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The
Post Office
Postal services
were a vital part of Bourne's business communications during the 19th century. A General Post Office was established in England by Act of Parliament in 1656 and the collection and delivery of mail was mainly carried out by the regular coaching services but it was generally a costly business. The introduction of the penny post by Rowland Hill in 1840 brought the postal service within the reach of everyone and therefore resulted in a tremendous increase in the volume of mail and by 1849, the number of letters carried had reached almost seven million.
This was of particular benefit to shopkeepers and businesses in those days before the telephone existed and the first Post Office was opened in Abbey Road
in 1847 on the site of the present Corn Exchange building. By 1857, there was a daily collection and delivery of letters under the supervision of Mr Towns Gatliffe,
the town's first postmaster. Horse-drawn carts were used to transport the mail between the Post Office and local railway stations and after the line arrived in the town in 1860, all of the village postal services were eventually linked to Bourne
with a Post Office Savings Bank opening on the premises in 1861.
The telegraph was connected to the Post Office in Bourne early in 1870 and
the first telegram was despatched from the town on Saturday 5th February.
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This picture of the first post office in
Bourne is one of the oldest photographs of the town in existence and
was taken prior to 1870 when the building was pulled down to make
way for the Corn Exchange. It also shows the mail man, John Kettle,
and his horse-drawn mail cart, posing outside. |
The telegraph and post office was moved from the Abbey Road premises in 1870 to
make way for the building of the new Corn Exchange and a new post office
opened in the stone-built premises in the market place, now the town
centre, on the left of what is now Lloyds Bank. Mr Towns Gatliffe remained
as postmaster until Friday 12th February 1875 when he retired with a
pension from the Post Office after 28 years and John Thomas Pearce took
over and ran the business in conjunction with his stationery shop next
door.
The telephone was introduced to Bourne three years later after a
demonstration at the Corn Exchange by Mr T Viccars, of Torquay, "on
Professor Bell's long and short circuit telephones". The Stamford
Mercury reported on Friday 1st March 1878:
There was a highly respectable audience and for
a Saturday night as numerous as might be expected. The Rev G E Massey,
Vicar, presided. The lecturer in a lucid manner explained the physical and
psychological facts which were necessary to understand in connection with
the action of the telephone. One of the rooms of Mr Morris, printer, [in
West Street], had been connected with the Corn Exchange by a wire, and
conversation was carried on between members of the audience and persons at
the other end.
By 1903, the postal services had been considerably extended. J J Davies remembers this post office in his book
Historic Bourne (1909) as " . . . a fine structure, splendidly managed, and equipped with the latest telegraphic and telephonic appliances."
Telephone trunk lines were erected through Bourne in the early years of the
last century. The double poles, known as H-poles, that can be seen on photographs of
the period, were moved into the area by rail direct from the factory in 1906,
the freight train off-loading each consignment at railway stations and sidings
along the route between Peterborough and Lincoln. Those destined for the Bourne
area were then moved to the various sites by George Bullimore, a wood and timber
merchant, based at the Crown Inn [now the Wishing Well] at Dyke, who transported them in wooden drugs,
huge wagons normally used to shift tree trunks and pulled by up to six horses.
Once the holes had been dug for them, they were erected by block and pulley and
then fitted out with the required insulators before being brought into use in
1907.
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This picture was taken at the beginning of the 20th century when
the post office was attached to shop premises in the Market Place.
The billboard announces the annual ploughing match to be held on
11th October 1903 by the Bourne and District Ploughing Society
with a total of £40 in prize money. The postmaster at this time
was Mr John Thomas Pearce whose general stationery stores, selling
a wide variety of goods from books and patent medicines to pianos
and organs, were next door on the left and the lady in the picture
is one of his three daughters who
served behind the counter. |
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Letters from London were arriving four times a day and there were three daily deliveries. The last collection for the capital was between 7 p m and 8 p m and the wall letter boxes that had been introduced in 1853 were so popular that they were being cleared three times a day, the last time varying according to location, between 6.45 p m and 7.05 p m. There were many such post boxes around the town but they were much smaller than those in use today.
John
Pearce died suddenly in January 1905 at the early age of 59 and he was succeeded
as postmaster by his son William who recognised the importance and potential of
the postal work and immediately began enlarging the premises still further,
moving the stationery business to a new shop in North Street. The work was
completed by the autumn and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 24th
November:
During the last few weeks, considerable alterations
have been carried out on the premises that are in future to be used wholly as a
Post Office. The stationery business of Mr Pearce has been removed to North
Street and what used to be the shop and showroom is now converted into rooms for
the Post Office work. A larger counter has been provided and a stand placed near
the window for writing telegrams and in the corner has been placed the public
telephone. Behind the counter, the room, used as a showroom, has been converted
into the telegraph and telephone operators' rooms. The new portion of the Post
Office was opened for public business on Friday last.
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The
letter box from West Street |
The Victorian letter box erected in West Road in July 1891 remained in its original position for almost 100 years when it became too small for the size and quantity of the post from the western end of Bourne but survives as a museum item and is on display in the Heritage Centre in South
Street where it was placed in 1989.
There is another, older wall letter box at Northorpe, a hamlet adjoining Thurlby village, where it has been in use for 150 years. This one
also carries the crest of Victoria Regina although the wall in which it has been set has recently been restored. At the time of its installation, it was emptied
on weekdays at 5.35 p m, five minutes after the collection from Thurlby village post office, and the mail taken by cart to Bourne for sorting and onward transmission while incoming mail was brought to the village by cart at 6.30 a m every day for delivery by the postman. |
The
letter box from Northorpe |
The
horse drawn mail cart used to transport postal items between Bourne and
Peterborough was replaced by a motor van on 10th May 1915, as was the mail
cart from Bourne to Folkingham. The motor van also started making
collections and deliveries at Morton, Haconby, Dunsby, Rippingale and
Kirkby Underwood to connect with despatches from Bourne at 10.30 and 11.45
a m. The new service resulted in some redundancies and Mr A S Allen, who
had driven the mail cart to fetch the night letters for Dowsby for more
than 23 years, was presented with a family bible to mark his lengthy
service together with an acetylene lamp.
Business at Bourne Post Office continued to expand as the population increased and eighty years later, the premises had become so cramped and inconvenient for staff that a new Post Office, complete with sorting office at the rear, was opened
in 1981, one of the most modern in South Lincolnshire. The site chosen was
in West Street and included three old cottages, Nos 22, 24 and 26, that were demolished to make
way for the new development.
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Three old houses
in West Street, numbers 22, 24 and 26, were demolished in 1980 to
make way for the new Post Office building which was opened the
following year. They were owned by the Baptist Church next door.
This picture shows the site being cleared. |
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The land was bought from the Bourne Baptist
Church who had owned it since 1952 when it had been purchased at auction
for £250 although it is not known how much they sold it for. The old Post
Office premises were vacated and subsequently became an off licence and then after several
months of standing empty, were taken over in 2000 by the estate agents Quinney Marks.
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The
old post office premises in North Street when they were being
advertised
"To Let" in the autumn of 1999 |
The new red brick Post Office has been extremely popular with customers, providing more space for their transactions and, more importantly, for the regular queues that build up on pension day and at other busy periods, although there have been some problems. In 1984, the management at Peterborough insisted on closing on Wednesday afternoons to enable staff training sessions to take place to improve the standard of service to customers but townspeople complained that they were being denied a valuable service and the decision was later rescinded after official protests by the town council, the Post Office Users' Council and the local M P, who was then Sir Kenneth Lewis.
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The Post Office may
have modernised its operations over the years but the final
delivery of letters is still dependent on the personal touch. This
is Alan Bottomley, aged 35, a postman for the past 13 years,
carrying out his duties in Beech Avenue, Bourne, during the summer
of July 2001 when staff were allowed to wear light clothing during
the hot weather to make their duties less arduous. |
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A major restructuring of the Post Office in the summer of 1988 brought a fresh threat to the service when, because Bourne was one of the smallest Crown offices in the country, it was proposed to cut costs by downgrading it to an agency office. This would involve handing the business over to an agent or sub-postmaster who would
be offered the premises on lease from the Royal Mail or run it from his own business address. The most acceptable application involved transferring the Post Office to premises
at Nos 42-44 North Street which were then being used as a launderette and although the management considered this, it proved to be a major misjudgement and a wave of public protest followed when the issue was taken up not only by the local newspapers but also by the television and radio channels. The
town council also complained that the premises were totally unsuitable for
postal services and that customers would have to queue outside on the
pavement while vans delivering and collecting mail would create havoc for
passing traffic.
The
management were forced to rethink their strategy and in 1991 the Post Office
appointed a new sub-postmaster who was allowed to stay in the present building
although it is now run under private contract. As a result, the postal services
that were once the only transactions carried out here have been supplemented by
a range of retail outlets such as greetings cards, sweets and stationery,
designed to keep the business economically viable, although the aura is now one
of a shop rather than the trustworthy and reassuring atmosphere that the post
office exuded in past times.
Nevertheless, it remains in appearance and operation, the town's Post Office, a
much loved facility, and in 2003, a second attempt to close it and relocate the
business, this time as a counter service at the back of a liquor store 50 yards
down West Street towards the Market Place, was abandoned after several months of
protest by the public and local organisations.
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TO REST THE FEET
A public seat was installed outside the Post
Office in March 2004 to enable old people arriving here to collect
their pensions each week sit while waiting their turn. It was
provided by South Kesteven District Council to match other street
furniture in the town, made of metal to deter vandals and embossed
with their coat of arms. |
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THE POST OFFICE
IN PAST TIMES
In 1744, the people of
Bourne were very excited and annoyed. They received no letters.
The mail man arrived as usual, but no post bag, and he told the
angry people that his van had been held up by highwaymen and all
his letters and parcels taken from him.
- from Bourne and People associated with Bourne by J T Swift
(1925).
The day delivery of letters in
Bourne, which previously took place shortly after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, now commences about 11.30 a m. The train, which heretofore was due at
Bourne at 10.58 a m, is now timed so as to reach Bourne at 11.20. By this alteration, a letter posted in London early in the morning may be delivered at
Bourne the same day about noon. - news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 9th November 1860.
A few days ago, Mr John B Roberts, chemist, of North Street,
Bourne, received a letter through the post upon which was written
the following address: "In the care of the Postmaster of Bourne
Fen, County Lincolnshire. To be forwarded to a Man That keeps a
Druggist shop about 40 yards on the Morton Road on the right hand
side." It appears that the writer, an Irishman, was sometime since
at work in the fens in this neighbourhood and during that time had
purchased ague medicine of Mr Roberts and having forgotten his
name, he adopted the above novel plan of finding him. - news
item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 1st March 1861. |
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THE MAIL CARTS |
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FOR MORE THAN half a
century, mail was carried
between Sleaford and Peterborough by a horse drawn cart, calling
at Bourne on the way. The final trip was photographed (above) at
Thurlby crossroads in 1915. The driver was Mr J B Toulson who did
the return journey every night for thirteen years at a weekly wage
of 18 shillings [£42 in today's money].
The job was not without its hazards and on the evening
of Tuesday 24th December 1861, Christmas Eve, there was great
anxiety in the town because the mail cart which was due at 8 p m
did not arrive. It later transpired that the cart had overturned
at Graby Bar, a tollgate six miles north of the town on what is
now the A15, and smashed to pieces, badly injuring the driver who
was thrown out on to the roadside. A fresh horse and cart were
produced at Aslackby and a gentleman from that place, accompanied
by a police officer, brought the mail to Bourne, arriving two
hours later than scheduled. The driver appears to have
been celebrating the festive season when called out to help
because the Stamford Mercury reported the following Friday
that "the person in charge of the cart was in anything but a
proper state to be entrusted with the conveyance of the mail
bags". The regular driver's injuries were so serious that he was
taken into the tollhouse at Graby Bar and was there for several
days recovering.
Seven years later, Martin Maile was badly hurt while driving the mail cart on this run. On
Sunday night, 16th August 1868, he was thrown out between Thurlby
and Baston and sustained serious head injuries. He was picked up
and brought back to Bourne in a wagon, the mail cart being driven
into Peterborough to complete its journey by a policeman who
happened to be near the scene at the time. The cause of the
accident was never established but it was thought that the horses
had been startled by something and the driver could not handle the
animals sufficiently well to prevent the mishap.
There was always great public concern if the mail was late. On
Friday 7th January 1870, the Stamford Mercury reported:
"The driver of the mail cart between Bourne and Sleaford on
Tuesday last inadvertently took the Folkingham bag on to Sleaford.
The letters were not delivered here until between 12 and 1
o'clock, being about five hours after the usual time, thereby
causing much inconvenience."
At 8 pm on the night of Sunday 14th September 1873, the mail cart
was in collision with a carriage outside the police station in
North Street, Bourne, in which both shafts were broken off. The
carriage driven by Mr George Bettinson was also badly damaged but
no one sustained any injuries.
The following year, on Thursday 28th May 1874, the horse pulling
the mail cart from Sleaford to Bourne fell as it approached
Aslackby and was so seriously injured that it could not continue.
Another horse was produced from a nearby farm to complete the
journey but despite the setback, the mail was only delayed by an
hour.
In 1876, while on its way to Peterborough on the evening of
Friday 29th January, the cart arrived an hour and a half behind
schedule and the Stamford Mercury reported the following
week: "It appears that the driver was intoxicated and by some
means, the horse turned down Cawthorpe Lane, about a mile north of
the town, and upset the cart, the driver being underneath the
horse. Had there not been another person riding with the driver at
the time, the man's life might have been sacrificed; he was
seriously injured and had to be taken to the house of Major
Parker's gardener on Friday night and remained there until Monday
when he was taken to Sleaford where he resides. We understand that
the mail cart on the same night (before the accident) had got it
wrong and run off the main road at Aswarby."
Another late occurrence was reported by the newspaper on
Friday 10th July 1891: "The mail cart running between
Sleaford and Peterborough was fully twenty minutes late two nights
last week. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
make up for lost time after the fresh relay of horses at Bourne.
The delay must seriously affect public business. On Thursday
evening, the pair of horses arriving in Bourne presented a
pitiable spectacle. They had virtually broken down at Morton where
the driver dismounted and laboured to assist them at the shafts.
The utmost speed the exhausted creatures could muster appeared to
be a sorry attempt at a walk."
There was another accident on the evening of Tuesday 4th June 1895
when the mail cart reached Dyke and was descending a hill on the
road into town. A bird struck the overhead telegraph wires and
fell directly on the horse's head, causing it to swerve suddenly.
The driver tried to keep control but was unable to prevent the
horse from falling and sustaining serious injury while he himself
was thrown out, suffering shock and extensive bruising. Villagers
rallied to the rescue and one of them cycled into Bourne to fetch
a fresh horse while another took the mail bags in his trap. |
See
also
John Thomas Pearce
Banking
in Bourne
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