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View all Seasonal worksheets. The Life of Sir Rowland Hill. London: De La Rue, Martineau, Harriet. By Pearson Hill. London: Cassell, Robinson, Howard. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Smyth, Eleanor C. London: T. Fisher Unwin, Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her. Oxford: Oxford University Press, He compiled statistics that led him to believe that this would occur for the Post Office as well and wrote a pamphlet proposing his ideas called Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability.
The pamphlet was published in four editions between and One astonishing fact that Hill discovered was that the cost of sending a letter had nothing to do with distance and that one of the unnecessary expenses of the Post Office was that the postman had to wait at least five minutes for payment at a household. In one test case, it took a postman one and a half hours to deliver 67 letters that had to be paid by the recipient on delivery, and one half hour to deliver letters when he did not wait for payment.
Plus, there was the expense of the clerks figuring the 40 different rates for letters, and the time spent keeping accounts to keep track of deliveries and payment by recipients. The pamphlet proposed his idea of one prepaid postage rate for all letters regardless of distance. The proposal was that the rate for prepaid letters be a low one-possibly a penny.
The revenue of the Post Office would initially fall but would grow in the future because the number of people using the postal service would increase due to the low postage rate. Before publishing his pamphlet, he contacted the Chancellor of the Exchequer who granted him an interview in December Hill was always one to promote his ideas to the highest authority, though in this case nothing was done.
The newspapers were instantly interested and took up Hill's cause, publicizing his novel ideas and catching the public interest. At the time of publication, a Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into the Post Office was sitting and they invited the author of the pamphlet to give oral evidence. Viscount Wolmer tells us in his book Post Office Reform that when asked how he would manage the prepayment, Hill offered a suggestion.
Persons could buy stamped covers similar to envelopes and sheets, or perhaps those persons who brought letters to the post office on their own unstamped paper might apply: "a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash, which the bringer might, by applying a little moisture, attach to the back of the letter, so as to avoid the necessity of re-directing it" into a stamped cover.
And so the idea of the postage stamp was put forth. The Postmaster General, Lord Lichfield, was not enthusiastic. Hill, of all the wild and visionary schemes I have ever heard or read of, it is the most extraordinary. Hill resigned from his position with the South Australia Commission and in September was given a two-year appointment to the Treasury to help implement the act. Unfortunately this appointment came without any real authority.
On May 6, , the Penny Black stamp and the stationery were available for sale. Despite all he had accomplished, the Post Office administration thwarted his attempts to achieve other efficiencies. Though extended one year past the initial two-year appointment, his temporary appointment was ended in September when the government changed.
Fortunately, the London and Brighton Railway immediately offered Hill a job as a director and later as chairman of the board.
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