelled. “Whereas it hath been found by experience, That the Erecting and Settling of one General Post-Office, for the speedy Conveying, Carrying, and Re-carrying of Letters by Post, to, and from all Places within England, Scotland, and Ireland.” In 1657, fixed rates were established for the delivery of letters through the post system in the Postage Act as passed by Parliament. In addition to this official post service, hundreds of carriers delivered letters and packages across the dominion in direct competition to the service. 2 “The Gentleman’s Magazine.” Google Books. In the beginning, a letter written on a single sheet of paper would cost 2d to travel 80 miles with postage to Scotland from London being 8d and to Ireland 9d. However under this scheme, letters were to travel both day and night, and therefore could travel 120 miles in a 24 hour day. This meant that a letter sent from Yarmouth to Edinburgh would have to travel through London. Letters sent through the public postal service could travel only over these routes. The four main post roads ran between London, Dover, Plymouth, and Edinburgh with Bristol and Yarmouth being added by the end of the century. There were six main post roads throughout England and Scotland and the very first ‘post office’ was set up in Bishopsgate Street in London.
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