Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/423

 a Hillska Skola was founded at Stockholm. Had the scholastic attainments of the founders of this new system been equal to their originality and enthusiasm, a great and permanent school might have been founded. Even as it was, general education was largely influenced.

In 1827 the main body of the school was transferred from Hazelwood to Bruce Castle, Tottenham, an ancient mansion which takes its name from Robert Bruce's father, the lord of the manor. Rowland Hill's health more than once broke down under the great strain of work, but he was by this time aided by three of his brothers: Edwin [q. v.], Arthur (1798–1885, head-master of Bruce Castle school), and Frederic. The parents and their children, eight in all, had had all things in common. Rowland Hill was thirty-two years old before the common property, then amounting to several thousands of pounds, was divided among them in perfect harmony by Edwin the second son, whom they appointed arbitrator. They formed later on a mutual insurance fund, under the name of ‘the family fund,’ and a family council, in which plans for private or public improvement were considered. By this close league their strength was greatly increased, each brother in his schemes receiving the support and assistance of all.

Soon after the removal to Bruce Castle Hill began to feel that his vocation was not that of a schoolmaster. Of his want of scholarship he was painfully aware. He longed, moreover, for freedom of speech and action as well as of thought. He suffered under the oppression of religious observances. He had to take his pupils to the established church and to read daily prayers in the schoolroom. Yet he had ceased even to be a unitarian. On religious matters he thought with Grote and the two Mills. Robert Owen offered to him the management of one of his communities, but he declined it on account of Owen's rashness. With some of his brothers he formed a scheme for ‘a social community.’ A farm was to be taken on which they were all to live in great simplicity and freedom, supporting themselves by the work of their own hands. ‘Here they could mature schemes for public good or private emolument, which could be prosecuted in the world at large by members liberated for a time for that purpose.’ A little later on, with Sir John Shaw-Lefevre and Professor Wheatstone, the inventor of the electric telegraph, he formed a small society for furthering inventions. Under the title of ‘Home Colonies’ he published in 1832 a ‘Plan for the Gradual Extinction of Pauperism and the Diminution of Crime,’ and in 1834 ‘A Letter to Lord Brougham on Pauper Education.’ He invented an instrument for accurately measuring time in connection with astronomical observations, and turned over in his mind a variety of schemes, such as ‘propelling steamboats by a screw’ and ‘assorting letters in mail-coaches.’ He spent months of hard work and a great deal of money on the invention of a rotatory printing-press. His invention was a complete success, but he was thwarted by the treasury. Each copy of a newspaper at this time was printed on a separate sheet of paper, on which a penny stamp had been previously impressed at the stamp office. For his continuous scroll such a process was impossible, and the treasury refused to allow the stamp to be affixed by machinery as the scroll passed through the press. The introduction of the present rotatory printing-press, which is a modification of his invention, was thereby delayed thirty-five years.

In 1833 he took part in an association which was formed for colonising South Australia, and in 1835 he was appointed secretary to the South Australian commission. It was while holding this appointment that in his out-of-office hours he planned his scheme of penny postage. During the previous century the rates for postage had been steadily raised, till on a letter from London to Edinburgh 1s. 4½d. was paid. Every enclosure was charged as a fresh letter. Had envelopes been invented at that time a letter enclosed in one would have been charged as two letters. By the right enjoyed by every member of both houses of parliament and every high official of sending letters free if the direction were in his own handwriting and attested by his signature, the wealthier classes were to a great extent freed from this burden, which pressed all the more heavily on the poor. The loss of time in ‘franking’ letters was great. Sir James Stephen, under-secretary of state for the colonies, complained that he spent as much time in the year in addressing letters as would have kept him at work six hours a day for the whole month of February. To the great mass of the people the post office was practically closed. For the thousands upon thousands of Irish who were in England to send a letter to Ireland and get an answer back would each time have cost (Daniel O'Connell complained) considerably more than one-fifth of their week's wages. There were districts in England as large as Middlesex in which the postman never set his foot. In Sabden, a town of twelve thousand souls, in which Cobden had his print-works, there was, he said, no post office nor anything that served for one. The high