Delivering the Post: The Beginning of the Postal Network 

Henry VIII’s Royal Post

Did you know that the start of the Royal Mail was initiated by Henry VIII?   

In need of a better communication route between his court and other government officials, in 1516 Henry VIII appointed Sir Brian Tuke as ‘Master of the Posts’, a title that would later be known as Postmaster General.

At the time, Tuke was serving as a court official, which was someone working in service of the monarch and aiding in government duties. His new role was to establish a national postal network fit to serve the King.

In his thirty years as Postmaster, Tuke was able to establish the beginnings of what would later evolve into a global postal network.   

Latern slide of Sir Brian Tuke, 19th century. 2012-0143/2

Tuke initially declared that all towns were required to provide horses to carry the King’s post. However, this system was flawed. Local town councils often had to use their own money to supply horses and it was common that there were no horses available when needed, meaning the post was subject to long delays. To remedy this, Tuke later introduced post stations in key towns across England.

Rather than operating on demand, each post had a stable of horses which were overseen by a postmaster. The postmaster would complete their duties, such as supplying horses for carrying mail, in return for a basic wage. If there were no horses available in the stable, postmasters had the authority to use any suitable horse they could find.

While this system greatly improved the transportation of mail, routes were still incomplete and disconnected, causing the movement of post to remain inefficient. The service was also only for the use of royal officials, leaving the public to rely on personal messengers and travelers to deliver important mail. This exclusivity is what led the post to become informally known as the ‘Royal Mail’.  

Public Post and Daylight Robbery

The postal service was only opened up to the public in 1635, when Charles I established the first letter office in London.

The new system comprised of six major postal routes, which led out from London and across the country. This meant that all mail had to go via the capital. Letters were carried by postboys riding horses between posts and delivered to a local postmaster. The postmaster would then collect the letters for their area and deliver them, returning any other letters back to the postboy to be taken to the next location. Despite the service operating both day and night, delivering mail by horseback was slow. It could take up to two months to receive a reply from a letter sent from London to Edinburgh. 

Postboys were also an easy target for robberies. Travelling alone and equipped only with a post horn to signal their approach, postboys were vulnerable to attacks by highwaymen. Although this caused the Royal Mail to suffer large financial losses, the system would remain fairly unchanged for the next 150 years.   

Stamp issue commemorating 300 years since the establishment of the first general letter office, 1960

John Palmer’s Mail Coaches

In 1782, a young theatre owner from Bath came up with an idea that would revolutionise the movement of mail. John Palmer regularly organised rapid carriage services to transport actors and props between theatres and he believed that a similar scheme could aid the postal service.

He travelled to London to lobby his ideas. Although Palmer faced some resistance from staff who believed the efficiency of the system could not be improved, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Pitt, accepted his idea on the condition it would be trialed at Palmer’s expense. On the 2nd August 1784, Palmer tested the first mail coach run from Bath to London. The service proved a huge success and a journey that had previously taken 38 hours, now took only 16.  

The new mail coaches operated at a speed of 8-10 miles per hour and were equipped with armed guards who carried a gun known as a Blunderbuss. This decreased robberies and greatly increased revenue. Coaches were also led by four horses which changed over every 10 to 15 miles to maintain their speed. 

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Mail by Rail

The Post Office’s use of mail coaches continued until the 1850s, when they were phased out in favour of transporting mail by train.

By 1830 it had become apparent that railways could greatly improve the speed of delivering post. In the same year, the General Post Office signed an agreement to establish a postal route operating between Liverpool and Manchester. The first trip was made on the 11th November 1830 and proved to be a huge success. For the next 8 years, railway companies could choose whether they wanted to transport mail, however, in 1838 a government act was passed that meant all railway companies were required to do so.   

Additional carriages were installed to ensure that trains were suitable for sorting the mail, resulting in the creation of the Travelling Post Office (TPO). Trains could travel at a speed of 70 miles per hour, while onboard postal staff sorted mail into pigeonholes, saving both time and money. The introduction of the TPO took place just prior to the creation of the first postal stamp, which led to a vast expansion of postal routes to accommodate the increasing demand.    

Illustration of a travelling Post Office. POST 118/489

As you can see, the development of an efficient postal network didn’t happen overnight. The process was messy and subject to many changes before it became the postal system we are familiar with today.   To find out more about the postal service after 1840, read about Rowland Hill’s postal reforms. 

Sources:   

Campbell-Smith, Duncan. Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of The Royal Mail (London: Penguin, 2012)  

Robinson, Howard. The British Post Office (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1948)  

Stray, Julian. Moving the Mail…By Road (London: British Postal Museum and Archive, 2006)