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 it can hardly be included among the regular roads.[364] Between 1580 and the accession of James I, there was a distinct revival in postal affairs within and without the kingdom. The posts on the London-Holyhead road had been discharged for some time and Irish letters were conveyed to London by the postmaster at Chester.[365] In 1581 Gascoyne, the acting Postmaster-General, was ordered to appoint stages and postmen on this old route.[366] A letter patent was issued, calling upon all Her Majesty's officers to assist him in so doing, and a warrant was signed for the payment of £20 to defray his expenses. The Rye-Dieppe posts were also reorganized, principally for the conveyance of letters to and from France.[367] Bristol ranked next to London in size and importance, but it was not until 1580 that orders were given to horse and man the road between the two cities,[368] and only in the following decade were posts also laid from London to Exeter and somewhat later from Exeter to Plymouth.[369] This illustrates as well as anything the fact that the early English postal system was mainly political in its aims. The great post roads were important from a political rather than an economic standpoint. It was necessary to keep in close touch with Scotland because the Scotch would always stand watching. The wild Irish needed a strong hand and it was expedient that English statesmen should be well acquainted with things Irish. The post to and from the continent was quite as necessary to keep them informed of French and Spanish politics.

In conveying letters the postman who started with them did not, on the regular roads, proceed through to the place where they were directed, but carried them only over his stage to the next postman. By this method a fair rate of speed should have been maintained, for the horses' path in the middle of the road was as a rule not so bad as seriously to impede travelling.[370] Nevertheless complaints about the tardiness of the post are numerous. Lisle, the Warden of the Marches, said that letters from London were nearly five days in reaching him at Alnwick.[371] Nine days from London to Carlisle was considered too slow but it often took that long, notwithstanding that the letters were marked twice "for life, for life."[372] The Earl of Sussex complained to Cecil that they never arrived in York under three days. He expected too much, however, for three days from London to York was considered good speed.[373] According to a post label made out in 1589, the distance from Berwick to Huntingdon was accomplished in ninety-one hours. By the mileage tables then published, the distance was 203 miles, giving an average speed of only a little over two miles an hour. It is only fair to add that the real distance was 282 miles, and this would raise the speed to about three miles an hour.[374] The distance from Dover to London was covered in twelve hours, from Plymouth to Hartford Bridge in forty-four hours, from Portsmouth to Farnham in five hours, from Weymouth to Staines via Sherborne in five days, but this must have been exceptionally long.[375]

Orders were given to the postmen in 1603 that they should not delay the mails more than fifteen minutes at each stage and that they should travel at the rate of seven miles an hour in summer and five in winter.[376] This was an ideal but seldom realized. Complaints continued to come in pretty constantly during the first thirty-five years of the seventeenth century.[377] Secretary Conway wrote to Secretary Coke that the posts must be punished for their tardiness.[378] Even those from London to Dover were reprimanded and they had hitherto given the best satisfaction. The postmaster at Dover was threatened with imprisonment unless he mended his ways.[379] Letters were either not delivered at all or were needlessly delayed on the road. Some of the postmasters, who held lucrative positions, were themselves absentees and their work was performed by their agents, who were often incompetent, and this sort of thing was connived at by the Postmaster-General, from whom their positions were bought. The postmen themselves acknowledged their tardiness but said that they were able to do no better, since they had received no wages for several years.[380] One had been paid nothing for over two years, another had received no wages for seven years,[381] and finally in 1628 a petition was presented to the Privy Council from "all the posts in England, being in number ninety-nine poor men." This petition prays for their arrears, due since 1621, the amount unpaid being £22,626, "notwithstanding the great charge they are at in the keeping of many servants and horses to do His Majesty's service."[382] The Council did not grant their petition, for two years later £25,000 were still due them.[383]

The Council of State gave directions in 1652 for roads to be manned between Dover and Portsmouth, Portsmouth and Salisbury, London and Yarmouth, and London and Carlisle through Lancaster.[384] Hitherto, Carlisle had to depend upon a branch post from the great North Road. Dover and Portsmouth had no direct connection nor had Bristol and Exeter, but letters between these places passed through London. These orders formed part of the directions given to the farmer of the posts in the following year.[385] Cromwell seems to have recognized the impracticability of enforcing the speed limit ordered by Elizabeth in the case of the ordinary mails. He issued orders that in future only public despatches or letters from and to certain high officials should be sent by express, and such despatches and letters must be carried at a speed of seven miles an hour from the first of April to the thirtieth of September, and five miles an hour the rest of the year.[386]

Toward the close of the seventeenth century, more attention was directed to the slowness of the posts and the delays along the road. The average speed on the great roads varied from three to four miles an hour, anything below three miles generally calling for reproof. For instance, the posts on the Portsmouth road were reprimanded for travelling only twenty-two miles in ten hours.[387] It was said that it took the Yarmouth mail sixty-six hours to travel less than one hundred miles. The post labels were an important check upon the postmaster's carelessness. Each postmaster was supposed to mark the time that he received the mail on a label attached to it for that purpose. In this way no postmaster marked the speed that his own postboy made and each was a check upon his neighbour.[388] Lord Arlington gave orders in 1666 for this practice to be enforced more strictly. In addition to marking the time of arrival, the time of departure was also to be added.[389] A year later a further improvement was made by the use of printed labels, containing also directions as to speed. The names of the post towns through which the mail must pass were also added, and blanks were left for the postmasters to fill in the hours of arrival and departure.[390]

It was often difficult to tell the relative position of places in England from the post towns. The Post Office had for its own use a table of places along the great roads,[391] and from the middle of the seventeenth century, private individuals began to publish road maps. On these maps, the post towns are marked by a castle with a flag flying from it. Some of them are quite artistically done and represent on a large scale every important road in England with the places where branch roads leave them. One map has each road outlined on a long scroll, and it gives the rivers, brooks, bridges, elevations, villages, post towns, forests, and branch roads throughout the whole distance.[392] In 1668, Hicks, in writing to Arlington's secretary, advised him not to have a new map of the post roads printed, fearing the great changes that might thereby be produced in the Post Office. He says: "When Parliament sees how all the branches lie and most of them carried on at the charge of those in the country concerned, they will try to have them carried through by the Postmaster-General, which will be very chargeable."[393]

At the close of the seventeenth century, the five great roads to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Bristol, Plymouth, and Dover remained practically unchanged. The Plymouth road had been continued to Falmouth and the Northern Road now passed through York. The greatest changes noticeable are in the Southern and Eastern counties. In the South, nearly all the coast towns were now connected with the Falmouth road, and the post ran to the extreme southwest of Cornwall. Portsmouth had a direct service from London through Arundel and Chichester. There were branches from the Falmouth road to several towns in Dorset and Somerset, but as a rule the country between the two great roads to the West was poorly supplied. A new road of considerable importance ran from Maidenhead on the Bristol road through Abingdon, Gloucester, Cardiff, and Swansea to Milford, where there was a packet boat for Ireland. From this road there were a few unimportant branches to the North.

In the Northeast, the post road to Edinburgh now passed through York to Northallerton. From York there was a branch to Scarborough and Whitby. A new road left the Edinburgh road at Royston, about forty miles from London, and passed along the coast nearly parallel to the great road, through Newmarket, Lynn, Boston, and Hull to Bridlington. Another branch left Newmarket for Norwich and the seacoast towns of northern Norfolk. An important road left London for Yarmouth, with branches to the coast towns of Suffolk. One new road ran through the midland counties, leaving the Holyhead road about thirty miles from London and passing through Sheffield, Manchester, and Preston to Carlisle. Derby was supplied by an east and west road from Grimsby to Manchester. Liverpool had a post road to Manchester. In 1683, provision was made for an extension of the post roads by an order issued to the Postmaster-General to set up posts between the market towns and the nearest post towns. These were called bye-posts. It was to them that Hicks had objected as leading to increased expense. At the same time orders were given for a map to be printed, showing where all these bye-posts were situated so that people might know where to address their letters.[394]

In Ireland, there were three main post roads, running from Dublin through Ulster, Munster, and Connaught.[395] There were practically no post roads worthy of the name in Scotland. That part of the great North Road beyond the Tweed was English rather than Scotch. Between Edinburgh and Glasgow there was a foot-post. The mail was also carried between Glasgow and Portpatrick.[396] In 1699, the length of the roads in America over which the mails passed was 700 miles. These roads connected the principal towns along the Atlantic coast.[397]

In 1696, the Postmaster-General reported favourably on the establishment of a cross post road between Bristol and Exeter.[398] The report was approved, and two years later Bristol and Exeter had direct postal communication. Colonial and foreign letters for Bristol, after their arrival in Falmouth, still went via London.[399] Towns adjacent to Bristol and Exeter, which might have been connected with the cross post, remained separated. For example, the post went from London through Cirencester to Wotton-under-Edge, which was within fourteen miles of Bristol, yet letters from Cirencester to Exeter went via London.[400] The Exeter-Bristol cross post proved a success. After it had been in operation three years, it produced over £350 net profits a year. The use of cross posts was advocated as leading to the conveyance of a larger number of letters, and private individuals started to establish them.[401] In 1700, the post road from Exeter to Bristol was continued to Chester through Worcester and Shrewsbury.[402] Three years later, a direct road was ordered between Exeter and Truro, but it seems to have been discontinued after one year's trial.[403]

The post roads throughout the kingdom had not been measured correctly. A mile on the London-Edinburgh road was fully ten furlongs. This had resulted in a decreased revenue from post horses and often unjustifiable reprimands for slowness. By a provision in the act of 1711, it was ordered that all the post roads in the kingdom should be measured. This was to be done by officials appointed by the Postmaster-General and the measurements left in the general offices in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[404]

As the seventeenth century had seen the extension of roads in the southern and eastern counties of England, so the eighteenth century was marked by the establishment of posts in those parts of the kingdom most affected by the industrial revolution. The country about Birmingham, Kidderminster, and Worcester was to share in the better postal facilities offered by the mail coaches. Lancashire and the West Riding of York were not debarred from the use of Palmer's innovation. This was especially the case in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Halifax, and Leeds, for where industrial expansion paved the way, the coaches were sure to follow.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the roads in Ireland were attracting considerable attention, and it was the slow speed made by the mail carts there which was a primary cause in producing any improvement. The Postmasters-General were directed to cause surveys to be made and maps drawn of those roads in Ireland over which the mail passed. The roads were to be levelled so that the ascent or descent should be no more than one foot in thirty-five wherever this was practicable, the expense to be borne by the county or barony.[405] This was in 1805, and the next year the Grand Jury was given the power to call for another survey, and the surveyor whom they appointed was to decide as to the necessity for a change in the direction of the road. Copies of all Grand Jury presentments were to be made to the Postmasters-General.[406] In 1813 the Grand Juries were empowered to present for damages accruing to owners and occupiers of land, such damages to be raised by the county and advanced from the consolidated fund.[407]

After 1817, the Postmasters-General were able to report a considerable acceleration in the speed at which the mails were carried. This was owing largely to the introduction of a lighter and more improved type of mail coach, and after 1821 the use of steam packet boats in the case of the transportation of the Irish and continental mails. Letters leaving London at 8 P.M. on Tuesday for Ireland had not been delivered in Dublin until 10 A.M. on Friday. In 1817 they arrived on Thursday in time for delivery on that day.[408] In 1828, the coaches travelled from London to Holyhead, a distance of 261 miles, in twenty-nine hours and seventeen minutes. Four years later the time had been reduced to twenty-eight hours.[409] By the introduction of one of the patent mail coaches on the Yarmouth road, the inhabitants of that town were enabled to answer their letters a day earlier. The coach left London at the usual time (8 P.M.), arriving in Yarmouth at 11.40 A.M., returning at 3 P.M. on the same day.[410] The mails to Manchester and Liverpool travelled at the rate of nine miles an hour over the greater part of the road.[411] The average speed varied from eight to nine miles an hour. To give the exact figures, the highest speed attained in England was ten miles and five furlongs an hour, the slowest six miles, and the average eight miles and seven furlongs.[412] In Ireland the highest speed attained by the mail coaches was nine miles and one furlong an hour, the slowest speed six miles and seven furlongs, and the average eight miles and two furlongs.[413] Mail carts drawn by two horses were also used largely in Ireland for the conveyance of the mails, and by these the speed was not so great. The highest speed made by them was seven miles and five furlongs an hour, the slowest five miles and one furlong, and the average six miles and three furlongs.[414] In Scotland the highest speed was ten miles and four furlongs an hour, the slowest seven miles, and the average eight miles and two furlongs. [415]

The mails which left London at 8 P.M. arrived in Holyhead at 12.6 A.M. on the next day but one. The packet left Holyhead twenty-five minutes later for Howth. The packet left Howth at 4 P.M. for Holyhead, and the mails for London left Holyhead at 12.15 A.M. The passage across the Irish Sea took from five to eight hours. The London coach arrived in Milford at 5.27 A.M., travelling at a rate of eight miles an hour, and twenty-five minutes after its arrival, the packet left for Dunmore. Another left Dunmore with the mails at 12 P.M., and the coach left Milford for London at 7.30 P.M.[416] The London mail coach arrived at Portpatrick at 10.27 P.M., fifty hours and twenty-seven minutes from London. The packet did not leave Portpatrick until 6.10 A.M., after the arrival of the Glasgow mail, which left Glasgow at 4.45 P.M., arriving at 5.6 A.M. The packet left Donaghadee at noon, and the mail left Portpatrick at 4 P.M., arriving in Glasgow at 6 A.M. Ordinarily the passage across took four hours. The London mail coach arrived in Liverpool at 6 P.M., twenty-two hours from London, and left at 10.30 P.M. Packets sailed from Liverpool and Kingstown at 5 P.M. and 5.15 P.M., the time for crossing being about fourteen hours. No London letters went via Liverpool until 1841.[417]

The method used to ensure a rapid transmission of the mails by the coaches was as follows: Time bills were issued to the guards of the different coaches. On these bills were printed the speed that should be made from stage to stage, and it was the guard's duty to fill in the time made by the coach on which he rode. Penalties were inflicted for any mistakes which he might make or any failure on his part to leave the bill in the office at the end of his route. On some of the time bills it was set forth that a fine of one shilling was payable by the proprietor for each minute that the coach was late and he might recover it from the guard or coachman if the delay was due to the negligence of either of them. The coachmen were ordered to make up any time lost on the road and to report the horse keepers if they were at fault.[418]

The chief cause for delay was the lack of close connection between the mail coaches and the packets to and from Ireland. In 1837 the London mail arrived in Holyhead at 11 P.M., but the packet did not leave for Kingstown until 8 A.M., a change having been made in the time of sailing.[419] Letters from England were detained in Dublin eleven hours before their departure for the rest of the island.[420] More than one third of the Irish letters for England left Kingstown by the day packet at 9 A.M., remaining in Holyhead from 3 P.M. to 4 A.M., with the exception of the letters for Chester and Manchester, which were forwarded by a special coach.[421]

The packets from Liverpool started shortly before the arrival of the London mail. The Commissioners proposed that they should be detained until it had arrived, but this was not done until ten years later.[422] The packets at Portpatrick always waited for the mails from Glasgow, and as these were nearly always late, letters from Carlisle and Northern England were necessarily detained.[423] The station at Milford had always given the most trouble. From a financial point of view it was the least satisfactory, and English letters for the south of Ireland often went through Holyhead. The packet left Waterford[424] for Milford at 12 P.M., arriving in Milford about noon, but the mail did not leave for London until 7.30 P.M.[425] English letters for Ireland via Milford were detained from ten to thirteen hours in Waterford.[426]

Before the introduction of Penny Postage, the use of railways had only started. In 1837, it was objected that the railways could never be of much use in this respect because they could not travel at night for fear of accidents. In answer to this objection it was pointed out that trains between Liverpool and Manchester and Leeds and Selby found no difficulty in that respect.[427] In 1837, mails were carried between Manchester and Liverpool at a rate of twenty miles an hour, and these trains left both Liverpool and Manchester as late as 5 P.M.[428] The Postmaster-General was given authority by Parliament to require any railway to carry mails either by ordinary or special train and to regulate the speed to the maximum of the fastest passenger train, as well as to control places, times and duration of stoppage and the times of arrival, provided that such regulations were reasonable. He might require the exclusive use of a carriage, if necessary, provided either by the railway or himself as seemed better to himself. In 1844 he was allowed to order a speed not in excess of twenty-seven miles an hour but he complained that he was unable to enforce his regulations although the speed was increasing. In 1855 a parliamentary committee reported in favour of a deduction of payment for irregularity on the part of the railways and the fining of the Post Office for irregularity in dealing with mail to be entrusted to the railways, the amounts of such deductions and fines to be a matter of contract, and in addition it was advised that the Postmaster-General's demands with reference to speed should be certified by the Railway Department of the Board of Trade to be consistent with safety. In conformity with this resolution, the Postmaster-General proposed to pay a bonus to the railways when their trains were on time and to exact a penalty from either the railway or the Post Office whichever were the offender, but the proposition was, as a rule, not very favourably received by the railways.[429]