This is a brief run down of the post offices in the 1800s and early 1900s in Great Marlow.
The Regency Post Service
At the start of 1800 Marlow was looking forward to its first official "cross post" between Marlow and Maidenhead and certain other places in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. A cross post means letters between the two places didn't have to go up to London and then back down to the intended recipient but instead went direct which obviously saved a lot of time. I say the first official cross post because unofficially letters had been taken by carriers and coachman and other commercial travellers. It makes sense for these people to take post but it undercut the post service so was not officially allowed. After the cross post for Marlow actually started in 1801, adverts were placed in the newspapers threatening dire consequences to these unofficial letter carriers if they continued. They faced a £5 fine per letter carried and £100 for every week the practice continued. A very high price to pay. The official letters were left at the post masters who then saw them distributed to the actual recipient.
From at least the 1820s the Post Master at Marlow was James Field of the High Street. With only one post delivery and dispatch to deal with, posting did not occupy all of James time. The family ran a school, and James also worked as a tailor and insurance agent. Latter people would remember the post office was almost an afterthought, a cramped room with the school room up a somewhat rickety staircase. (You can read more about the Fields school here and read their wills here). James died in 1849 and it seems his widow continued to be in charge for a little while.
Early and mid Victoria post office
A common complaint was Marlow didn't get frequent enough deliveries of mail. But in 1848 after much effort, the town secured a second post as the mail coach running between High Wycombe and Maidenhead would now stop at Marlow in both directions. John Moss the High Street iron monger, inventor and agricultural machinery manufacturer was credited for a relentless campaign to secure this benefit. He considered improved postal communication essential for a successful businessman like himself to operate - and compete with those in other better supplier towns. At this point the post office was in West Street with the Tyler family in charge. The premises tended to change when the postmaster did.
In 1852 the post from Maidenhead arrived at the very precise time of 5.10 am and 2.15pm and left at 10.45am and 8pm. If you wanted to send a letter after that you had to go to a town with a later dispatch and people really did trouble to do so which shows how important the post service was. When I say the post arrived I mean it came by mail cart. Later the train would bring in much post, but it had yet to reach Marlow. Even then letters were still brought by mail cart from Wycombe. The post arrival times were subject to change over the years and so therefore was the time you might get your post delivered at home.
In 1860 the mail cart contractor between Marlow and Maidenhead, Mr Hall suffered an accident near Pinkneys Green. His horse was startled by shooting in a farmers field, bolted and crashed. The cart was smashed to pieces, mail scattered and Hall was much injured. In fact a cart wheel was supposed to have passed over his head which if true makes the prognosis that he'd be able to resume work seems quite miraculous. They did not mention how long the poor man's recovery was expected to take. In 1875 it was announced that the midday mail to Marlow would now arrive by train from Maidenhead rather than cart. No mention is made of a change in transport method for the other delivery yet so either it was already bought by train or there was going to be two ways it came to town.
The next milestone was probably the opening up of telegraphic services at the Great Marlow Post Office from 1870. This meant recruiting more people to deliver the messages. And in 1877 Marlow got it's long awaited third post arrival and dispatch, thanks to the 4.15pm train to Maidenhead.
In 1880 it was possible to officially use a rival parcel delivery option in Marlow. Sutton & Co promised a cheap service through local agents, and the Marlow one was Banbury's the chemist. The Victorian equivalent of an Evri parcel stop! In the following decade there were still three post deliveries a day to the town, and one on a Sunday. The post boxes were cleared in time to get the post to the station at the right hour. If you realised you'd left it too late to post your letter in the usual way, you could go to the West Street post office and pay an extra fee to have it placed directly in the mail bag, up to around 20 minutes after the official time the bags were made up. After that you'd have to wait until the next dispatch. In this decade the mail cart contractor was John Creswell who employed others to actually drive it (I think they were mainly bringing post from High Wycombe). Time keeping was taken very seriously and this lead John getting into trouble in 1881. His horse fell and cut its knee. He tried to secure another one in time to take the mail out at the right hour but could not. So unfortunately he decided to allow his driver Charles Shephard to take out the injured horse. This was reported to the police, and so John was bought before the magistrates and given the maximum fine of £5 for cruelty to the horse.
Snow drifts and other difficulties
Everyday difficulties in the town for our Victorian postman included vandalism of the post boxes (the enamel tablets giving the collection times were constantly removed), the occasional theft of mail bags and complaints at the posties spending too much time waiting at the door for someone to answer when not all had letter boxes. Then there was the possibility of the Wycombe mail cart getting stuck in a snow drift as happened in 1893 at Borroughs Grove. The dedicated driver abandoned the cart and bought what mail he could on horseback, but it arrived a day late.
The 1890s
At this time our main post office was still in West Street, and John C Butler was postmaster. It opened from 7am-8pm and on Sundays from 7am - 10am for letter or telegraph business. But if you wanted to take advantage of one of the other services offered over the counter, such as buying insurance or a money order, or a licence you had to wait until after 9am and couldn't buy these at all on a Sunday. By now the post was dispatched from the town 4 times a day, while post arrived three times. The boxes were emptied either 4 or 5 times a day and actual household deliveries were usually twice daily. You could however call at the post office to collect a letter possibly waiting for you if you were really in a hurry to receive it. And it was still possible to pay extra and slip your last minute letter across the counter if you'd just missed the last posting time. The main boxes were described as positioned at Thames Lawn (not the house currently known as Thames Lawn, this one was adjacent to the lock and you will still see a little wall box there in Mill Road), near the parish church, (may be referring to the wall box currently at the church hall but photographs show one at this period in a wall opposite Station Rd on the other side of the High Street), in York Rd (gone), Station Road (gone), and in Chapel Street (gone).
The distant outpost known as Institute Rd...
In the mid 1890s the increased trade at the Post Office made some in the town question whether we didn't need a bigger and more modern building to host it. It had been slightly enlarged in 1883 to accommodate an increased parcel traffic but this wasn't enough. This issue would rumble on a very very long time. The post authorities agreed the existing building was not only too small for current demand, but "unsanitary". They had secretly planned to find an alternative for several years they claimed. This claim would infuriate post master John Butler. He said he'd constantly complained in private letters to his bosses about how dire the conditions were in West Street. The health of his staff had suffered he said. But he'd been rebuffed as the Post Office said the income at Marlow didn't justify the expense of either finding a bigger premises or making good the old. After two years of threatening to resign as his health was worth more than any lost income, he did so in September 1897. He saw out his 3 months notice and wrote to remind the Post Office that the lease there expired in a few weeks, and he wondered what exactly they planned to do about that. This was all happening behind the scenes.
One proposal was to build a purpose built premises in Institute Rd where there were plenty of undeveloped plots available. The Post Office went as far as to draw up a plan of how the building might look but if they hoped the locals would be impressed they were wrong. They said Institute Rd was not central enough, despite running directly off the High Street. If the post office had to move, it should be in the High Street itself they said. A vote at a public meeting in 1894 condemned the Institute Rd site as unsuitable. They said the 30 or so commercial travellers who came to the town each week usually put up at The Crown at the other end of the High Street to Institute Rd and would be inconvenienced by having to walk to the new site. It's slightly baffling that a walk of probably 3 minutes would be considered something that would put off these commercial men from visiting Marlow but the residents of West Street were also unhappy that their convenient branch would be lost to the very slightly further away High Street let alone Institute Rd. (Three times as many people signed a petition for the office to stay in West Street as signed one to move it to the High Street.) One advantage of the new Institute Rd site was considered to be that it would be (slightly) nearer Shaw's boat house and that as a large number of letters and telegrams came their way relating to the hire of boats, it would save some delivery time. But the needs of the locals should come before tourists it was declared.
There were more public meetings and an unofficial group of local citizens were tasked with finding a possible High Street site that would suit the Post Office but without initial success. Some locals were sceptical that the local committee would make any progress anyway because they said the gentleman could shortlist any site they liked but it would be no good if the owner didn't wish to sell. And knowing the town was desperate the owner would probably charge a high price for the building. A deputation even met the Post Master General. He agreed to stay the Institute Rd plan to give time for a more locally supported alternative to be found. The Post Office would be willing to rent somewhere they said, if the rent was reasonable. (They eventually said they'd only be willing to rent an existing building and would not fund a purchase or a new build after all.) An alternative plan to improve the existing West Street premises were considered but this was found to be too difficult and expensive. A proposal to raise a private subscription to pay for a new build in West Street never got off the ground.
So what would the never to be built Institute Rd alterative have looked like? It would have had a resident for the Marlow post master next to and connected with the main post office building. You'd have entered through a spacious lobby in which all the post office notices would be displayed. Then proceeding through some swing doors, you'd enter the main room 22ft square with polished mahogany counters. Leading off this would be an office for the Marlow post master and a 40ft long 22ft wide sorting office fitted with "swing seats" for the postman. Then there were rooms for the telegraph staff and various other offices and a separate entrance for parcels. Sounds very efficient and much different to the "cribbed, cabined and confined" West Street premises. (Or as a letter writer to a local paper called it, "a miserable excuse for a post office".)
A home at last
The list of potential properties on West Street or the High Street considered as a potential site is indeed long. It included the old malt house and Langston's original boot stores, both in the High Street as well as numerous residential properties. Many of these look no more spacious than the existing post office, and the residents were not usually very receptive to the idea of being turfed out. Someone had the idea that the new stables of New Court that fronted the High Street (next to what's now W H Smith) should be demolished as an eye sore and affront to the town and the post office put up there.
Finally, after three years of public meetings, protests and indignant letter writing, Cromwell House in the High Street became available, almost opposite old Mr Fields premises. At first the fact the drawing room was on a different level to the front room was considered to scupper the plan to use this part as a sorting office. But after a little more investigation it was felt the levelling of the two would not cost as much as initially feared. Still it seems the Post Office originally rejected Cromwell House when it first became available. The reminder sent by retiring Marlow post master John Charlton Butler that the lease on the West Street premises was due to run out in a matter of weeks seems to have panicked them into action. A deputation came to John and asked him if he'd allow the premises to be used for longer under a new post master but he utterly refused. It was against his conscience to allow what he considered a dangerously unhealthy place to continue in use.
So alterations were made to Cromwell House and a nice new lamp was affixed outside. John Charlton Butler later revealed that the move there from West Street was done at such speed that it was chaotic and a lot of property had been left behind with him. After a few weeks and more reminders a frustrated John said he'd begun using the left behind papers as fire lighters and would continue! He was very bitter at both his former bosses and members of the town council - "parasites" as he referred to them - who he said were taking credit for getting a new premises. The new post master was John William Langdon.
Still the Post Office was satisfied. The residents of West Street were not, and successfully petitioned to get a sub post office in their Street which opened in June 1898. This was described as nearly opposite the old one, and in the premises of clothier A E Sutton. (Sutton occupied three different premises in West Street, the last was the former Sycamore House boarding house which he took over in 1901.) I should mention that there was also a sub post office at this time in Station Rd at the corner of Mill Rd in a grocers. It was proposed that if the authorities thought Marlow a little over supplied this could be closed in exchange for allowing the West Street sub to open but it survived. I expect the poor post master general had had more than enough of Great Marlow by then and had no appetite for an avalanche of letters from disgruntled Station Rd residents!
Edwardian Era and beyond
So did the post office live happily ever after? Hmm, some people are never satisfied. A 1904 visitor to the town said Marlow couldn't count as a modern sort of place as its post office closed at 8pm on weekdays and 5pm on Sundays. In Maidenhead you could visit the post office at 9pm he said, and at Wycombe you could still post letters to London at 11.30pm. What they would have thought of our current arrangements?
The mail cart was still running between Maidenhead and High Wycombe via Marlow to supplement the use of the train at the time of the first world war. In 1911 the cart was struck by lightning at Pinkneys Green. Both horse and man were rendered senseless but amazingly after 30 mins they were recovered enough to continue onwards. The driver did admit to feeling "a bit queer" for sometime afterwards as well he might.
As for additional sub post offices, the residents of Marefield petitioned for one in their area for many years but it did not open there until June 1939. (In the Queen's Rd shop of Mr Porter).
Written and researched by Kathryn Day.
Related Posts:
Victorian Postman Plumridge here (also covers workings of late Victorian post office here)
Will of postmaster James Field 1849 and his wife Sarah 1855 here
Life of the poetic postmaster, radical and friend of Shelley William Tyler -here
For biographies of other post office staff eg postmen/letter carriers see the General History index occupations section here
General posts about Marlow history here
To find every mention of an individual here, use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. There's over 6,000 people listed there.
SOURCES INCLUDE:
Kelly's Directory for Buckinghamshire 1852, 1854, 1883, 1889, 1905, 1911, 1920, 1939. (Kelly's Directories Ltd)
Notice - Changes to Postal Delivery - 1874, 1875, 1877. Thanks to James Purdsey for a view of these.
Marlow Guide 1903 & 1905
Census, 1841-91 - Transcript from the microfilm made by Jane Pullinger.
Berkshire Chronicle 29th April 1848, Gloucester Journal 30th March 1801, South Bucks Free Press 27th October 1860, Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News 9th April 1870, Bucks Herald - 17th February 1877, 30th July 1881 & 3rd June 1911, and South Bucks Standard 24th April 1891, 18th & 25th May, 6th July & 31st August 1894, 15th Feb 1895, 6th August 1897, 12th Feb & 24th June 1898, 9th September 1904 - these copies via the BNA.
Slough, Windsor and Eton Express Oct 31 1885 - Slough Libraries.
Slater's Commercial Directory 1850
Maidenhead Advertiser 31st March 1880, 22nd November 1883 - Bayliss Media Archive.
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