Robert Charles Tombs

“ The Superannuation Acts afford pensions to those who have been in the Post Office not less than ten years. Sometimes a deserving and distressed Post Office servant has not served long enough to qualify for a pension, and sometimes help is needed by persons whose time has been partly spent in the postal service, but who, because they have been permitted to carry on some other occupation, are not entitled by law to any pension at all. A pension, even if it should prove to be sufficient for the pensioner's own support, ceases at death, and the widow and orphans are often left destitute. ”

“ Nothing possible can be in better train than the plan is or in the hands of persons more anxious for its success. It would be very imprudent, therefore, to run the least hazard of disturbing it. I beg you'll not imagine I am the least displeased at what you have done. On the contrary, I am really much obliged to you; and be assured I shall never forget the zeal and attention I have experienced from you in the course of this business, and that you will always find me your sincere friend.—John Palmer, Arno's Vale, Bristol, December 2, 1784. ”

“ One of the greatest buyers is an old pardoned convict of the name of 'William,' or, as he is there [Pg 131] more commonly called, 'Bill' Nash, who robbed the Bristol mail, of which he was the guard. His wife followed him—as some say, with the booty—and set up a fine shop in Pitt Street in the haberdashery line. Under the old system he was assigned to her as a servant. Her own husband her domestic! What a burlesque on transportation as a punishment! ”

“ In the autumn of 1841 the Great Western happened to arrive on the same day that a large ship mail from Australia by the Ruby was received, and the whole staff available—then only ten men for all duties—had to work night and day continuously to get off the letters by the mails to other towns. As many as 20,000 letters and newspapers were brought by these two vessels on that occasion. It is recorded that every available space in the premises was filled with letters piled as high as they could be got to stand, and great was the joy of the sorters when the flood of letters subsided. ”

“ To become a perfect all-round postal clerk a man must possess intelligence, must be cool, fertile in expedient, have a retentive memory, and withal be quick and active. He must know how to primarily sort, sub-divide, and despatch letters. He must have a good knowledge of Post Office circulation and be able to bear in mind the names of the smallest places—hamlets, etc.—in the kingdom, the varying circulations for different periods of the day, and the rates of postage of all articles sent through the post. ”

“ We rejoice in the abundant evidence that you have thoroughly appreciated the absolute necessity for continual advance and adaptation, and that you are labouring with such zeal to keep the complicated machinery of the General Post Office up to date and equal to the immense and ever increasing strain it has to bear, whilst the Council think it only right to acknowledge the marked and unvarying urbanity with which, at all times, you and your officials receive and discuss any suggestions for the improvement of the services, emanating from Chambers of Commerce and other sources. ”

“ Ralph Allen's improvements had great influence in the Post Office services in this western city. The profits on the contracts enabled Allen to take up his residence at Prior Park, Bath, one of the finest Italian houses in England, in addition to having a grand house in the City. It is said that the profits which accrued to him from his long contracts amounted to about half a million of money.
Mansions so lordly are not for the hardest and best workers in the Post Office field of present times, for the nation does not reward its great men so liberally as then. ”

“ It was twenty years after Allen's death that Palmer's Mail Coach system was started. Its advantage soon made itself apparent, and the improvement of roads at the end of the 18th Century enabled the mail coach service to be brought to great perfection. It lasted less than 60 years, but in those years correspondence and the revenue of the Post Office multiplied many times, and when Rowland Hill turned his attention to postal questions he found a rapid and efficient service, which was at the same time so cheap that the cost of conveyance was only a small item in the expenses of the Post Office. ”

“ At Bitton, a village midway between Bristol and Bath, there died Sub-postmaster James Brewer, in the 87th year of his age, and in the fifty-seventh year of his Post Office service. It was more pleasant to enter this Post Office and find the old [Pg 274] man calmly smoking his churchwarden pipe before the fire, cheery and chatty, than to have such a welcome as that afforded at another office by the exhibition on the Post Office counter of a miniature coffin and artificial wreaths for graves. ”

“ The pace of the trains has been vastly increased, and even goods trains accomplish the journey from London to Bristol in three hours. There is no such thing as finality in speed, as the Great Western Railway Company has been trying a French engine, with a view to beat all previous records. One of these engines was tried in France with the equivalent of fifteen loaded coaches behind it. It was brought to a dead stop on a steep incline, and when started again it gathered speed, so that before the summit was reached it was travelling at its normal speed—74.6 miles an hour. ”

“ The great unpunctuality of the mail trains which invariably sets in early in the Christmas week causes no little inconvenience, particularly as regards the mails from the North of England, and the merchants are therefore not slow to avail themselves of the Post Office new system, under which, for a small fee, they can get their letters brought by delayed trains delivered by special messenger promptly on their arrival at the Head Post Office. The extra posting of letters and parcels for places abroad, intended for delivery about Christmas Day, begins to manifest itself early in November. ”

“ If he that night extolled Bristol above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to speak on the subject at all. Silence was the better part when a man was [Pg 217] situated as he was. ”

“ The floods of November, 1894, which proved very disastrous in the West of England, interfered in no small degree with Post Office arrangements in the rural districts around Bristol. In some villages the roads were submerged from three to four feet, and it was impossible for the public to get to the letter boxes, the postmen and postwomen being, perhaps, the greatest sufferers. In order to avoid flooded roads, it was necessary to change routes and make long detours. Many postmen were compelled to wade through the water waist deep, whilst others had to be driven through in horse and cart. ”

“ There was no mail coach—no driver in scarlet—no mail guard—no passengers, but only a ramshackle iron mail cart—a "postboy" as driver and carrying no arms. What a contrast is this old mail cart with a single horse, carrying the mails for all the places enumerated [Pg 129] in the Notice, to the splendidly appointed four-horse mail coaches of a period thirty years later on, or to the present time, when on the Great Western Railway one whole train is used to carry only a moiety of the King's mail to Bristol and the West! ”

“ Although some of the Bristol district villages are situated at a long distance from town and remote from main roads, yet only one of the Post Offices presents the primitive condition of having a thatched roof. None of the rural postmen now avail themselves on their journeys of the services of that faithful creature, the donkey; but the last animal so used was on the road until 1890, when its master, poor Sims, the Congresbury to Shipham postman, shuffled off this mortal coil. ”

“ Travellers from North and East to the West of England and vice versa are aware that the Bristol Joint Great Western and Midland station is a busy railway centre. At a recent Christmas season, there was much remark on the part of the railway passengers with respect to the platforms being blocked up with barrows containing mails and the large stack of parcel baskets to be met with at every point. Said one traveller, "It's all blooming Post Office on the platform and no room for travellers to get about." ”

“ The profit which may accrue from the publication of The Bristol Royal Mail will be devoted exclusively to the Rowland Hill Memorial and Benevolent Fund, the chief patron of which is Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen-Empress, who is about to show her great interest in works of the kind by visiting our ancient city to open the new Convalescent Home. The object of the fund is the relief of all Post Office servants throughout the United Kingdom, who, through no fault of their own, have fallen into necessitous circumstances. ”

“ Two million gallons of water a year are used to keep the buildings clean.
As the Post Office, from its size, if not from its architectural beauty, dominates Small Street in some measure it may be well here to introduce particulars from an ancient manuscript in the City Library, which show that Small Street has been a street ever since Anglo-Saxon times. About [Pg 119] Small Street and St. Leonard's Lane lived some of Bristol's greatest merchants. For hundreds of years there was not within the walls of Bristol a more fashionable street than Small Street. ”

“ On September 8th, 1837, a coachman named Burnett was killed at Speenhamland, on the Bath Road. He was driving one of the New Company's London and Bristol stages, and alighted at the "Hare and Hounds," very foolishly leaving the horses unattended, with reins on their backs. He had been a coachman for 20 years, but experience had not been sufficient to prevent him thus breaking one of the first rules of the profession. He had no sooner entered the Inn than the rival Old Company's coach came down the road. ”

“ The Board believe an important saving of expense to Government would result from establishing Bristol as a mail packet station. The great deficiency on the Milford station in the receipts as compared with the expenditure arises from the very limited number of persons who avail themselves of that line of communication. The land journey of twenty hours at a fare of £3 10s., followed by a twelve hours' voyage by open sea at a further expense of £1 10s., with the inconvenience frequently sustained in crossing the estuary of the Severn, deters people from taking the Milford route by choice. ”

“ Quite recently a machine of the kind has been introduced into the Bristol Post Office. The machine, which is of modern invention, goes by the name of the "Columbia" Cancelling Machine, and is manufactured by the Columbia Postal Supply Company, of Silver Creek, New York, U.S.A. It is said to be in use in many Post Offices in the large towns of America and other countries. The public will no doubt have noticed the new cancelling marks on the postage stamps, as the die and long horizontal lines are very striking. ”

“ There are no trams running on Christmas Day, so that the postmen with their heavy loads are much worse off than on ordinary days, when, with lighter loads, they can ride to and fro on the tramcars. There are some pleasing social features which are worthy of record. For instance, the ladies of the Clifton Letter Mission have for some years past sent "A Christmas Letter" and Christmas card to each of the 150 telegraph messengers employed in the Bristol district. ”

“ The directors of the Bristol and West of England Bank purchased the premises on December 31st, 1880. Lloyd's Bank now stands on the site.
The White Lion, Bristol, was one of the most [Pg 102] famous coaching houses in England, east, west, north, or south. It stood in Broad Street, a thoroughfare which belied its name as regards breadth, and could only be considered broad by comparison with the even narrower Small Street, which ran parallel with it. Yet at one time there were as many coaches passing in and out of Broad Street as any street in Bristol, or even in London! ”

“ The mail service was carried on chiefly by means of postboys (generally wizened old men) , who continued to travel on worn-out horses not able to get along at a speed of more than four miles an hour on the bad roads. On the London and Bristol route, indeed, it had been found necessary to provide the postboys with light carts, but that method of conveyance of the mail bags brought about no acceleration in time of transit,—from thirty to forty hours, according to the state of the roads. A letter despatched from Bristol or Bath on Monday was not delivered in London until Wednesday morning. ”

“ In 1637 letter posts were established by Charles I. King Charles stopped in the building that stood on the site of their local St. Martin's-le-Grand, but little could he have thought that the day would come when it would be possible for a man to stand on that spot and speak to a friend and recognise his voice, as far away as Wexford. Sir Francis Freeling had been named. He became secretary to the Post Office. He served in the Bristol office two or three years before being translated to London to become the associate of Palmer, of mail-coach renown. ”

“ The postboy carrying the mail from Bristol to Salisbury on the 9th instant was stopped between the hours of eleven and twelve o'clock at night by two men on foot within six miles of Salisbury, who robbed him of seven shillings in money, but did not offer to take the mail. Whoever shall apprehend the convict, or cause to be apprehended and convicted both or either of the persons who committed this robbery, will be entitled to a reward of fifty pounds over and above the reward given by Act of Parliament for apprehending highwaymen. ”

“ On Monday next the experiment for the more expeditious conveyance of the mails will be made on the road from London to Bath and Bristol. Letters are to be put in the London office every evening before 8 o'clock, and to arrive next morning in Bath before 10 o'clock, [Pg 31] and in Bristol by 12 o'clock. The letters for London, or for any place between or beyond, to be put into the Bath Post Office every evening before 5 o'clock, and into the Bristol office before 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and they will be delivered in London the next day. ”

“ Nowadays an introducer of the inland parcel post service, the foreign parcel post service, an improver of the telegraph service, [Pg 14] and leader in bringing about vastly accelerated mail services throughout the country,—works of great moment, even if not comparable with Ralph Allen, John Palmer, or Rowland Hill's great achievements,—has, after forty years at the Post Office, to be contented on retirement with no more than the modest pension due to him, which will not even be continued to his nearest and dearest relative. ”

“ The large rural area is for the greater part agricultural in character, but there are collieries and stone quarries in some few districts.
At the Bristol town and rural sub-Post Offices there are 554 assistants of all kinds employed. [Pg 258] Many rural sub-postmasters act as postmen; in the main it is a healthy occupation, and proves a very good antidote to sedentary employment, although there are hardships to be borne, as the toil has to be undergone in all weathers—the scorching sun of summer, the pitiless cold of winter—in rain, hail, and snow. ”

“ Those for Bristol and neighbourhood are assigned to a compartment for further sortation, and the outward correspondence is sorted out into the different "roads" by which it will travel. Letters for small places are sent to the mail trains, where they are sorted to their respective stations as the locomotive is whirling them along at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Many of the larger towns, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Exeter, Plymouth, Reading, Bath and Swindon, have their own bags made up at Bristol. ”

“ The express letter delivery service, which came into operation in 1891, is very useful to the public. By means of this agency the Post Office distributes by express messenger 300,000 letters and parcels annually. Of that number Bristol contributes 7,000 services. Bicycles and tricycles are now delivered for the public from any telegraph office in Bristol and district by special messenger at a fee of 3d. per mile, without any charge for weight. The messengers are not permitted to ride upon the cycles, except by the permission of the senders, but will wheel them up to a distance of three miles. ”

“ There is a model of an old mail coach at the General Post Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand, London, popularly supposed to be the model of the first mail coach which was built, but such is not the case, for, as already stated, the first mail coach ran between Bristol and London, and the model has upon it the inscription "Royal Mail from London to Liverpool."
The expense of horsing a four-horsed coach running at the speed of from nine to ten miles an [Pg 24] hour was reckoned at £3 a double mile. Mails were exempt from turnpike tolls. ”

“ To educate the public in the matter of full prepayment, it has become necessary for the Department to be particularly vigilant in surcharging the Christmas missives which contravene the regulations, and the Bristol clerks have the unpleasant task of raising an impost on letters during the Christmas season which infringe the Postmaster-General's not severe regulations. The custom of sending Christmas cards in open envelopes is increasing. ”

“ So recently as the year 1867, a postman had to trudge right away from Bristol to the distant village of Chew Stoke, having to breast the steep hill of Dundry and pass through Chew Magna on his way. All the letters and newspapers then delivered at Bishopsworth, Dundry, Chew Magna and Chew Stoke were carried by this man. Now, with the introduction of the parcel post and a cheaper letter post, and consequently increased weight, the morning mail is carried in a mail cart, and that service is supplemented by two or three other despatches to Chew Magna and Chew Stoke by train viâ Pensford. ”

“ It may be interesting to the uninitiated to learn that in telegraphy the earth plays the part of a return wire; thus the circuit between Bristol and Birmingham is rendered complete by earth. The wires connected with the two towns indicated are brought into the test boxes at the respective places, and there connected to a single wire at each town which finds earth by means of a zinc plate buried some twelve feet in the soil near or under the Post Office buildings. ”