11 h 32 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Who should profit when a letter travels: the Crown, the carrier, or the public?
In The History of the British Post Office, Joseph Clarence Hemmeon follows the mail from royal messengers to a national service. Kings need orders carried. Merchants want reliable letters. As the Crown opens its posts to ordinary people, carrying messages becomes a struggle over money, access, and control.
Hemmeon looks behind the letter to the system that moves it: who runs the routes, who pays, and who may compete. He traces monopolies, slow journeys, costly rates, and the reforms that bring the penny stamp. Each change sharpens a question: is the post a business, a source of tax, or a public service?
What you’ll discover
- Messengers serving the Crown Follow the royal orders, news, and warnings that give the early post its purpose.
- The public enters See how merchants’ need for reliable letters helps turn royal routes toward wider use.
- Profit meets monopoly Explore a system that reserves paid letter carrying for the official post and excludes rivals.
- The cost of distance Discover why a letter’s journey and number of sheets shape what its recipient pays.
- A changing public purpose Trace the shift from court tool and royal income to a service nearly everyone uses.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy how institutions grow, anyone curious about the roots of the stamp and the mail coach, and students of economic or British history.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The post begins as the king's messenger
- The Crown opens the posts to the public
- A monopoly brings profit and quarrels
- Better roads and coaches speed the mail
- High rates and free letters distort the system
- What the post office teaches about public service
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Histoire du Poste britannique
by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon · 1912
From royal riders to the penny stamp, Britain's post reveals a struggle over who pays and who profits.
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In short
This is a history of how Britain came to have a national postal service. It was written by Joseph Clarence Hemmeon, an economist, and published in the early twentieth century as a scholarly study.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
The post begins as the king's messenger
The story starts with the needs of government. English kings had always sent messengers with orders, news and warnings, and in Tudor times this work became more organised. A royal official, known as the Master of the Posts, oversaw the system. Under Henry VIII, Brian Tuke held that kind of office.
The method was simple. Along the main roads, towns or inns kept horses ready at set points called post stages. A rider carried the royal packet to the next stage, handed it on, and a fresh horse took it further. Speed mattered most, because a delayed order could cost a battle or a province.
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What is The History of the British Post Office about?
It traces the British postal system from the royal messengers of the Tudor age to the reforms of the nineteenth century, looking at who ran the posts, how they were paid for, and how rates and service changed.
Who was Joseph Clarence Hemmeon?
Hemmeon was an economist who wrote this study of the British post in the early twentieth century. It was published in a university series of economic studies and looks at the post mainly through finance and administration.
Who started the penny post and the Penny Black?
Rowland Hill argued for cheap, uniform postage paid in advance by the sender. His plan led to the penny post in 1840 and to the first adhesive postage stamp, known as the Penny Black.
The author
Joseph Clarence Hemmeon
1880–? · Historian
Joseph Clarence Hemmeon was an economist who studied the institutions of public finance and communication. His History of the British Post Office was published as a scholarly study in the Harvard Economic Studies series. He is mainly known for this work on the growth and administration of the British postal system.
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