Meetings Are Held

in the

 United Reform Church

(Opposite The Police Station)

43

Oxford Postal History

2/20/2007

Godfrey Townsend

Our speaker explained that the beginnings of the national mail system were in the end of the 15th century and became a Royal system when, during Henry VIII the Office of Royal Mail was established. The mail was carried by Post boys on horse and went to receiving houses where the recipient collected and paid for it. Mail between London and Bristol travelled through Oxford in the early part of the seventeenth century but was rerouted south through Newbury because of the civil war. The Mail Coach took over from the horse and in 1829 mail went out from the Angel Inn. With the advent of the railways mail trains started to take over from 1840 onwards.


The system was restructured in the second half of the 17th century with a Post Master General appointed who paid a fixed sum to the Crown and kept any profit for himself. Henry Bishop paid £21,000. The costs was based on distance and number of sheets and in 1657 the cost was 2 pence for 48 miles per sheet. This led to very large sheets of paper being used and writing around the edges. Envelopes were counted as a sheet and so were seldom used.

Stamping, or franking, was first used in 1681. This included the originating town and the mileage. The number of receiving centres increased with many sub-centres being created to make collection easier, Delivery to a sub-centre incurred an extra penny charge. Around about 1830 a system of pre-charging came into being and c. 1839 the four-penny post was introduced. In April 1840 Rowland Hill brought in the Penny Post and the first adhesive stamp, the Penny Black. This stamp covered letters up to ½ oz. There was also a two penny blue. This cost stayed until 1918. The new stamp did not do away with the need for an identifying stamp as a cancellation system was need to prevent the re-use of the payment stamp. The first cancellations used red ink but this proved easy to erase and so black durable ink was used causing the stamp colour to be changed to red. The over stamp now had the originating office and date sent and was date stamped at the receiving office. Each office had a number which was also included in the stamp and over the years Oxford had 603 offices. At first the coaching inns were used. The main office was in Queen Street in 1790. It was moved to High Street . The move to the present St. Aldate's site was about 1879.

The system from 1840 saw a massive increase in the mail service and the number of services offered. In Oxford during the latter part of the nineteenth century there were four deliveries a day with six collections. In 1865 post boxes were introduced. In 1880's there were 23 postmen and sub-post office were established complete with their own postmark, which had the time of posting included by the end of the century. In 1940 there were 40 sub-offices. The earliest Cowley post mark was 1878 while Cowley Road has one for 1882.

The University was allowed its own internal system. Some of the colleges even had stamps and collection boxes. The post office objected to this as it was lost revenue and the practice ended in 1856. The Oxford Union was allowed to sell stamps to members over printed O.U.S. for a short time and in 1900 12,000 were sold.