![]() The longer a postal worker stands still the bigger the dots become. Images shown at the committee on Wednesday showed a bar chart comparing individual postal workers' stop times while delivering and a map with yellow dots that display postal workers' dwell time. The Royal Mail chief executive, Simon Thompson, reappeared before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee after being asked to clarify statements. The first ever stamp, it slashed the costs of postage to the point where all but the very poorest could afford to use the post. And they did – in 1839, only 67 letters were processed by the Royal Mail, but five years later the number had ballooned to 170 million, permanently revolutionising the country's relationship with the postal service.The head of Royal Mail has acknowledged policy breaches in monitoring postal workers' delivery speed. ![]() This all changed in 1840, when the Royal Mail stopped charging by distance and instead introduced the Penny Black. Spend a pennyĮven two hundred years after Charles I opened the postal service to the public, the expense of using it meant mail remained the preserve of the wealthy. ![]() A fatal accident at a rocket demonstration in 1964 resulted in West Germany imposing a ban on civilian rocket experimentation. They weren't convinced, but Zucker continued to promote the idea until the 1970s, without success. After failing to interest postmasters in his home country, German engineer Gerhard Zucker came to England in 1834 to try and win the Royal Mail over with his plans for transporting letters via rocket. Rocket speedĪs mail transportation has evolved from horse to carriage to rail, it's understandable that a rocket engineer might get ideas about the next step in postal delivery. In World War Two, 250,000 pigeons were used for communications, of which 16 were awarded the newly created Dickin Medal for animals who helped the war effort. But it was the humble pigeon that distinguished itself during World War One, when thousands of the birds were pressed into service, delivering vital messages and often flying into enemy territory. Catch the pigeonĪnimals have long played a role in the Royal Mail, from the horses once used to transport letters to the 'mouser' cats employed to keep post rooms rodent-free. Despite some initial scepticism from postal officials, trial runs proved that mail coaches were much faster and more efficient than the individual horseback couriers still used at the time. Mail coaches remained the primary method of transporting letters until the arrival of the railways in the mid-19th century. In 1782, Bath theatre owner John Palmer suggested the Royal Mail could make use of horse-drawn coaches similar to the ones he used to transport actors and props between theatres. It wasn't until 1635 that Charles I opened the King's Posts to the general public. The delivery service was only available to the royal household and the court, with messages relayed between palaces on horseback. Here are five surprising facts about the long history of the Royal Mail: Royal-only mailįor more than 100 years after Sir Brian Tuke devised a regular postal system, the 'royal mail' was exactly that. The special programme of events marks 500 years since Henry VIII knighted Brian Tuke, the first Master of the Posts, heralding the creation of the postal system as we know it. A big finale will be held at the Guildhall in London on Saturday 18 June. The carriage has already travelled through Cardiff and Edinburgh and will be travelling through Belfast's city centre on Saturday 11 June. The Royal Mail is celebrating 500 years of its postal service by recreating the days of horse-drawn mail coaches.Ī carriage, accompanied by the men and women who deliver today's mail, is following a historic delivery route in the four capitals of the UK. ![]()
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