The King's Post Part 3

Mr. Pitt has desired us to acquaint Mr. Mayor and the Corporation that he feels himself very happy to have a.s.sisted in giving such an accommodation to the city of Bath as he always hoped that plan would afford, and in which he is confirmed by the manner in which the Corporation have expressed themselves concerning it. Measures are being taken to carry it into execution through other parts of the kingdom, and the plan will be adopted in a few days upon the Norfolk and Suffolk roads.

"A. MOYSEY AND J.J. PRATT.

"To Philip Georges, Esq., Deputy Town Clerk."

May 12, 1785:--"Bath Post Office. A further extension of Mr. Palmer's plan for the more safe and expeditious conveyance of the mails took place on Monday, the 9th inst., when the letters on the cross posts from Frome, Warminster, Haytesbury, Salisbury, Romsey, Southampton, Portsmouth, Gosport, Chichester, and their delivery, together with the Isle of Wight, Jersey and Guernsey, all parts of Hampshire and Dorsetshire, will be forwarded from this office at five o'clock p.m., and every day except Sundays. Letters from the above places will arrive here every morning, Mondays excepted:

"N.B.--All letters must be put in the office before five o'clock p.m."

May 18, 1785:--"We hear that Mr. Palmer's plan for conveying the mails will be adopted from London to Manchester through Leicester and Derby, and to Leeds through Nottingham, at Midsummer."

June 9, 1785:--"Mr. Williams, the public-spirited master of the Three Tuns Inn, and the chief contractor for conveying the mails, had in the morning of this day placed in the front of his house His Majesty's Arms, neatly carved in gilt. In the evening his house was illuminated in a very elegant manner with variegated lamps, the princ.i.p.al figure in which was the letters 'G.R.' immediately over the coat-of-arms. A band of music with horns played several tunes adapted to the day, and a recruiting party drawn up before the doors with drums and fifes playing at intervals had a very pleasing effect."

On June 30, 1785, appeared the following paragraph, which shows how complete was the success of John Palmer's post plan, in spite of all the obstacles placed in his way to obstruct his scheme. We are now informed that the "mail-coaches and diligences have been found to answer so well that they will be generally adopted throughout the kingdom, and conveying of them in carts will be discontinued."

On June 30 appeared a long letter showing how the G.P.O. tried to overthrow Mr. Palmer's scheme. This is signed Thomas Symons, Bristol, and describes the scheme as the most beneficial plan that ever was thought of for a commercial country. He also complains of the misconduct of the Post Office, as letters had been miscarried to Dublin, which caused the merchants of Bristol considerable annoyance, and this mismanagement without hesitation he declares was by design, in order to try and overthrow this most excellent system of John Palmer's post.

Early in 1787, Palmer had to represent to the Contractors that the Mails must be carried by more reliable coaches.

"The Comptroller-General," he wrote to one Contractor, "has to complain not only of the horses employed on the Bristol mail, but as well of their harness and the accoutrements in use, whose defects have several times delayed the Bath and Bristol letters, and have even led to the conveyance being overset, to the imminent peril of the pa.s.sengers.

"Instructions have been issued by the Comptroller for new sets of harness to be supplied to the several coaches in use on this road, for which accounts will be sent you by the harness-makers. Mr. Palmer stated also that he had under consideration, for the Contractor's use, a new-invented coach."

Soon after this, Palmer's active connection with the Post Office ceased.

He died at Brighton in 1818.

What he looked like at the age of 17 and 75 respectively, is shewn in the ill.u.s.trations, the former taken from a picture attributed to Gainsborough.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_By permission of "Bath Chronicle."_

JOHN PALMER AT THE AGE OF 75.]

CHAPTER V.

APPRECIATIONS OF RALPH ALLEN, JOHN PALMER, AND SIR FRANCIS FREELING, MAIL AND COACH ADMINISTRATORS.

On the 25th April, 1901, the day after a visit to Bristol to celebrate the establishment of the new steamship line to Jamaica, the Marquess of Londonderry, then Postmaster-General, visited Bath to take part in a ceremony in honour of Ralph Allen and John Palmer. These two great postal reformers were both citizens of Bath, and are greatly honoured in that city for their work in the Post Office, with the famous men of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By a happy thought there has lately been started a movement to keep alive a.s.sociations with the past by placing tablets on the houses in which famous men lived. One of the tablets unveiled by Lord Londonderry was placed on the house in which Ralph Allen first conducted the business of the Bath Post Office, and of his cross post contracts, and the other on the house in which John Palmer was born.

Soon after noon on the eventful day, the Bath postmen's band, Mr.

Kerans, the postmaster, and his lieutenants, the staff of postmen and messengers, marched on to the s.p.a.ce between the Abbey and the Guildhall for inspection by the Head of the Post Office Department. After the inspection, a procession was formed, in which the Postmaster-General was accompanied by the Mayor, and followed by the Town Councillors, two by two. Before them went the city swordbearer, clad in striking robes, and the party proceeded to the North Parade, from which Allen's house is now reached by a pa.s.sage way. The house is built of stone, and has a very handsome front in the style of the cla.s.sical Renaissance. In drawing aside the curtain, which veiled the tablet, on which was inscribed "Here lived Ralph Allen, 1727-1764," Lord Londonderry said that there was probably not one of the great men who had been a.s.sociated with Bath who was more of a benefactor to his town, as well as to the public service of his country, than Ralph Allen. The procession then moved on to Palmer's house, only a few yards away, where a similar ceremony took place. After another short speech by the Postmaster-General, in which he explained the share Palmer had borne in developing the modern Post Office system, the second tablet was unveiled. It bore the inscription, "Here lived John Palmer, born 1741, died 1818."

Afterwards at the Guildhall, where a bust of Allen in the Council Chamber looked down upon a large party a.s.sembled for luncheon, the Postmaster-General, in response to the toast of his health, discoursed more at large upon the topic of the day. He congratulated Bath upon having among its citizens two out of the four great men of Post Office history. It was Allen's task to provide a general postal system by opening up new lines of posts between the main roads, and through new lines of country. Between 1720, when he began his first contract, and 1764 when he died, he covered the country with a network of posts, giving easy communication between all important towns, and he also increased the number and speed of the mails on the post roads. While doing this he raised himself from being a humble clerk, and later, postmaster of Bath, to a position of great affluence, and of friendship with many of the great men of his time. Among those friends was Lord Chatham.

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.

The Mayor of Bath proposed the toast of "the Visitors," and said that they had amongst them two representatives of the great men they were honouring. Ralph Allen was represented by Colonel Allen, a direct descendant, and the owner of Bathampton Manor, a part of Ralph Allen's estate. Colonel Allen had lately returned from South Africa.

John Palmer was represented by his grandson, Colonel Palmer, R.E.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_From a block kindly lent by the Proprietors of the "Bath Chronicle."_]

MEDAL STRUCK IN HONOUR OF RALPH ALLEN.]

Colonel Allen thanked the company for their kind reception, and Colonel Palmer said that it had given him the greatest pleasure to witness the testimonial to his grandfather's services, and this pleasure would be shared by the members of his family, including his sister, who had given the cup on the table to the Corporation. It had been a present from the Citizens of Glasgow to John Palmer.

Full accounts of the Post Office services of Allen and Palmer are written in "The Bristol Royal Mail."

The photograph of a curious memorial of Ralph Allen's work in the Post Office here reproduced is that of a medal bearing the Royal Arms, and the inscriptions "To the Famous Mr. Allen, 4th December, 1752," and "the Gift of His Royal Highness, W.D. of c.u.mberland."

The reverse of the medal is engraved with some Masonic emblems, and with the words,

"Amor Honor Just.i.tia,"

INO CAMPBELL, Armagh.

No. 409.

The history of this relic is rather obscure. It was purchased in a curiosity shop in Belfast some fifteen years ago by Mr. D. Buick, LL.D., of Sandy Bay, Larne. In the year 1752, the Princess Amelia visited Bath, and was entertained by Ralph Allen at Prior Park. During her stay at Bath, the Duke of c.u.mberland also visited the town, and is known to have contributed 100 to the Bath Hospital, of which Allen was one of the most active supporters. It has been surmised that the medal was intended as an acknowledgment of the courtesy and attention received by the Duke and the Princess on this occasion.

Whether the medal was ever presented is not known, or how it came to be converted into a Masonic jewel. Perhaps it may have been given away by Allen, or it may have gone astray, or been stolen. The Masonic Lodge, No. 409, is said to have been founded by a Mr. John Campbell in 1761, shortly before the date of Allen's death: Allen may have been a Freemason.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_By permission of Mr. Sydenham, of Bath._

TOKENS COMMEMORATIVE OF PALMER'S MAIL COACH SYSTEM.]

It is to Mr. Sydenham, of Bath, that indebtedness is due for the interesting impressions of tokens struck in commemoration of Palmer's mail coach system here depicted.

An interesting tribute was the painting by George Robertson, engraved by James Fittler, and inscribed to him as Comptroller-General in 1803, eleven years after he had ceased to hold that position. A copy of this engraving appears in "The Bristol Royal Mail." Palmer also received the freedom of eighteen towns and cities in recognition of his public services, was Mayor of Bath in 1796 and 1801, and represented that city in the four Parliaments of 1801, 1802, 1806, and 1807.

Francis Freeling, who succeeded John Palmer in the Secretaryship and General Managership of Post Office affairs, was as a youth a disciple of his predecessor, and a.s.sisted him in the development of the Mail Coach system. He was apprenticed to the Post Office in Bristol, where his talents, rect.i.tude of conduct, and a.s.siduity in the duties a.s.signed him gained for him the esteem and respect of all those connected with the establishment; and, on the introduction by Mr. Palmer of the new system of Mail Coaches, Mr. Freeling was appointed in 1785 his a.s.sistant to carry the improvements into effect. He was introduced into the General Post Office in 1787, and successively filled the office of surveyor, princ.i.p.al surveyor, joint secretary with the late Anthony Todd, Esq., and sole secretary for nearly half a century.

In Mr. Dix's "Life of Chatterton," it is stated, on the authority of a friend of the Chatterton family, that on Chatterton leaving for London, "he took leave of several friends on the steps of Redcliff Church very cheerfully. That at parting from them he went over the way to Mr.

Freeling's house." It is further stated that Mr. Freeling was father to the late Sir F. Freeling.

As regards Freeling's birthplace, information is forthcoming which seems conclusive. In a collection of old Bristol sketches purchased for the Museum and Library, there is a beautiful drawing of Redcliffe Hill, executed about eighty years ago; and the artist, doubtless acting on the evidence of old inhabitants--contemporaries of Freeling--has distinctly marked the house where that gentleman was born, and noted the fact in his own handwriting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: + BIRTHPLACE OF SIR FRANCIS FREELING, BART.,

_Secretary to the General Post Office_.]

Permission has been obtained from the council of the Bristol Museum and Reference Library for the picture to be photographed. The following is the superscription on the back of the original pencil drawing:--"Redcliffe Pit, Bristol. The house with this mark + at the door is the house in which Sir Francis Freeling, Bart., was born. The high building, George's patent shot tower, G. Delamotte, del. Jan. 12, 1831." A copy of the sketch is here reproduced. The house as "set back"

or re-erected is now known as 24, Redcliffe Hill.

Sir Francis Freeling first carried on his secretarial duties at the old Post Office in Lombard Street, once a citizen's Mansion. There he was located for 30 years.

On September 29th, 1829, the Lombard Street Office was abandoned as Headquarters, and Freeling moved, with the secretarial staff under his chieftainship, to St. Martin's-le-Grand.