Part 7 (1/2)
”The Board have placed the subject of the Commissioners' enquiry in the several points of view which appear to them fairly to arise upon the investigation and consideration it has received, and they shall feel sincere gratification if, on this or any future occasion, they should in the least degree prove of a.s.sistance to a department of Government, or should otherwise by their exertions conduce to the advancement of the public interests.
”THOMAS STOCK, President.
July 7th, 1828.”
A strong memorial (under the hand of Thomas Cookson, President) was forwarded to the Postmaster-General.
Francis Freeling, Secretary, in his reply for the Postmaster-General, refused to admit that the port of Bristol did afford the requisite facilities for a station for His Majesty's packets. When the projected works were carried out the matter would be reconsidered by the Government.
Replying further, Mr. Freeling, on the 2nd March, alluded to the impossibility of despatching the mails at a fixed time every day in the year, and said that that presented insurmountable objections to the choice of Bristol as a station for His Majesty's packets. He said that the first requisite for a packet station was that the port should afford the means for embarking and landing the mails at all times of tide and under all circ.u.mstances of weather.
The Bristol Dock Directors and a Standing Committee of the Society of Merchants considered the matter, but did not see their way to press it under the chilling response received from the Postmaster-General.
The Board did not give up the case, for in the Annual Report 28th January, 1833, it was stated that the proposition for establis.h.i.+ng at this port a mail packet station by steam vessels to the South of Ireland was being diligently pursued, and that the House of Commons having appointed a Committee to enquire into the communications between England and Ireland, a favourable opportunity was presented of again urging the advantages Bristol port was calculated to afford.
The numerous appeals, representations, and enquiries did not result in the manner desired, and to this day the mails from the South of Ireland for Bristol and its district follow the same route _via_ Waterford and Milford Haven, the only difference being that from the latter port to Bristol the service is carried on by rail instead of by road.
Bristol became a mail packet station eventually, as steams.h.i.+ps carried the American mails between this port and New York for several years, commencing in 1837, the year of Her Most Gracious Majesty's accession to the throne. The _Great Western_, constructed under the direction of Brunel, the famous engineer of the Great Western Railway, was chiefly used in the service.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ”GREAT WESTERN.”
THE FIRST STEAMER WHICH CARRIED MAILS FROM BRISTOL TO NEW YORK.]
On the 31st May, 1838, writing from 19 Trinity Street, Bristol, Mr.
Claxton, managing director to the _Great Western_--which was then, nearly due,--asked the Bristol postmaster whether a consignee at New York might charge the foreign postage on letters to parts on the Continent with which no arrangement, similar to that then existing between France and England, had been made. The idea was that such letters might be put into a separate bag, and the foreign postage from Bristol be handed over to the local Post Office. He wrote that notice had been given by the Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool that masters of s.h.i.+ps need not send anything but letters to the Post Office on arrival.
Mr. Todd Walton replied on the next day to the effect that the agent should only direct letters to Mr. Claxton's care to forward from such persons as he could refer to in case of errors. Then followed a long communication from Mr. Walton to Colonel Maberly, Secretary to the Post Office, the gist of which was that a difficulty existed in preventing illegal conveyance of s.h.i.+p letters; that the commanders of vessels did not receive money with letters to any great extent; that the public prints stated that 1,600 letters were received on board the _Great Western_ besides those sent from the Post Office; that an immense number of letters was collected at the Great Western office; and that as the _Great Western_ and _Syrius_ were regularly established, and other vessels of the same description were preparing, unless some means were taken to protect the revenue, it could not fail to suffer very considerably.
The _Great Western_ brought to England 5,500 post letters and 1,770 post papers, which, had that conveyance not been offered, would most likely have been sent by private s.h.i.+ps. Mr. Walton conceived it would be very advantageous to the revenue to contract with those superior vessels to carry mails, so as to render the latter chargeable with package rates; and he submitted that s.h.i.+p letter mails should be made up at Bristol, the same as at London and Liverpool, for all vessels leaving this port.
About 5,500 s.h.i.+p letters were brought to the Bristol Post Office annually, and he had no doubt that vast numbers were carried from Bristol in the same manner; but with the exception of those by the _Great Western_, no mails had ever been made up here for foreign countries. The Secretary, replying for the Postmaster-General, said it did not appear to Lord Lichfield that cognizance need be taken of the suggestion conveyed in Mr. Claxton's letter of the 31st May, for the transmission through this country of letters from the United States addressed to those foreign countries upon which the postage must be paid here before they can be forwarded to their destination. The Post Office could have no objection to such letters being addressed to the care of Mr. Claxton or any other agent in this country who would pay the foreign postage and send them on to their destinations. The letters in question, would, of course, be subject, so far as the Post Office was concerned, to the s.h.i.+p letter rate to Bristol, and when re-posted, to the inland and foreign rates forward.
The postmaster's proposition for making up mails to be forwarded by the steam vessels charged with packet rates of postage was out of the question; but with regard to making up s.h.i.+p letter bags for foreign countries, so strangely neglected at this great port, the postmaster was to embrace every opportunity in his power of despatching s.h.i.+p letter bags by sailing as well as by steam vessels. There is no official record, however, of any such s.h.i.+p letter mails having been forwarded from Bristol.
In the year 1841 a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into the question of the most suitable port for the embarkation and debarkation of the West Indian Mails. The committee consisted of Mr. Freshfield, Lord Dalmeny, Lord Viscount Ingestre, Captain Pech.e.l.l, Captain Duncombe, Mr. Chas. Wood, Sir Thomas Cochrane, Mr. John O'Connell, Mr. Cresswell, Lord Worsley, Mr. Gibson Craig, Mr. De Horsey, Mr. Oswold, Mr. Richard Hodgson, and Mr. Philip Miles, who was prominent as representing Bristol. Much evidence was given in favour of the ports of Bristol, Dartmouth, Devonport, Falmouth, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Southampton respectively. The case of Bristol was strongly supported by Lieut. J.
Hosken, R.N., commander of the _Great Western_ screw steamer from Bristol to New York, and Lieut. C. Claxton, R.N., the Bristol Harbour Master.
The princ.i.p.al reasons put forward in favour of our old port were: that the Bristol Channel was navigable at all states of the tide and in all weathers; that there was good anchorage in the Kingroad; and that although Bristol was not quite so near to Barbadoes, the first island of call, as some of her rival ports, yet it admitted of quicker transmission of mails between London and the northern towns than any other English port. The arguments in favour of the Bristol port were not strong enough to induce the committee to report in its favour.
From the ”forties,” when the American mail service was withdrawn from Bristol, no foreign or colonial mails left the port until the autumn of 1898, when Mr. Alfred Jones, the enterprising managing director of the firm of Messrs. Elder, Dempster & Co., made arrangements for carrying private s.h.i.+p mails from Avonmouth to Montreal by a weekly service of steamers. The Bristol merchants found it convenient to make use of this s.h.i.+p mail system for the conveyance of their invoices, bills of lading, and advices, as, by travelling in the same s.h.i.+p as the goods which they related to, their delivery in time to be of use in connection with the s.h.i.+p's load was ensured. The first vessel to carry such a s.h.i.+p mail was the s.s. _Montcalm_.
When it was in antic.i.p.ation at the Bristol Post Office that the s.h.i.+p mail service might be resumed in 1899 on the breaking up of the ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there came a cablegram from the Canadian Government intimating that a contract had been entered into with Messrs.
Elder, Dempster and Co.; and, heigh presto! Avonmouth at once became the port of departure and arrival of the steamers carrying the direct Canadian mails. The suddenness of the event naturally created quite a stir after Bristol had been so long waiting, and the mail services outwards and inwards were watched with close attention by the public.
The first steamer to run under the new contract was the s.s. _Monterey_.
She left Avonmouth on the 23rd July, but time had not admitted of arrangements being made for her to carry the mails from Avonmouth, which were therefore picked up at Queenstown. The s.s. _Ikbal_ took the next trip, leaving Avonmouth on the 30th July. The parcels from the whole of the kingdom, including Ireland, were circulated on Bristol, and made up here in direct mails for Montreal, Quebec, Hamilton, Kingston, Toronto, Winnipeg, Prince Edward Island, Hawaii, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Kobe, Nagasaki, and Yokohama. The notice to the Bristol Post Office was very short, but the necessary arrangements were smartly made to meet the emergency. Mr. Kislingbury, the divisional superintendent of the Great Western Railway, ever ready to heartily co-operate with the local Post Office, had a special tender placed in readiness for the reception of the mails at Temple Meads and they were despatched by the 9.50 a.m. train to Avonmouth. On the part of the Dock authorities, the general manager, Mr. F. B. Girdlestone, had provided an engine to take the brake-vans containing the parcel mails direct from the Docks junction to the pier head. The system was fully tried, for the mails had to be taken from the train to the steam-tug _Sea Prince_ to be conveyed to the steamer, which was moored in Kingroad, having arrived too late to enter the dock. The mails weighed close upon three tons, and were contained in fifty-five large hampers. In the following week the s.s. _Arawa_ (a sixteen-knot boat, 440 feet long) carried the mails, which were taken by train alongside the s.h.i.+p in dock; and which consequently, although five tons in weight, were put on board under much more favourable circ.u.mstances than in the preceding week, when the steamer had to lie out in the Kingroad. It is noteworthy that the _Arawa_ took out 400 emigrants.
[Ill.u.s.tration: R.M.S. ”MONTEREY.”
FIRST LINER IN THE NEW CANADIAN MAIL SERVICE.