Rowland Hill (postal reformer)

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Sir Rowland Hill KCB, FRS (December 3, 1795 - August 27, 1879) was a British teacher and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of penny postage, and later served as a government postal official. He is usually credited in the UK with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service.

Contents 1 Earlier life 2 Postal reform 3 Later life 4 Legacy 5 References

[edit] Earlier life

Hill was born in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire. Rowland's father, Thomas Wright Hill, was an innovator in education and politics, including among his friends Joseph Priestley, Tom Paine and Richard Price.^[1] At the age of 11, Rowland became a student-teacher in his father's school. He taught astronomy and earned extra money fixing scientific instruments. He also worked at the Assay Office in Birmingham and painted landscapes in his spare time.^[2]

Hazelwood School In 1819, he established the Hazelwood School at Edgbaston, a "well-to-do" neighborhood of Birmingham, as an “educational refraction of Priestley's ideas”.^{[3] [4]} Hazelwood was to provide a model for public education for the emerging middle classes, aiming for useful, pupil-centered education which would give sufficient knowledge, skills and understanding to allow a student to continue self-education through a life “most useful to society and most happy to himself”. ^[5] The school included such marvels (for its time) as a science lab and swimming pool. In his Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in Large Numbers Drawn from Experience (1822, often cited as Public Education) he argued that moral influence of the highest kind should be the predominant power in school discipline, instead of caning. Science was to be a compulsory subject, and students were to be self-governing.^[6][7][8] Hazelwood so impressed Jeremy Bentham that the school was moved to Bruce Castle in Tottenham, London in 1827.

South Australia The colonization of South Australia was a project of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by overcrowding and overpopulation. Retiring from teaching, Rowland Hill served from 1833 until 1839 as secretary of the South Australian Colonization Commission, which worked successfully to establish a settlement without convicts at what is today Adelaide. The political economist, Robert Torrens was chairman of the Commission.^[9] Under the South Australia Act 1834, the colony was to embody the ideals and best qualities of British society, shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to social progress and civil liberties.

[edit] Postal reform

Hill interested himself in a reform of the postal system, as well.^[10]. In the 1830's at least 12 1/2% of all British mail was conveyed under the personal frank of Peers, dignitaries and Members of Parliament, while censorship and political espionage were conducted by postal officials. Fundamentally, the postal system was mismanaged, wasteful, expensive and slow. It had become inadequate for the needs of an expanding commercial and industrial nation.^[11] There are stories, most likely apocryphal, about how Hill gained this interest -- that he noticed a young woman too poor to redeem a letter sent to her by her fiancé. At that time, letters were most often paid for by the recipient, not the sender. The recipient could simply refuse delivery. Frauds were commonplace; for example, coded information could appear on the cover of the letter; the recipient would examine the cover to gain the information, and then refuse delivery to avoid payment. Each individual letter had to be logged. In addition, postal rates were complex, depending on the distance and the number of sheets in the letter.^[12]

Richard Cobden and John Ramsey McCulloch, both advocates of free trade, attacked the policies of privilege and protection of the Tory government. McCulloch, in 1833, advanced the view that "nothing contributes more to facilitate commerce than the safe, speedy and cheap conveyance of letters."^[13]

Hill's famous pamphlet, Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability, was privately circulated in 1837. The report called for "low and uniform rates" according to weight, rather than distance. Hill's study showed that most of the costs in the postal system were not for transportation, but rather for laborious handling procedures at the origins and the destinations. Postage was to be prepaid by the sender, with the prepayment to be proven by the use of prepaid letter sheets or adhesive stamps (adhesive stamps had long been used to show payment of taxes -- for example, on documents). Letter sheets were to be used because envelopes were not yet common -- they were not yet mass-produced, and in an era when postage was calculated partly on the basis of the number of sheets of paper used, the same sheet of paper would be folded and serve for both the message and the address. In addition, Hill proposed to lower the postage rate to a penny per half ounce, without regard to distance.^[14] He presented his proposal to the Government.

In the House of Lords the Postmaster, Lord Lichfield, thundered about Hill's "wild and visionary schemes." William Leader Maberly, Secretary to the Post Office, denounced Hill's study: "This plan appears to be a preposterous one, utterly unsupported by facts and resting entirely on assumption". But merchants, traders and bankers viewed the existing system as corrupt and a restraint of trade. They formed a "Mercantile Committee" to advocacate for Hill's plan and pushed for its adoption. In 1839, Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system.

Postal service rates were lowered immediately, even before stamps or letter sheets could be printed. Between November, 1839 and February, 1840 the volume of internal correspondence increased dramatically, by 120%. This initial increase resulted from the elimination of "free franking" and smuggling. Then prepaid letter sheets, with a design by William Mulready, were distributed in early 1840. They were not popular and were widely satirized. According to a brochure distributed by the National Postal Museum, the letter sheets threatened the livelihoods of stationery manufacturers, who encouraged the satires. The government had to use most of them on official mail.

In May, 1840, the world's first adhesive postage stamps were distributed. With an elegant engraving of the young Queen Victoria, the Penny Black was an immediate success. Refinements, such as perforations to ease the separating of the stamps, would be instituted in later issues.

[edit] Later life

Rowland Hill continued at the Post Office until the Conservative Party won re-election. Sir Robert Peel returned to office between August 30, 1841 and June 29, 1846. Amid rancorous controversy, Hill was dismissed in July, 1842.

Edwin Chadwick, Rowland Hill, John Stuart Mill, Lyon Playfair, Dr. Neill Arnott, and other friends in 1844 formed a society called "Friends in Council," which met at each other's houses to discuss questions of political economy. ^[15] Hill became a member of the influential Political Economy Club, founded by David Ricardo and other classical economists.^[16]

In 1846, when the Conservatives left office, Hill became Secretary to the Postmaster General, and then Secretary to the Post Office from 1854 until 1864. For his services Hill was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1860. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society and was given an honorary degree from Oxford.

He died in Hampstead, London in 1879. Sir Rowland Hill is buried in Westminster Abbey; there is a memorial to him on his family grave in Highgate Cemetery.

[edit] Legacy

Hill's legacies are three: the model for education of the emerging middle classes, the postage stamp, which we take for granted, and the system whereby postage rates, at least for basic rates, do not vary within a country. In fact the Uniform Penny Postage continued in the United Kingdom into the twentieth century, and at one point, one penny paid for up to four ounces.

There are three public statues of him. The first, sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock and unveiled in 1881, stands in the town of his birthplace, Kidderminster.^[17] The second, by Edward Onslow Ford stands at King Edward Street, London^[18] The third, less known, by Peter Hollins, used to stand in Hurst Street, Birmingham but it is currently in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery store.^[19] A life size white marble bust by W. D. Keyworth, Jr. may be viewed in St. Paul's Chapel, Westminster Abbey.^[20]

At Tottenham there is now a local History Museum at Bruce Castle (where Hill lived during the 1840s) including some relevant exhibits.

The Rowland Hill Awards,^[21] started by the Royal Mail and the British Philatelic Trust in 1997^[22], are annual awards for philatelic "innovation, initiative and enterprise."

In 1882, the Post Office instituted the Rowland Hill Fund^[23] for postal workers, pensioners and dependants in need.

[edit] References

Literature

• Matthew Davenport Hill and Rowland Hill, Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in Large Numbers Drawn from Experience (1822)
• Rowland Hill, Home Colonies: a Plan for the Gradual Extinction of Pauperism and the Diminution of Crime. (1832)
• Rowland Hill, Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability (1837)
• Rowland Hill and Arthur Hill, A History of Penny Postage with intro. by George Birkbeck Hill, "The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the Penny Postage". 2 vols. (1880)
• David Allam, The Social and Economic Importance of Postal Reform in 1840. Batley: Harry Hayes, 1976
• R. H. Coase, Rowland Hill and the Penny Post. Economica, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 24 (Nov., 1939), pp. 423-435.
• H. W. Hill, Rowland Hill and the Fight for the Penny Post. Frederick Warne, 1940
• M.J. Daunton, Rowland Hill and the Penny Post, History Today, August, 1985.
• Jean Farrugia, The Life and Work of Sir Rowland Hill, 1795-1879.