Post Office. Before the 17th cent., royal ministers had their own king's messengers, but private persons sent letters through servants or friends. Henry VIII, had a master of the posts in 1512 but he served only the government. The first attempt at a public system was in 1635 when a service was established to important towns, carrying letters at 2 pence per sheet per 80 miles. Under the Commonwealth, Thurloe was appointed postmaster-general in 1657 and the arrangement was continued at the Restoration. In 1680 a London penny post was started and soon taken over by the government; penny posts were established in large provincial towns in the later 18th cent. Members of both Houses of Parliament had the privilege of free postage (save for the penny post) and gave large numbers of franks to friends, constituents, or even business colleagues: the privilege was not abolished until 1840. Two 18th-cent. developments were Ralph Allen's scheme of cross-country services, followed by John Palmer's introduction of scheduled mail coaches. Rowland Hill's plan of penny postage was adopted in 1840 in the teeth of powerful opposition: prepayment through stamps was introduced and there was no extra charge for mileage. It was followed in the 1850s by the introduction of pillar boxes (a suggestion of Anthony Trollope), which put an end to the bellmen who had rung for final collections. The services offered by post offices proliferated—the introduction of telegrams delivered by messenger boys; the establishment by Gladstone in 1861 of the Post Office Savings Bank; and the beginning of parcel post in 1883. Penny post was a casualty of the First World War, the rate going up to 1½ pence in June 1918, and after the Second World War inflation brought constant increases. The start of the use of post offices for a variety of welfare payments was the decision in 1908 to deliver old-age pensions through them.

J. A. Cannon