The History of the Postmarks of the British Isles from 1840 to 1876 - John Hendy (1909)

—
30 THE POSTMARKS OF THE BRITISH ISLES FROM mO.
medium of the post had at various times been suggested by interested parties. For
various reasons the Post Office officials had objected to any such proposal, but particularly
on the ground that if it became known that the Mail Coaches were the only
conveyances carrying such valuable packages, they would become the sole object for
plunder, either by collusion or direct attack, thereby endangering all other valuable
property circulated by means of the post. It was also a matter of notoriety that many
Bankers' parcels, containing property to an immense amount, had been stolen from
coaches from time to time, and with all the Bankers' exertions for the safety of their
property, their agents were repeatedly plundered.
On the nth September, 1822, a Banker's parcel was stolen from the Ipswich Mail
Coach, containing value to the amount of nearly forty thousand pounds of re-issuable
bank notes, which were in the charge of a confidential clerk of the owners, who travelled as
a passenger by the coach. A reward of five thousand pounds was offered for information
which would lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of the robbery, but nothing further was
heard of the matter, so that it was surmised that the affair was the work of confederates
who travelled as passengers by the same coach. This robbery led Bankers and their
friends in Parliament to commence a strenuous agitation, and using all their influence
with the Government of the time, they promoted, early in the year 1825, a Bill in Parliament
" For the conveyance of packets containing re-issuable Country Bank notes by
the post from London, and for granting rates of postage for the conveyance of such
packets." This Bill became an Act of Parliament (5 Geo. IV. c. 20). One of the regulations
for the conveyance of Bankers' parcels through the post was that no packet was
to be conveyed under the provisions of the Act unless it exceeded six ounces in weight.
The charge for such packets was one-fourth of the ordinary postage rate, viz :— the same
charge for an ounce as for a single letter rate, and the contents of the packets should be
nothing whatever but " Notes issued by Country Bankers under annual license, and
payable at the houses of their respective agents in London (and which notes shall have
been paid by such agents in London) for conveyance by post within Great Britain to the
Bank in the place at which such notes were first issued ;
and to no other place." Under
a later Act (i Vic. c. 36) it was enacted "That every person who shall send or cause
to be sent a Banker's parcel, wherein or upon the cover whereof there shall be writing or
communication or anything other than negociable notes contrary to the Post Office laws
or the regulations of the Postmaster-General, shall forfeit ^100."
All regulation as to the conveyance of such parcels was vested in the Postmaster-
General, whose officers were, in cases of suspicion that anything was contained in the
packets, save and except re-issuable notes, empowered under the Act to detain and open
them, after notice in writing had been sent to the sender. Among the various regulations
made in the chief office, London, for dealing with the receipt and dispatch of such
parcels, was that they were to be prepaid and marked with a peculiar stamp that " will
be different from any now in use, and will be of the following shape" ;
Fig. 140.