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EDMUND PRIDEAUX AND THE FIRST POST-OFFICE

(Vol. iii., p. 186.)

In a recent number of "Notes and Queries" (which, by the way, I have only recently become acquainted with) I saw the Queries of your correspondent G. P. P. upon the above subject, and having some time ago had occasion to investigate it, I accumulated a mass of notes from various sources,—and these I send you, rough and unpolished as they are, in the hope that in the absence of better information, they may prove to be acceptable.

Herodotus (viii. 98.) mentions the existence of a method of communication among the Persians, by means of horsemen placed at certain distances.

In the Close and Misæ Rolls (temp. King John et post) payments are recorded for nuncii who were charged with the carriage of letters.

In 1481, Edward IV., during his war with Scotland, established horse riders at posts twenty miles apart, by which letters were conveyed two hundred miles in two days (Gale's Hist. Croyland); and the Scottish Parliament issued an ordinance for facilitating the expedition of couriers throughout the kingdom. Carriers of letters also existed in England about this time, for in a letter from Sir J. Paston, written in 1471, we are informed that "Courby, the carrier, hath had 40d. for the third hired horse," for a journey from Norwich to London and back. (Fenn's Paston Letters, 4to. vol. v. p. 73.)

In 1542, letters reached Edinburgh on the fourth day from their despatch from London. (Sadler's Letters and Negociations.)

In 1548, the rate to be charged for post-horse hire was fixed by statute (2 & 3 Edw. VI. cap. 3.) at one penny per mile.

In 1581 (according to Camden), Thomas Randolph was appointed the first Chief Postmaster of all England.

James I. established (date unknown) the office of Foreign Postmaster, which was first held by Mathewe le Questor.

In 1631, Charles I. appointed William Frizell and Thomas Witherings (in reversion) to the sole management of the foreign post-office. And at this date it seems a regular home post was also carried on, as appears by the following entry from the Corporation Books of Great Yarmouth:—"1631. Agreed, June 6, with the Postmaster of Ipswich to have Quarterly 20s. paid him for carrying and bringing letters to and from London to Yarmouth for the vse of the Towne."

In 1635, Charles I. issued a proclamation for the establishment of "a running post or two, to run night and day between Edinburgh and Scotland and the City of London, to go thither and come back again in six days:" branch posts were also to be established with all the principal towns on the road: the rates of postage were fixed at 2d. under 80 miles; 4d. for 140 miles; 6d. beyond; and 8d. to Scotland. This is conclusive evidence that a regular post-office establishment existed nearly ten years before Prideaux had anything to do with the post-office.

In 1640, a proclamation was issued by the Long Parliament, by which the offices of Foreign and Inland Postmaster (then held by Witherings) were sequestrated into the hands of one Philip Burlamachy, a city merchant. Soon after this we find a Committee of the Commons, with "Master Edmund Prideaux" for chairman, inquiring into the matter.

In 1644, a resolution of the Commons declared that "Edmund Prideaux, Esq., a member of the House," was "constituted master of the posts, messengers, and couriers."

In 1649 Prideaux established a weekly conveyance to every part of the kingdom; and also appears to have introduced other judicious reforms and improvements,—indeed he seems to have been the Rowland Hill of those days; but he has not the slightest claim to be considered as the "Inventor of the Post-office." The mistake may have arisen from a misapprehension of the following statement frown Blackstone: "Prideaux first established a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts of the nation, thereby saving to the public the charge of maintaining postmasters, to the amount of 7000l. per annum."

I have not been able to obtain any particulars of Prideaux's personal history.

Mercurii.

Jememutha Magna.

Edmund Prideaux and the First Post-office.—See the Appendix to the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons on the Detaining and Opening of Letters at the Post-Office, 1844, which contains copies of numerous documents furnished by Mr. Lechmere and Sir Francis Palgrave.

Arun.

[We avail ourselves of this opportunity of inserting the following extract from Mr. Rowland Hill's Post-Office Reform; its Importance and Practicability, p. 86. of the third edition, published in 1837, as it shows clearly the use which Mr. Rowland Hill made of the story in his great work of Postage Reform; and that Miss Martineau had clearly no authority for fathering the story in question upon that gentleman:—

"Coleridge tells a story which shows how much the Post-office is open to fraud, in consequence of the option as to pre-payment which now exists. The story is as follows:—

'One day, when I had not a shilling which I could spare, I was passing by a cottage not far from Keswick, where a letter-carrier was demanding a shilling for a letter, which the woman of the house appeared unwilling to pay, and at last declined to take. I paid the postage, and when the man was out of sight, she told me that the letter was from her son, who took that means of letting her know that he was well; the letter was not to be paid for. It was then opened and found to be blank!'¹

"This trick is so obvious a one that in all probability it is extensively practised."]

The quotations of your correspondent G. P. P., from Polwhele's Cornwall, relate to the same individual, and a more general construction must, I think, be put upon the expression "our countryman," than that it inferred a native of the county. The family of Prideaux was one of great antiquity, and originated in Cornwall (their first seat being at Prideaux Castle there), and had estates there in the time of the above Edmund. His father, Sir Edmund Prideaux, of Netherton (the first baronet), studied the law in the Inner Temple, where he became very eminent for his skill and learning. He is stated to have raised a large estate in the counties of Devon and Cornwall. He married * * *; secondly, Catherine, daughter of Piers Edgecombe, of Mount Edgecombe, Esq., by whom he had two sons, Sir Peter his successor, and Edmund, the subject of your correspondent's Queries, who is thus described in Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 509.:—

"This gentleman was bred to the law, and of so great a reputation, as well for zeal to religion as skill in the law, it is not strange he was chosen a Member of that which was called the Long Parliament, wherein he became a very leading man; for, striking in with the prevailing party of those times (though he never joined with them in setting upon the life of his Sovereign), he grew up to great wealth and dignity. He was made Commissioner of the Great Seal [1643. Rushworth, vol. iii. p. 242.], worth 1500l. a-year and by ordinance of Parliament practised within the bar as one of the king's counsel, worth 5000l. per annum. After that he was Attorney General, worth what he pleased to make it [!!], and then Postmaster General … from all which rich employments he acquired a great estate, and among other things purchased the Abbey of Ford, lying in the Parish of Thorncombe, in Devonshire, where he built a noble new house out of the ruins of the old," &c.

Prideaux cannot be called the inventor of the Post-office, although to him may be attributed the extension of the system. The first inland letter office, which, however, extended to some of the principal roads only, was established by Charles I. in 1635, under the direction of Thomas Witherings, who was superseded in 1640. On the breaking out of the civil war, great confusion was occasioned in the conduct of the office, and about that time Prideaux's plan seems to have been conceived. He was chairman of a committee in 1642 for considering the rates upon inland letters; and afterwards (1644) appointed Postmaster, in the execution of which office he first established a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts of the nation. Prior to this, letters were sent by special messengers, or postmasters, whose duty it was to supply relays of horses at a certain mileage. (Blackstone, book i. c. 8. s. 3.)

I am unable to discover when Edmund Prideaux died; but it appears that either he, or one of his descendants, took part in the rising of the Duke of Monmouth in the West of England, upon which occasion the "great estate" was found of great service in providing a bribe for Lord Jeffreys. In the Life of Lord Jeffreys, annexed to the Western Martyrology; or, Bloody Assizes (5th ed. 266. London, 1705), it is said that "A western gentleman's purchase came to fifteen or sixteen hundred guineas, which my Lord Chancellor had." And Rapin, vol. ii. p. 270., upon the authority of Echard, iii. p. 775., states that in 1685 one Mr. Prideaux, of Ford Abbey, Somerset, gave Jeffreys 14000l. [probably misprint for 1400l.] "to save his life."

I think it likely that your correspondent may find further information upon the subject of this note, in the Life of Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich (born 1648, died 1724), published in 1748.

J. B. Colman.

Eye, March 18. 1851.

Polwhele was clearly wrong in designating Edmund Prideaux, the Attorney-General, a Cornishman, as he belonged to the family long seated in Devonshire, and was fourteenth in descent from Hickedon Prideaux, of Orcharton, in that county, second son of Nicholas, lord of Prideaux, in Cornwall, who died in 1169.

The four Queries of G. P. P. may be more or less fully answered by reference to Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1810, p. 651.; and an excellent history of the Post-office in the Penny Magazine for 1834, p. 33.

Is it too much to ask of your correspondent, who writes from Putney under my initials, that he will be so good as to change his signature? I think that I have strong reasons for the request, but I will only urge that I was first in the field, under the designation which he has adopted.²

J. D. S.