Great Britain Stamps - Queen Victoria

The first organized communication system in England was developed by the Romans, who, like the Persians before them, built roads to facilitate travel. At the time a formal system for the transmission of messages was established. At first, messengers walked their routes, but later they rode on horseback. Two-wheeled carriages pulled by a pair of horses also were used. Post stations where messengers could change horses and stay overnight were built along the routes. The Romans called the largest of these stations “positiones,” from which the English word “post” was probably derived. After the Roman Empire fell, there was little need for long-distance communication in England as settlers did not concern themselves with events outside their local area, and geographic isolation from the European continent provided insulation from their neighbors.

The isolation ended suddenly in 1066 when William the Conqueror crossed the English Channel and united England with Normandy. Now it was essential to establish communications between the two parts of William’s dominion. Henry I (1100-35) established official messengers attached to the crown and by the reign of Henry III (1216-72), there were also private messenger services maintained by the Barons. Edward II (1307-27) put the postal service on a scheduled basis.

Little further development occurred in England until the end of the 15th century. Henry VII (1495-1509) ended the War of the Roses and initiated a period of peace, prosperity and enlightenment. This, coupled with the invention of the printing press in the 1450’s, resulted in a greater demand for postal services.

On the European continent, the counts of Thurn and Taxis had set up a wide-ranging postal service. England followed suit, and Henry VIII appointed the first official postmaster, Sir Brian Tuke, in 1517. Prior to his appointment, Tuke had helped organize the postal service. He saw that the mails were regularly dispatched and that all fares were paid. After he was officially named “Governor of the King’s Post,” he concentrated on service to the Continent and Scotland.

As commerce developed, the number of business letters grew. These letters were often delayed in the official post because royal messages had priority. In addition, it was common for private letters to be intercepted, and read and sometimes destroyed for political reasons. To ensure confidentiality and security, two private posts were established later in the 16th century, which were, however, short-lived. Sir Thomas Randolph, Master of the Queens Posts during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), realized that the official post was a good source of revenue and so he absorbed the private posts and created an official monopoly.

Service deteriorated in the ensuing years, and during the reign of James I (1603-25), the post was split into two parts, domestic and foreign. This situation continued until the reign of Charles I (1625-49) who appointed a gentleman named Thomas Witherings, who had started out as an assistant to the head of the foreign post, as director of the entire postage system. By 1635, Witherings had reunited the posts. In addition, and for the first time, the official post carried private mail with the same level of service that it had devoted to official mail. Charles’ motivation for this was to raise money to pay for the Royal Household. This is considered the beginning of the organization that today is known as The Royal Mail (the British Post Office). Postal messengers of the time, however, were not always prompt in carrying out their duties. They were more likely to frequent the local tavern that to deliver the mail. In order to track the speed of the mail transport, Postmaster General Henry Bishop in 1661 came up with the idea of marking each letter with the day and month it was delivered to the post office. At the time, General Bishop wrote, “A stamp is invented that is put upon every letter showing the day of the month that every letter comes to the post office, so that no letter carrier may dare to detain a letter from post to post, which before was usual.”

The style of marking became known as the “Bishop Mark.” It consisted of a circle containing the month, expressed as a two-letter abbreviation, and the day of the month. The day and month were separated by a line that divided the circle. A similar plan was adopted in other European countries and the American colonies. The Bishop mark was used in England until 1787 and in Scotland until 1806.

Mail coaches remained in service for about 60 years. In 1830, the post office began to use the new, faster railway service for transporting mail. Only 16 years later, the mail coach was extinct. At roughly the same time, postal reform brought prepayment of the mail and the invention of the postage stamp, which led directly to the hobby of stamp collecting.

In the 20th century, the transport of mail was revolutionized by gasoline-powered vehicles and later by the airplane. Today, a letter can go half-way around the world in the same time that it took to simply cross England when the Royal Mail was founded in 1635.