April 5. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



267 



run night and day between Edinburgh and Scot- 

 land and the City of London, to go thither and 

 come back again in six days:" branch posts were 

 also to be established with all the principal towns 

 on the road : the rates of postage were fixed at Id. 

 under 80 miles ; Ad. for 140 miles; 6rf. beyond; 

 and 8c?. to Scotland. This is conclusive evidence 

 that a regular post-ofBce establishment existed 

 nearly ten years before Prideaujc had anything tp 

 do with the post-office. 



In 1640, a proclamation was issued by the Long 

 Pitrliament, by which the offices of Foreign and 

 Inland Postmaster (then held by Witherings) were 

 sequestrated into the hands of one Philip Burla- 

 machy, a city merchant- Soon after this we find a 

 Committee of the Commons, with "Master Ed- 

 mund Prideaux " for chairman, inquiring into the 

 matter. 



In 1644, a resolution of the Commons declared 

 that " Edmuiid Prideaux, Esq., a member of the 

 Houee," -was " constituted master of the posts, 

 messengers, and couriei's." 



In 1649 Prideaux established a weekly con- 

 veyance to every part of the kingdom ; and also 

 appears to have introduced other judicious reforms 

 and improvements, — indeed he seems to have been 

 the Rowland Hill of those days ; but he has not 

 the slightest claim to be considered as the " In- 

 ventor of the Post-office." The mistake may have 

 arisen from a misapprehension of the following 

 statement from Blackstone: " Prideaux first esta- 

 blished a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts 

 of the nation, thereby saving to the public the charge 

 of maintaining postmasters, to the amount of 7000/. 

 per annum." 



I have not been able to obtain any particulars 

 of Prideaux's personal history. JMercurii. 



Jememutha Magna. 



Edmund Prideaux and the First Post-office. — 

 See the Appendix to the Report of the Secret 

 Committee of the House of Commons on the 

 Detaining and Opening of Letters at the Post- 

 Office, 1844, which contains copies of numerous 

 documents furnished by Mr. Lechmcre and Sir 

 Francis Palgrave. Arun. 



[We avail ourselves of this opportunity of inserting 

 the foUuwing extract from Mr. Rowland Hill's Post- 

 Office Reform ; its Importance and Praiticability, p. 86. 

 of the third edition, published in 1837, as it shows 

 clearly the use which Mr. Rowland Hill made of the 

 story in his great work of Postage, Reform ; and that 

 Miss Martiueau had clearly no authority for fathering 

 tike story in question upon that gentleman : — 



" Coleridge tells a story which slvows Ik)w much the 

 Post-office is o|>en to fraud, in consc(|ueiM:e of the 

 option as to |)je-paynieat which i\qw exists. The story 

 is as follows: — 



' Une day, when. I had not a shilling- which I couldi 

 spare, 1 was passing by a cottage not far from Keswick, 

 where a letter-carrier was den)anding a shilling for a 



letter, which the woman of the house appeared unwill- 

 ing to pay, and at last declined to take. 1 paid ihe 

 postage, and when the man was out of sight, she told 

 me that the letter was from her son, who took that 

 means of letting her know that he was Well ; the letter 

 was not to be paid for. It was then opened and found 

 to he blank !'* 



" This trick is so obvious a one that in all probability 

 it is extensively practised." 



The quotations of your correspondent G. P. P., 

 from Pulwhele's Cornwall, relate to the same in- 

 dividual, and a more general construction must, I 

 think, be put upon the expression " our country- 

 man," than that it inferred a native of the county. 

 The family of Prideaux was one of great antiquity, 

 and originated in Cornwall (their first seat beini' 

 at Prideaux Castle there), and had estates there in 

 the time of the above Edmund. His father, Sir 

 Edmund Prideaux, of Netherton (the first ba- 

 ronet), studied the law in the Inner Temple, where 

 he became very eminent for his skill and learnino-. 

 He is stated to have raised a large estate in the 

 counties of Devon and Cornwall. He married 



* * *; secondly, Catherine, daughter of Piers 

 Edgecombe, of Mount Edgecombe, Esq., by whom 

 he had two sons, Sir Peter his successor, and 

 Edmund, the subject of your correspondent's 

 Queries, who is thus described in Prince's Worthies 

 of Devon, p. 509. : — 



" This gentleman was bred to the law, and of so great 

 a reputation, as well for zeal to religion as skill in the 

 law, it is not strange he was chosen a Member of that 

 which was called the Long Parliament, wherein he 

 became a very leading man ; for, striking in with the 

 prevailing party of those times (though he never joined 

 with them in setting upon the life of Ids Sovereign), he 

 grew up lo great wealth and dignity. He was made 

 Commissioner of the Great Seal [1643. Rushworth, 

 vol. iii. p. 24-2.], worth 1500/. a-year and by ordinanfe 

 of Parliament practised within the bar as one of the 

 king's counsel, worth 5000/. per annum. After that 

 he was Attorney General, worth what he pleased to make 



it [! I], and then Postmaster General 



from all which rich employments he acquired a great 

 estate, and among other things purchased the Al}hty of 

 Ford, lying in the Parish of Thorncombe, in Devon- 

 shire, where he built a noble new house out of the 

 ruins of the old," &c. 



Prideaux cannot be called the inventor of the 

 Post-office, although to him may be attributed the 

 extension of the system. The first inland letter 

 office, which, however, extended to some of the 

 principal roads only, was established by Charles I. 

 in 1635, under the direction of Thomas Witherings, 

 who was superseded in 1640. On the breaking 

 out of the civil war, great confusion was occasioned 

 in the conduct of the office, and about that time 

 Prideaux's plan seems to have been conceived. 



* Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. 

 Coleridge, vol. ii. p. 114. 



