User:CDuck2/John Palmer

John Palmer, (1742, Bath — August 16, 1818), was a theatre owner and introduced the first mail coach service that was the beginning of a great British post office reforms with introducing an efficiant mail coach delivery service in the United Kingdom during the late 18th century. He was Mayor of Bath on two occasions and served as Member of Parliament for the constituancy of Bath between 1801 and 1807.

Theatre

John Palmer inherited his father's Bath Theatre, and obtained a royal letters patent for it in 1768, making it the first theatre, outside London, allowed to add Royal to its name. Palmer's second theatre in Bristol was granted the same status in 1778, becoming the Theatre Royal, Bristol. Because the two theatres shared one acting company, Palmer had to move his actors, stagehands and props quickly between Bristol and Bath, he set up a coach service which provided safe, quick and efficient transport for his actors and materials. Later, when Palmer became involved in the Post Office, he believed that the coach service he had previously run between theatres could be utilised for a countrywide mail delivery service.

Mail coaches

A print showing a mail coach decorated in the black and scarlet Post Office livery near Newmarket, Suffolk in 1827. The guard can be seen standing at the rear.

The postal delivery service in Britain had existed in the same form for about 150 years—from its introduction in 1635, mounted carriers had ridden between "posts" where the postmaster would remove the letters for the local area before handing the remaining letters and any additions to the next rider. The riders were frequent targets for robbers, and the system was inefficient.

In 1782, Palmer suggested to the Post Office in London that they take up the idea of a countrywide mail coach delivery service based on his experience with theatre personel and materials. His suggestion met resistance from officials who believed the existing system could not be improved upon, but eventually the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Pitt, allowed him to carry out an experimental run between Bristol and London. Under the old system the journey had taken up to 38 hours. The coach, funded by Palmer, left Bristol at 4pm on 2 August 1784 and arrived in London just 16 hours later.

Impressed by the trial run, Pitt authorised the creation of new routes. By the end of 1785 there were services from London to Norwich, Liverpool, Leeds, Dover, Portsmouth, Poole, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Holyhead and Carlisle. A service to Edinburgh was added the next year and Palmer was rewarded by being made Surveyor and Comptroller General of the Post Office. By 1797 there were fourty-two routes.

Initially the coach, horses and driver were all supplied by contractors. There was strong competition for the contracts because they provided a fixed regular income in addition to which the companies could charge fares for the passengers. By the beginning of the 19th century the Post Office had their own fleet of coaches with black and scarlet livery. The early coaches were poorly built, but in 1787 the Post Office adopted John Besant's improved and patented design, after which Besant, with his partner John Vidler, enjoyed a monopoly on the supply of coaches, and a virtual monopoly on their upkeep and servicing.

The development of railways in the 1830s spelt the end for the mail coach service. The first rail delivery between Liverpool and Manchester took place on 11 November 1830. By the early 1840s many London-based mail coaches were starting to be withdrawn from service; the final service from London (to Norwich) was shut down in 1846. Regional mail coaches continued into the 1850s, but these too were eventually replaced by rail services.

External links

• John Palmer biography Bath Postal Museum

These might be useful to quote from or use.

• Post and Mail Coaches
• Project Gutenberg
• August 16th Chambers' Book of Days
• The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey
• Stage Travel in Britain
• Time in History: views of time from prehistory to the present day
• The History of the Postal Services The Bath Postal Museum: Lunchtime Talk