The London Post

          Posting a letter in Regency England was not as simple as walking down to the local post office and dropping off a stamped letter. Prior to January 10, 1840, stamps did not exist. Inked hand stamps applied to the letter indicated such information as whether it had been sent POSTPAID, UNPAID, PAID AT (city), PENNY POST, TOOLATE, 1dDUE or FREE, or what post office had collected the letter and what mileage it would cover.  The 'letter box' itself only came into use after 1794, and did not become compulsory until after 1811. (The box consisted of a slit in the wall of the receiving house, which opened into a locked box.  Private boxes could be hired in some towns for as little as 1/2d per letter to 4d per letter.)

          The letter itself differed from its modern form. The letter usually comprised a single sheet (sometimes folded once in the middle to make a booklet-like page). This was folded in thirds, then the ends were folded together, with one end tucked inside another. Hot wax dripped onto the joining ends sealed the letter. The address or direction would be written on the front and rarely went beyond Name, Town (or house name), County. In London, a street might be indicated.

          To save money, correspondents often wrote down the page, then turned it and wrote across their previous writing. Thrifty souls would turn it yet again and write diagonally across everything else, producing a nearly illegible mess. This was called crossing and recrossing one's lines. The postmaster receiving the letter would write on the envelope the postage due by whoever received the letter.

 
          On Monday August 2, 1784, the Post began to change when John Palmer's first Mail Coach left the Rummer Tavern in Bristol at four o'clock PM, carrying the mail and four passengers (which later became seven passenger, with four inside). Palmer had long advocated postal reform and expansion.  Increases in commerce, industry and population demanded it. After his friend William Pitt became Prime Minister, Palmer got authority to try his reform ideas.

          Palmer's Mail Coach reached Bath at five-twenty PM, and arrived in London at the Swan with Two Necks well before eight o'clock the next morning to deliver mail to the Chief Post Office in Lombard Street. The coach had traveled 119 miles in under sixteen hours, an incredible feat. Palmer received public acclaim and bureaucratic stone-walling, including a record of criticism which ran to three volumes of copperplate. However, Palmer's Mail Coaches began to take hold.

          By 1811, approximately 220 mail coaches ran on regular schedules from London to various major cities. These coaches used the post roads and cross post (post roads that did not pass through London), which could support the light, fast coaches. The Post Office continued its custom of farming out the job of postmaster, and letters still had to make their own way between post towns. Coffee houses, inns along these routes, and even carriage makers, held contracts to provide both horses at each stage, coaches and coachmen.

          The Post Office did use its own, scarlet-liveried employees as guards.  These men had to read and write to fill out their time sheets (Way-bills).  Each carried a timepiece set each evening before leaving the Chief Post Office at eight PM.  As compensation for sounding the horn at toll gates, seeing the mail safely to its destination and carrying out the unpleasant task of reporting the misbehavior of any sub-contracted coachmen, guards earned an excellent wage-- half a guinea a week, plus sick pay and pension.  Tips were allowed and could average as much as 2/- a passenger.  As the Chief Superintendent of Mail from 1792 to 1817, Mr. Hasker also allowed his guards to carry personal goods and newspapers, provided this did not interfere with the mails.

  

          London had had its own General Post with local delivery since 1635 when Charles I opened the Royal Mail. In 1680, William Dockwra began his private Penny Post, named for the penny charge to mail any letter up to a pound. Two years later, the government took over and continued operation of the Penny Post. It comprised the cities of London and Westminster and the Borough of Southwark, covering letters received and delivered within ten miles, while the General Post serviced both London and the country side.
 

          From 1680 to 1794, letters for London's General Post had to be prepaid 1d. This relaxed after 1794, with the condition that letters put into the Penny Post for delivery by the General Post still had to be prepaid. Letters from the General Post for Penny Post delivery were charged 1d on delivery, plus the General Post charge. In 1794, Parliament also lowered the weight limit to four ounces for any 1d letter.

          The General Post and Penny Post remained separate organizations with their own letter carriers and receiving houses (a large number of which happened to be stationers' shops). The only point of exchange came at the Chief Post Office.

          In 1792, Parliament gave letter carriers for the General Post uniforms of scarlet coats with blue lapels, a blue waistcoat and a tall hat with a golden band.  Walking back from a delivery, the carrier rang a large handbell to indicate he could collect letters for an extra charge of 1d postage. The letters went into the slit of a locked pouch for delivery to the Chief Post Office.

          In 1794, London's five post offices (Lime street, Westminster, St. Pauls, Temple and Bishopsgate) became two:  the Chief Office in Abchurch Lane, Lombard Street, and the Westminster Office in Gerrand Street, Soho.  All London mail now passed through the Chief Office.  In addition, service expanded to cover the seven rides surrounding London:  Mortlake, Woolwich, Woodford, Edmonton, Finchley, Brentford and Mitcham.

          London post offered six collections (at 8, 10 and 12 AM; 2, 5 and 8 PM) and daily deliveries.  The clerk stamped letters received after seven o'clock PM with that time or a TOO LATE stamp, for the window closed at seven forty-five so that mail could be shorted and bagged by eight for the last collection.  The Chief Office charged an extra sixpence for such letters, with other receiving offices setting their own fee.  Letters received at the Chief Office on Lombard Street on Sunday were sorted and posted on Monday as there were no Sunday deliveries.

          From the Post Office on Lombard Street, the blue and orange Mail Coaches departed every evening at eight. Passengers assembled at various inns throughout London for departure at half past seven. The coaches then stopped in Lombard Street to collect the mail and the guard, and departed London at eight PM.  Lombard Street became so congested that by 1795 the six Western Road coaches began to leave from the Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly at eight-thirty, with the guard and mail traveling to this point from the Post Office.

          In 1812, Cary's Itinerary listed 37 inns with stage and mail coach departures. By 1815, this grew to 44, with inns having as few as 3 or as many as 35 coaches departing. In 1815 alone, of the 20 coaches leaving the Angel Inn, St. Clement's, Strand in London, five are daily post coaches and four are daily Royal Mail coaches.

          The Bull and Mouth, Bull and Mouth Street, boasted the record of having thirty-five coaches departing, including the Royal Mail to Edinburgh, while the Swan with Two Necks, Lad Lane, listed the original Bath and Bristol coach, the Royal Mail to Bath, the Brighton Post Coach, and the Prince Regent coach to Dover and Paris.

POSTAL RATES - LONDON

                                               1794   1801   1805 - 1831

Within Town Area                      1d      1d      2d

Town to Country,

          or within Country              2d      2d      3d

Country to Town                         1d      2d      3d

Town to General Post                1d      1d      2d

Country area to General Post    1d      1d      2d

General Post

          delivered by P.P. in town   free    free    free

General Post

          delivered in Country free    1d      2d

 
          Since the post office's beginning, its revenues went to the crown, which held the right to grant the privilege of signing a letter and having it posted for free.  This practice, known as franking, extended to both Houses of Parliament and certain officials.

          In 1764, postal revenues were given to Parliament in return for the crown being able to submit a Civil List to award honors.  Thereafter, Parliament authorized Free Franking.  Letters were stamped FREE when franked.  Nearly everyone abused the privilege.  Most considered a stack of signed blank sheets from a Member of Parliament's to be a common present after a short visit.  Franks could also be issued, by law, by certain public offices both in London and abroad.

          To curb abuse, Parliament made forgery of franks a felony, punishable by transportation for seven years.  As of 1784, reforms required all franked letters to have the signature, as well as the place and date of posting written at the top by the person franking it.  Limits on the numbers of letters that could be franked were imposed, but how could a lowly postmaster tell an undersecretary not to frank more than ten letters a year?

          During these years, 1780's to early 1800's, it became a hobby among some well-bred ladies to collect franking signatures from letters. Rather the Regency equivalent of collecting autographs. Some ladies strove for a broad collection, while others specialized in particular friends, MPs or relatives.

          Prior to 1836, newspapers and some other printed material such as charity letters and educational materials could be also franked for free postage to postmasters by the six Clerks of the Road.  A tax of 4d had been imposed to cover the cost to handle newspapers.  However, publishers were not shy about franking their own newspapers.  Booksellers, after Parliament imposed higher postage rates in 1711, also wrote the names of Members of Parliament for free postage, with the approval of the postal Surveyors appointed in 1715, who administered function and facilities of the postal roads.

          In addition to franking, from 1795, Parliament granted privileged rates to those serving in the Army, Navy and Militia, with no letter charged a rate higher than 1d.  Over the year, this extended to every branch of military service, including, in 1815, the soldiers and seamen employed by the East India Company.

          While privileged rates continued for the armed services, all free franking was abolished with the introduction of the penny postage stamp in 1840, which marked the beginning of the modern post office as we know it.

REFERENCES

The Postal History of Great Britain and Ireland (1980)

R.M Willcocks & B. Jay  ISBN: 0-9502797

English Provincial Posts (1633-1840) (1978)

Brian Austen  ISBN:  0-85033-266-4

England's Postal History to 1840 (1975)

R.M. Willcocks   ISBN: 0-9502797-1-4

British Postal Rates, 1635 to 1839

O.R. Sanford and Denis Salt   ISBN: 0-85377-021-2

The Postal History Society

United Kingdom Letter Rates 1657-1900 Inland & Overseas

C. Tabeart  ISBN:0-905222-58-X

18th Century Herbal Remedies by Katherine Bone!

Katherine, here to talk about some research I've been doing on herbal remedies. Throughout time, herbs have made the difference between life and death on the battlefield and in every day living before the age of antibiotics. It’s hard to believe that people in previous centuries died from simple ailments like colds, fevers, and sinus infections, all minor inconveniences we take for granted every day.

Several of the characters in my historical romance books have needed treatment from medical professionals. (I shiver thinking about a diagnosis which led to bleeding or the application of leeches when we know today that blood cells increased the ability to fight off disease.) Thankfully, medicine has come a long way during the 20^th Century, and strides are being made in the 21st Century on a day-to-day basis. But since my books take place during the Napoleonic Wars, 1795-1815, my characters are limited to what was available to them at the time.

Here are just a few herbs I’ve discovered in my research, and their medicinal properties:

Adder’s Tongue: Well-known by country folk. Fresh leaves bring down swelling and limit inflammation. When gathered with morning dew, the leaves can be set in a room filled with fleas. Fleas are drawn to leaf and can then be cast out. Found growing in April and May. Seeds ripened in September.

Archangel/Dead Needle: Heals ulcers and fresh wounds and keeps them from spreading. Helps draw out splinters and soothes burns. Bruise herb with salt, vinegar and hog’s grease. Found almost everywhere, but prefers wet ground.

Bifoil: Sweet herb used for wounds, new and old. Found in woods and copses.

Bird’s Foot: Small herb that cures ruptures. Ingest as a drink or apply to surface. Good when ingested to break up kidney stones. Best used as ointment or plaster on wounds. Found on heaths and untilled land.

Blessed Thistle/Carduus Benedictus: Cures sores, boils, and itch. Drink concoction.

Borage and Bugloss: Well-known to gardeners. Leaves and roots used in fevers to defend the heart and expel poison or venom. Juice is made into a syrup and is used with other cooling, opening, cleansing herbs to open obstructions and cure yellow jaundice, and mixed with fumitory, to cool, cleanse and temper the blood. Found in the wild and grows plentifully near London between Rotherhithe and Deptford by the ditch.

Colewart/Herb Bonnet: Wholesome herb. Good for chest or breast disease, pains, stitches in the side, and expels crude and raw humors from the stomach. Congeals blood resulting from falls and/or bruises. Good for healing wounds. Roots are boiled in wine and imbibed. The herb is also good for washing and bathing wounds to remove infection. Found in the wild, under hedges, and pathways in shadowy fields.

Devil’s Bit: Grows two feet high with narrow, smooth, dark green leaves. Herb or root is boiled in wine and ingested for plague, disease and fever, and poison. Add honey of roses for swelling. Eases a woman’s pain during menses, helps resolves gassy issues, and expels worms. Found in wild dry meadows and fields about Appledore, near Rye, in Kent.

Elecampane Root: Dried root made into powder and mixed with sugar is good for kidney stones, bladder issues, and stopping woman’s courses. Boil root in vinegar, beat afterward, and then make an ointment with hog’s suet or oil of trotters for scabs and itching. Heals putrid sores. Found in shadowy, moist ground in dry open borders and fields. Flowers end of June-July. Seeds ripe in August.

Foxglove: Used by Italians to heal wounds. Bruise leaves and bind wound. Juice used to cleanse sores. Combine sugar or honey to purse/cleanse body, and tough phlegm and to open liver and spleen. Found growing on dry sandy soil. Flowers July. Seed ripe in August.

One Blade Root: Half a drachm/powder of roots. Add to wine or vinegar. Good for poison and infection. Make a compound balsam for wounds and burns.

White Briony Root/Tetter Berries: Wild, rampant in hedges. Leaves, fruit, and root, cleanse old sores, and combat running cankers, gangrenes, and tetters (Called Tetter Berries by country folk) Use powder of dry root. Apply to skin of broken bones, foul scars, scabs, mange, and gangrene.

Wood Betony: Bruise the green herb and apply to wound, or make a juice and ingest. Good for any wound in the head or body. It will heal and close up veins or cuts, and mend splinted broken bones. Found in the woods and shady places.

Or if you’re Cornish, you might prefer to try these remedies:

Mundic ore: Miners applied Mundic to a cut and always washed an injury in water that ran through mundic ore.

Chamomile: Dry flowers and make into a tea to cure an upset stomach.

Mustard: Boil mustard with a pint of beer to cure rheumatism.

Dock Leaf: Rub dock leaf over the stings of nettles.  

Boosening: The cure for madness is to immerse a person in water to the point of drowning, and then repeat.

I pray we never have to resort to picking herbs to combat disease and discomforting ailments. But if we do, I’d like to have these herbs in my garden. Wouldn’t you?

Resources:

Cornish Sayings, Superstitions and Remedies by Kathleen Hawke Keren

Culpeper’s Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper

Are there any herbal remedies you’d like to add?

 

 

London's Burlington Arcade

© Cheryl Bolen, 2014

Almost two hundred years after it was built, the Burlington Arcade still remains one of the most prestigious shopping areas in London. The upscale shopping promenade, which features arcades, bowed store fronts, and a glazed roof, opened on Piccadilly in 1819. The "mall" was to serve as prototype for its many imitators over the past two centuries.

 

Burlington Arcade is adjacent to Burlington House, which the 6th Duke of Devonshire sold to his uncle, Lord George Cavendish (1754-1834) in 1815. Lord George loved his house and adjacent garden, which was one of a handful of aristocratic London homes that were surrounded by gardens. Unfortunately, the wall around his garden was no deterrent to those who threw oyster shells, dirt, and broken bottles onto his property.

Burlington Arcade, 1827

To keep his garden clear of litter, Lord George commissioned Samuel Ware to design the arcade to run along the western perimeter of his property, and it opened in 1819 with 72 two-story units. The arcade separated Burlington House from Albany, another magnificent home built by Lord and Lady Melbourne nearly three decades earlier. Like Burlington House, the walled property around Albany consisted of a parking court, outbuildings, and garden. 

Just steps from Piccadilly Circus, Burlington Arcade's shops offers high-quality goods ranging from fine cashmere and jewelry to leather goods. Just as it was during Lord George Cavendish's lifetime, the arcade is still patrolled by beadles in top hats and frock coats, modeled after Lord George's regiment, the 10th Hussars. Next blog: Burlington House

Burlington Arcade today

Casting Judgment from White's Bow Window

White's famed bow window is on the ground floor.

 

The following poem takes a tongue-in-cheek peek at the arbitrators of fashion who sat in the infamous bow window of White's on St. James. The author is Henry Luttrell (1765-1851) who Byron referred to as "the best sayer of good things, and the most epigrammatic conversationalist I ever met."

Indeed, all the diaries and letters I've read from the era refer to Luttrell as the great wit. The most recent edition of the Englilsh Dictionary of National Biography says that, unfortunately, most of Luttrell's wit does not translate well two centuries later. It's one of those cases where ya had to be there.

Luttrell was the illegitimate son of the 2^nd Lord Carhampton.

The Bow Window at White's

By Henry Luttrell

 Shot from yon Heavenly Bow, at White's,

No critic-arrow now alights

On some unconscious passer-by

Whose cape's an inch too low or high;

Whose doctrines are unsound in hat,

In boots, in trousers, or cravat;

On him who braves the shame and guilt

of gig or Tilbury ill-built;

Sports a barouche with panels darker

Than the last shade turned out by Barker;

Or canters, with an awkward seat

And badly mounted, up the street.

Silenced awhile that dreadful battery

Whence never issued sound of flattery;

That whole artillery of jokes,

Levelled point-blank at hum-drum folks;

Who now, no longer kept in awe

By Fashion's judges, or her law,

Strut by the window, at their ease,

With just what looks and clothes they please!

 Since George "Beau" Brummell was known to occupy a seat in that most well-known of bow windows, I suspect Luttrell is poking fun at him in this poem which first appeared in Luttrell's Advice to Julia, published in 1820, four years after Brummell fled to France to keep from debtor's prison. I found it in my little 1909 gem, The Lure of London.—By Cheryl Bolen, who's delighted to announce the release of a Christmas novella (The Theft Before Christmas) in the Regent Mysteries series on Oct. 7. Preorders are on all sites except Barnes & Noble.

 

                                                     Beau Brummell

 

 

Cries of Old London

Cries of Old London

Today, we associate cities with the sounds of engines, radios, sirens, and the general hum of modern automation. Advertising blares at us with song and noise. It’s easy, therefore, to think that a hundred or two hundred years ago, cities were far more quiet places. In fact, they were still noisy.

London of the Regency era (early 1800’s) had almost as much congestion—but instead of automation’s hum, the sound of carriage wheels, harness, and horses gave the city its bustle. London residents also had the cries of merchants to disturb the day (and sometimes the night, too).

While we are far more accustomed to going to stores today, in the 1800’s it was common for goods to come to the customers. Vendors would ply their trade along well populated (and well off) streets, where their goods would more easily sell.

Joseph Addison, wrote in The Spectator, December 1711, "There is nothing which more astonishes a foreigner, and frights a country squire, than the Cries of London."

“Oranges, Sweet China Oranges” is a cry that dates back to 1793, while the cry of, “Strawberries, Scarlet Strawberries” dates to 1795. Also from the late 1700’s were the cries for “New Mackerel” (as if anyone would want old mackerel), “Turnips & Carrots Ho!” and, “Old chairs to mend.” But London’s cries dated back far before then, to the 1500’s and would linger into the 1900’s.

It was not just London that had its street vendors—any large city acquired hawkers who would sell, “Gingerbread, Hot Spice Gingerbread” as well as roasted nuts of all kinds, including chestnuts. Just about anything that could be provided in a service (mending pans or china, sharpening knives and scissors, repairing furniture, or sweeping chimneys) or carried (with portable foods such as bread, milk, butter, fruits, and vegetables) would be sold door-to-door. Even such perishable stuffs such as oysters might be carted around the streets to cooks and housekeepers, and the calls might well lure them into a quick purchase.

Over 150 cries have been recorded, and they’ve gone on to be used both in song, and used as the basis for prints, pottery, engravings, and paintings.

Francis Wheatley produced a series of illustrations in 1796, highlighting the various vendors in hand-colored prints, which were sold individually and later collected into print editions. Musically, Richard Dering composed Cries of London, which is still performed and can be purchased today, and other composers have also used the cries in various forms.

It is to be hoped that the cries of London were once as harmonious as modern singers can present them, but it is far more likely that the voices were rough and probably hoarse from use, and possibly shrill when women had to call out their wares. Vendors also would try to customize their calls, some would include prices, and some would include rhymes to make their calls all the more memorable.

BIO

Shannon Donnelly’s Regency romances are now available as from Cool Gus Publishing, as well as on Kindle, Nook, from Kobo and other ebook retailers. Her latest book Regency romance, The Cardros Ruby, is now on sale with a special price of .99.

Her writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others. Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written."

Her work has been on the top seller list of Amazon.com and includes Paths of Desire, a Historical Regency romance, of which Romantic Historical Lovers notes: “a story where in an actress meets an adventurer wouldn’t normally be at the top of my TBR pile; but I’ve read and enjoyed other books by this author and so I thought I’d give this one a go. I’m glad I did. I was hooked and pulled right into the world of the story from the very beginning…Highly recommended.”

She has also published young adult horror stories, is the author of several computer games, and now lives in New Mexico with two horses, two donkeys, two dogs, and the one love of her life. Shannon can be found online at sd-writer.com, facebook.com/sdwriter, and twitter/sdwriter.