History of the Royal in the Kingsbridge Area

U3A LHG 15 Jan 2014

Introduction Topic Page Introduction 1 In preparing the talk I have used various sources of Origins 1 information. I have a number of books including Mail Coaches 2 Fairweather’s ‘Salcombe and Neighbourhood’ first The Railway Era 4 published in 1897 and Anne Born’s ‘History of The Great Blizzard 5 Kingsbridge and Salcombe’. I also have material The Postman 5 Delivering the Post 6 photocopied by the Resource Centre at the Charges 7 Cookworthy Museum. But of course the internet is Christmas Cards 8 an essential tool and that is where I started reading Postcards 8 about the history of the — which brings Post Boxes 9 me to this (held up rubber band). The Postman in the Modern Day 10 I picked it up from my driveway the other day, Delivering the Mail 11 something I do quite regularly. If you Google ‘Royal What of the Future? 13 Mail rubber bands’ you can read all about it! Briefly, rubber bands are used to put together bundles of mail in the sorting office. In 2011 it was estimated that postal workers got through 2million bands a day. Now from time to time there are complaints about postmen discarding rubber bands on the ground and this is a statement issued by the Royal Mail in response to one such complaint a few years ago: “Royal Mail emphasises it instructs staff to re-use and not abandon rubber bands and the colour has been changed from brown to red so they are easier to spot and retrieve. Red ones are also designed to be more bio- degradable than the previous brown ones to lessen their environmental impact. To its knowledge no staff had been fined for rubber band littering.” Recently (2014) I found this item in the newspaper: “A retired teacher has shamed Royal Mail as a litterbug by spending 3 years picking up almost 3,000 rubber bands dropped by postmen and women in the streets around his home in Hale, Greater Manchester. Keith Neal sends a bundle back each year for recycling. A spokesman said that Royal Mail regularly reminded its staff to avoid littering.” You can find more on the internet!

Origins

Postal systems have existed in Britain since Roman times. In a Roman Fort at Vindolanda near Hadrians Wall in Northumbria archaeologists carried out excavations in the 1970s. They found amongst other things, letters written in the 1st and 2nd century AD. They were wafer-thin sheets of wood about the size of a large postcard and a carbon-based ink had been used for writing. One letter (see right) was written and sent by Claudia, the wife of the commander of a nearby fort to the wife of the commander at Vindolanda, inviting her to her birthday party! So there is nothing new under the sun!

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Of course, in the distant past most letters concerned military matters and affairs of state. Briefly:

 Henry VIII established a Master of the Posts.  Elizabeth I created a Crown Monopoly so that only officially appointed people could carry the post.  James I (VI of Scotland) created a Royal Postal Service between London and Edinburgh to retain control of the Scottish Privy Council. He is attributed with coining the term Royal Mail.

Significant changes occurred in the reign of Charles I. In 1635 he made Royal Mail services available to the public with postage paid by the recipient. Major routes were established between London and other places. Letters were carried between staging posts by mounted post-boys and delivered to the local postmaster. The postmaster would take out letters for his area and hand the rest to another post-boy to carry on to the next post, i.e. letters were carried from post to post. Postmasters along the route had to supply horses and there was a charge of 2½d per mile plus a conveyance tariff. This was paid by the recipient and it was a lucrative business for the postmaster. It was slow and could be ‘fiddled’ and so some postmasters became wealthy but the system was unchanged for 150 years.

The next major improvements came in the mid-18th Century. Ralph Allen postmaster in Bath realised some post-boys were delivering items of mail without declaring them (i.e. pocketing the money) so he introduced a ‘signed-for’ system to prevent malpractice. He also improved efficiency by not requiring all mail to go via London. But most important, he proposed the idea of using mail coaches to carry the mail faster and further.

Mail Coaches

The first mail coach ran from Bristol to London in 1784. It travelled at night and took 16 hours instead of 38 hours. The following year there were 10 mail coach routes including one between London and Exeter. Eventually mail coaches also made journeys between post towns outside London. The average speed was 7/8mph in summer and 5mph in winter but with the improvement in roads, these times also improved. Mail coaches were rather like stagecoaches but had a special livery including the sign Royal Mail and the Monarch’s cipher.

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The Post Office employee on board also had a smart uniform which included a scarlet coat with gold braid. He was the armed guard and had 2 pistols and a blunderbuss. He sounded a horn to warn other road users and toll keepers to let the mail coach through. He had a timepiece to record time of arrival and departure at each stop because times were not standardised until the railway era.

In towns and villages where the coach was not due to stop, the guard, having sounded his horn, would throw out bags of letters to the postmaster. At the same time he would snatch from the postmaster outgoing bags of mail. (Did the coach slow down I wonder!).

Passengers were allowed to travel on a mail coach instead of the stage coach. Initially 4 passengers were carried inside the coach but later one more was allowed to sit outside next to the driver. The number of external passengers was increased to 3 with the introduction of a double seat behind the driver. No-one was permitted to sit at the back near the guard or the mail box. The mail coach travelled faster than the stage coach but whereas the stage stopped for meals where convenient for passengers, the mail coach only stopped where necessary for postal business. The journey could be quite rough in places and passengers had to get out and walk if the coach was going up a steep hill to avoid straining the horses.

The contractors organised fresh horses at stages along the route, usually every 10 miles. An unusual event occurred in October 1816 when the Exeter coach, while on its way to London, drew into the Pheasant Inn on Salisbury Plain. The leading horses were attacked by a lioness which had escaped from a travelling menagerie. The passengers took refuge inside the inn and eventually the owner managed to capture the lioness but not before she had killed a dog.

Letters were not the only items carried by the mail coach. A local example concerns George Montagu who lived in Kingsbridge from 1798 to 1815. After leaving the army (and his wife) he moved to Kingsbridge and set up home with Eliza Dorville, his “friend in science”. He became a notable naturalist studying seashore life and birds and identified a number of species for the first time. Montagu’s Harrier is named after him but is no longer seen in Devon. Montagu was introduced to Robert Anstice who lived in Bridgewater. They shared an interest in birds and struck up a correspondence. Before long Anstice used the mail coach to send birds which he had shot for Montagu to study.

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But then Montagu persuaded Anstice to send live specimens because he had made a duckery at the bottom of his garden in which to keep them. Thus the mail coach on occasion carried 7 Shelduck, a cormorant, a stork and others. But the system of transport was not straightforward. The mail coach from Bridgewater only ran to Exeter and another coach ran from Exeter to Ivybridge. Then the mail would be transferred to a mail-cart travelling to Kingsbridge. This is the story of the swan: 7th October 1807. Robert Anstice wrote to George Montagu “a hasty letter to announce to you that the wild swan is in my possession and I shall send it to you by mail coach. I mean to pay half a crown to the guard to Exeter and to send on a ticket to the landlord at Ivybridge to do the same with the guard there should the bird arrive in good order to his hands”. 11th October GM to RA: “Thanks for the valuable acquisition of the Bewick Swan which arrived safely. It did not feed at first but now eats heartily with the other ducks”.

According to James Fairweather’s book of Salcombe and Kingsbridge, in 18thcentury Kingsbridge there was much annoyance about the poor postal service but representations to the Postmaster General were ignored. As indicated, no mail coaches came to Kingsbridge so collections were made from Ivybridge on horseback or by horse-drawn mail-cart.

By the late 18th century mail was also brought from Totnes 3 times a week with 1d charged for each letter delivered. In 1798 there was one mail per day from Ivybridge, except Tuesdays! At last in 1805 new arrangements were in place and one mail was delivered to Kingsbridge each morning and one was despatched each afternoon. Then by the mid-19th Century Kingsbridge had a fine modern Post Office building on Fore Street which was the Head Office for dealing with increasing business in an extensive district.

The Railway era

The development of the railway brought an end to the mail coaches from London in the 1840s but services survived between provincial towns until the1850s. I don’t have much information here except that in the 1860s the nearest station for Kingsbridge was at Wrangaton. In 1887 a mail bag sent from Kingsbridge by the 7 o’clock coach to Wrangaton was picked up by the train and delivered to London the same afternoon by 4 o’clock.

However I can tell you something about efforts to deliver the mail during the Great Blizzard of 1891 when trains were stuck in snowdrifts for several days. This is an extract from a publication based on eye witness accounts at the time.

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The Great Blizzard of 1891 and its effect on the mail Snow fell in the South Hams on Monday 9th March and Tuesday the 10th accompanied by gales, sometimes at hurricane force, and thunder and lightning too. On Monday evening the pair-horse mail-cart started from Kingsbridge for Totnes at the usual time 7 o’clock but the driver returned at 9.30 with the 2 horses. Having reached Centry (1 mile from K) the carrier could go neither forward nor back so left the cart with the mail and struggled back with the horses. Men were immediately sent out to fetch the mail bags which they did but could not dig out the mail-cart. On Wednesday after the storm had abated, they tried again to dig it out but failed and could only bring back the baskets containing the parcels. The mail-cart was finally retrieved on Tuesday the 17th. The carrier from Totnes to Kingsbridge on the evening of Monday the 9th got stuck at Halwell where drifts were 12 to 14ft high. Trains were blocked in various places so no mail arrived for several days. No letters were received or sent out from Kingsbridge for a week with the exception of some local deliveries. From Tuesday to Saturday the PO did no business at all. As the accumulated at Totnes Mr Heath, the postmaster, was eager to send them on to Kingsbridge. By Friday he had 50 or 60 mail bags for Kingsbridge and he tried to hire horses to carry them. He offered high prices but no owners would risk it. On Saturday a man was sent out to report the state of the roads and returned saying that snow was 10ft deep between Halwell and Mounts. On Thursday the 12th the Kingsbridge Postmistress was asked to send mail via Plymouth on the steamer “Express” but she refused! However on the following Saturday the Plymouth Postmaster sent mail from Plymouth to Kingsbridge on the Express. On Saturday the 14th messengers were sent on the road to Ivybridge to see if it was clear but they returned saying it was impassable. Also late on Saturday an attempt was made to get through to Totnes from Kingsbridge. 3 men rode on horseback each carrying a mailbag but after 3 hours they all returned. Finally on Monday the 16th there was success. Again 3 mounted messengers left Kingsbridge at 9.30am carrying mailbags for Totnes. Simultaneously a party left Totnes for Kingsbridge and arrived with their mailbags at 3.00pm. Sorting and delivery proceeded rapidly. Postmen also delivered telegrams and for the next few days there was great activity as mail bags continued to arrive.

The Postman

The first postman’s uniform was issued in 1793. It was a prestigious job, steady work, close to home with acceptable pay. At a time when ordinary little-educated men could only find labouring jobs, to secure a job in the postal service was considered fortunate. When uniforms were issued it exhibited a touch of glamour (see ‘Postman 1820’ right). Some local authorities or rich individuals provided smart outfits for their local postman to wear from plain grey suits to lavish outfits decorated with gold braid and fancy tassels. It was a proud day when a postman got his uniform and many would go to the local photographic studio to record the event. In 1851 John Saunders was a postman in Kingsbridge. He was poverty stricken and he had a large family and couldn’t afford to dress well. The town felt that his clothes did not uphold the dignity of his official position and it was decided that he should be presented with a uniform. A public subscription was arranged which provided him with a new suit for which he was most grateful.

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Delivering the Post

In 1896 the Churchstow postman possessed a pony on which he rode to deliver the mail. Mrs Blackler the Kingsbridge Postmistress heard of this. She was known to work by the book and objected to one of her country postmen using his own pony. She said that he was a walking postman and had no business to ride. Eventually he did get permission to use his own transport and the rules were changed to the benefit of others too. In the 1800s most rural deliveries were on foot and a postman would pick up the mail from a town and then walk 10 or 12 miles with his load on his back delivering to villages and farms, often isolated. Having returned “empty” he would eat his lunch and then set off with a second delivery in the same or a different area. This included deliveries on Saturdays and Sundays and even Christmas Day. The rural postman was an important member of the community for he would also pass on messages and deliver local news and gossip on his round. He would accept letters to be posted and carry out favours for which he would be paid, perhaps with a turnip or a few eggs.

Now we come to the story of “Poor Sally Stone”. Sarah Stone was postwoman and postmistress for 30 years in Salcombe from 1810. In that year her sea-captain husband died of a heart-attack while sailing out of Southampton, worn out by the stresses of the coastal trade. Sarah was left with children to raise. She took on the job of delivering the mail and became a familiar figure. At first she walked daily to Kingsbridge along the creek road to fetch the mail brought in by coach, returning at night with her heavy bag filled with items she had been commissioned to buy, as well as letters. She charged a penny for each item delivered and eventually earned enough to buy a gaff-rigged clinker-built sailing boat. Then she could ferry passengers as well as carry mail and her boat was the most popular, so skilful a sailor was she. In 1821 James Yates of Woodville arranged for a Post Office to be set up at Salcombe and Sarah was appointed postmistress at a salary of £5 per year, much later increased to £10. She worked on until in 1841 she had a seizure and was found senseless on the ground with the day’s letters clutched in her hand. She died soon afterwards and was buried beside her husband (where?).

Additional note: Extract from Bell’s Weekly Messenger 3rd December 1837 “Post Office Conveyance Extraordinary. The mail bags between Kingsbridge and Salcombe are conveyed by a donkey. This member of the long-eared tribe also enacts the duty of a mail-guard. Whenever it approaches either place, it gives note of its arrival in its own peculiar manner, braying. The functionaries of the Post Office are, it is said, about to recommend this useful servant of theirs to the treasury, as eminently entitled to double remuneration for its services.” Was the donkey used by the postman who took over mail deliveries after Sarah Stone became postmistress in Salcombe? Fairweather writes about Salcombe Post Office in his book: “The Post Office is situated in a central position in Fore St. and connected with it is a Money Order Office and Post Office Savings Bank both established in 1861. A Telegraph Office was added in 1870. Annuity and Insurance business is also transacted.” There were 3 deliveries of letters a day,8.00am, 1.10pm and 7pm. Letters were despatched at 9.35am, 12.30pm, 5.30pm and 6.55pm except Sunday when despatch was at 11.30am. The office was open from 8am to 8pm weekdays and telegrams could be sent and received too. On Sundays the Post Office closed at 11.00am.

1830 postal rates from Salcombe were: to London 1s to Liverpool 1s 2d to Manchester 1s1d to Plymouth 8d to Dartmouth 8d to Totnes 5d.

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Average numbers of letters posted and received daily: (NB after the introduction of the Prepaid see later.) 1841 25 posted 1843 40 posted 35 received 1853 100 posted 60 received 1873 130 posted 200 received

Charges

Charges for delivering the mail in the 17th and 18th century were by distance and weight and it was expensive. Therefore it could be lucrative and some postmasters became wealthy.

Normally the charge was paid by the recipient although a large number of items travelled free such as those carried to and from members of both Houses of Parliament. As local areas had different charges the systems were complex. A local service may have charged 1d for delivery within the area but an extra 2d or 3d just outside. In Scotland there was an additional charge of ½d on all letters carried by mail coach. Similar tolls were levied for certain bridges e.g. the Menai Bridge.

Sometimes systems were fiddled. For example: It was not uncommon for a letter to be handed to the recipient, (often a woman) who would glance at the letter, recognise the writing and know that all was well with the sender. The letter would then be handed back to the postman and no charge was made (picture above right).

But this changed in 1839 when brought about reform with the introduction of the Uniform Penny Post. The charge would be regardless of distance but measured by weight and would be prepaid. Adhesive stamps were designed with an engraving of the head of Queen Victoria which would be a difficult image to forge. 1840 stamps were valid and an immediate success. For example, in 1839 the number of chargeable letters was only 76 million. By 1850 it had increased to 350 million. Thus despite lower charges, revenue increased. Envelopes were also invented to enclose letters and make charge by weight easier.

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Christmas Cards

With the introduction of the Penny Post and the use of railways to carry mail, sending letters became affordable. In 1843 a civil servant Sir Henry Cole considered how the post could be more used by ordinary people and came up with the idea of Christmas cards. At first designs with nativity scenes were produced and then snow scenes and robins became popular.

What has this to do with postmen?

In Victorian times postmen wore a red tunic or coat. As they delivered the cards, even on Christmas Day, they became nicknamed Robins or Redbreasts.

Cards could be posted in unsealed envelopes and then the charge was only ½d.

Postcards

In the 1860s there was great agitation in the newspapers (according to the WMN) for a cheaper postal service and so in September 1870 the ½d postcard was introduced. These plain cards were issued by the PO with an imprinted ½d stamp. By 1894 picture cards were allowed using a stick-on stamp. Even then no message could be written on the address side, only on the picture side. In 1902 the back of the card was divided (as today) so that the message could be written on the left and the address on the right. Thus the “Wish you were here” postcard was born. Between 1860 and 1890 a photographer Francis Frith set out to photograph every city, town and village in Britain. He also photographed seaside resorts and beauty spots. These were published and sold to Victorians enjoying day trips and excursions by train. After his death, 2 sons continued the business but now produced postcards too from the collection of images. These were eagerly bought by the travelling public. So these were among the first picture postcards in Britain and included postcards of the South Hams.

Of course there was a loss of privacy with the use of the postcard. (WMN) “One local postman remarked as he delivered a postcard, “Excuse me but that train arrives ½ an hour earlier than stated on that there card”.

Margaret Lock lived at Ringmore and when she left school in the 1930s she delivered the post because the old postman had died. In an interview she said, “I’m not going to say I didn’t read some of the mail! There was a lot of post cards because postage was a lot cheaper on a post card. I think a letter was 3 ha’pence and a post card was a ha’penny.”

Another local story concerns a Postmistress in Devon who took in summer visitors. On wet Sunday afternoons she entertained them by bringing out an assortment of postcards from the office for them to read — presumably returning them to the office for despatch on Monday!

I thought I should make a short mention of World War I in this centenary year. As stated before, as well as handling the mail, the Post Office was responsible for the nation’s telegraph and telephone systems and providing the savings bank and other municipal facilities at thousands of Post Office branches including Kingsbridge. On the eve of WW I the Post Office handled yearly a total of 5.9 billion items of post. When war was declared many men from the Post Office went off to fight and indeed the Post Office had its own battalion, the Post Office Rifles and so 35,000 women were recruited to work in the Post Office sorting and delivering mail and running all the other services. In 1917, 19,000 mailbags crossed the Channel each day, with half a million in the run up to Christmas. 8

The Post Office Engineering Department in London designed telephone and telegraph equipment that was used in the trenches to enable military operations to be directed on a scale never attempted in any previous war. At home there were inevitably, service restrictions. In 1913 a rural town could expect up to 12 deliveries a day but this was reduced to 1 or 2 in war time. The Kingsbridge Gazette dated 28th January 1916 reports the suspension of 2nd rural deliveries here. Deliveries by road and rail were reduced of course to conserve fuel.

June 1918 marked the end of the Penny Post which had been the standard rate for 75 years. The huge cost of the war meant the Treasury had to raise extra revenue by all means including postage. It was now 1½d.

Finally, I looked in my copy of “The Kingsbridge Branch Line” for any mention of mail distribution after the station at Kingsbridge was opened. The only story I could find was not particularly relevant but I thought it would amuse you.

In the 1920s a number of young men moved to Kingsbridge to work as drivers and fitters and they became good friends. One Sunday they decided to have a day out at Torcross. They hired a horse-drawn wagonette from the Anchor Hotel and set off at 8 o’clock on their journey. However they came to an abrupt stop outside the Inn at Frogmore and the horse refused to go any further. The licensee and his wife watched the proceedings with great amusement and then let the travellers into the joke. The horse normally worked for the P.O. and this was a regular stopping point for the postman to deliver the mail whilst the horse was given a bucket of beer. A drink all round, including the horse, resolved the situation and so off they set again. Stopping at each pub, they arrived at the Torcross Hotel just in time for lunch at 1 o’clock.

Post boxes

With the introduction of prepaid postage and an increase in correspondence, there was a demand for more posting facilities. Previously there were two ways of posting a letter. Senders could either take the letter to a Receiving House (effectively an early Post Office) or would have to await the Bellman. The Bellman wore a uniform and walked the streets collecting letters from the public, ringing a bell to attract attention (see ‘Postman

1820’ right).

In 1850, Anthony Trollope, the author and Surveyor’s Clerk for the Post Office proposed the introduction of road-side posting boxes which he had seen in Belgium and France. In 1852 a trial was agreed – in the Channel Islands!

The first post boxes were tried out in Jersey and the following year in Guernsey where two still survive today. They were cast iron hexagonal pillars painted dark green (see top of next page).

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The British mainland followed suit the next year but design, manufacture and erection of boxes was the responsibility of local surveyors. This meant that no standard pattern was issued. Basically the box was a vertical pillar with a small slit to receive letters. Slits became horizontal rather than vertical by 1857 with a flap over the slit to prevent rain entering the box. Then the flap was replaced by a slightly protruding cap. Earliest boxes were green so as not to be obtrusive in the landscape. So effective were they in this regard that complaints were received by people having difficulty finding them!

The Post Office then tried chocolate brown but the paint required an extra coat of varnish. This was expensive and so it was decided that red should be used which would also make the boxes easy to spot. So red became the standard colour in 1874 but it took 10 years to complete the process of re-painting all boxes. Designs were also standardised and so the iconic British red was born. (and is still much photographed by foreign visitors). All boxes carry the words “Post Office” and the Royal cipher. In the 1930s some special boxes were introduced for posting airmail letters and these were painted blue but have not survived. Then in 2012 a pillar box in the home towns of gold medal winners in the London Olympic Games was painted gold (this one for rower Katherine Grainger, Aberdeen).

Apart from pillar boxes, there are smaller wall boxes and lamp boxes for smaller volumes of mail.

Today lamp boxes are attached not to a lamp post but to a small metal post. (bottom right -Penhale Cornwall by ‘Phil’)

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Recently I read that gangs of thieves are stealing post boxes and selling them abroad, especially in the USA via websites such as eBay. Some have been ripped from lampposts and telegraph poles while others have been pulled out of the ground or chiselled out of walls. Boxes dating back to Queen Victoria’s reign and bearing the VR mark can fetch up to £5,000 in the US.

UPDATE: On 3rd August 2015 a short article appeared in The Times newspaper – see right Clearly, Royal Mail are becoming concerned about the threat of thieves.

The Postman in the Modern Day

The uniform has changed over the years but there is still an official issue. Dark trousers and red waterproof jackets or fluorescent red are popular but increasingly I see postmen wearing shorts even in cold weather. One postman was threatened with the sack for wearing dark blue shorts bearing the Nike logo instead of the official garment.

In the icy weather 3 or 4 years ago, there were complaints in parts of Kingsbridge that no mail was delivered. The Post Office said the pavements were too icy. The following day our postman appeared with ‘ice grips’ on his shoes which he had purchased over the internet (not Post Offfice issue).

Delivering the mail

Delivering letters to the door is still done on foot in towns such as Kingsbridge but the postman is aided by Post Office vans (new and old below) which deposit bundles of mail (held together by rubber bands) in holding boxes at strategic points.

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In the past the postman may have used a bike to carry his load but this was deemed unsafe as we entered the ‘Health and Safety’ era. In 2007 Post Office bikes were sent to Africa through the charity Re-Cycle (below left Victorian times, below right 1940s).

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Today you may see the post man pushing a trolley e.g. on Fore Street, which makes life much easier.

In rural areas the postman drives a van.

What of the future?

In the reign of Elizabeth I a crown monopoly was created so that mail could only be distributed by officially appointed people. In the 2nd Elizabethan age anyone can set up a mail delivery business and now Royal Mail has been privatised.

As an illustration I must read you this cutting from the newspaper on the 21st December 2013 (see cutting on right).

Obviously email has transformed communication and affected the volume of letters handled by Royal Mail. In 2010 the average daily post bag fell to 68 million, down from 84 million 5 years previously. As a result there was a loss of £66 million in the first 6 months of the financial year as opposed to a profit of £48million the previous year.

Personally I think it is remarkable that for 60p (62p at the end of March) we can send a letter 1st class and expect it to be delivered to another part of the UK by the next day. Long may it continue!

Celia Strong January 2014 with later updates

Acknowledgements:

In addition to those in the text: The British Postal Museum and Archive, Royal Mail website, Wikipedia, websites about Postbox history.

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