Use of horses
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"… From 15 to 16 hands, about 10cwt, clean limbed trotters, rising five…"
Post Office specification for horses used on
the mail contracts,
POST 33/1362B
1894 photograph of postman, horse and cart with 'VR' cypher on rear panel.
The last London-based mail coach, between London and Norwich, ceased running in April 1846. However, the
use of horses by the Post Office continued for another hundred years. The photograph above shows a postman, horse and cart used on a rural delivery round in 1894.
From the 1840s railways carried the mail across the country. But local delivery needed an efficient road service, still driven by the efforts of horses.
The Post Office preferred not to run its own service; instead the individual routes were contracted out. Successful applicants provided horses, vans (to Post Office specifications) and drivers who were provided with a Post Office uniform.
As the volume of mail increased throughout the 19th century, work for these drivers could be frenetic. Drivers might start the day with
a large van on a morning round, do a midday run with a delivery van and finish
off with a light one-horse letter cart. Work was tough on horse as well as drivers: You can see below a sick note for a hard-working horse, off work with 'sore shoulders'!
Horse's sick note, 27 October 1898.
The number of contracted services also increased following
the introduction of the Parcels Post in 1883. Due to a poor agreement which gave the railways 55% of the receipts for parcels they carried, the
Post Office was encouraged to introduce a horse-drawn road service for shorter distances. Some horse-drawn mail coaches were even re-introduced in 1887 due to the demands of the Parcels Post.
Prior to 1919, almost all road mail services were still in the hands of contractors, both for horse-drawn and the new motor vehicles. It was partly the high cost demanded for these services that encouraged the Post Office to introduce its own motor vehicle fleet, despite fears that having its own fleet would be equally expensive.
The development of a new Post Office motor fleet meant that contracted services were dramatically reduced: in 1927, mail contracts accounted for just 723 motor and 192 horse services nationwide, down from thousands.
The Second World War and the accompanying petrol rationing meant that horse-drawn services kept going longer than might have been predicted. It was not until 1949 that the last horse-drawn mail van
left the King Edward Building (KEB) Post Office in the heart of London. The photograph above shows this last horse-drawn van - pulled by 'Peter' - leaving KEB in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral.