Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/425

 the session, and on 17 July 1838, by the casting vote of the chairman, recommended a uniform rate of postage at twopence the half ounce. The government would not yield. The popular demand for the measure grew stronger, till at last, in the words of the ‘Times’ (16 March 1839), ‘it was the cause of the whole people of the United Kingdom against the small coterie of place-holders in St. Martin's-le-Grand and its dependencies.’ To a deputation of 150 members of parliament, supporters of the government, the prime minister at last reluctantly gave way. Penny postage being included in the budget, was carried in the House of Commons on 12 July by 215 to 113. In the House of Lords, being supported by the Duke of Wellington, it was carried without a division.

The hostility of the government to the measure was shown by the insulting offer made to Hill. He held as secretary to the South Australian commission a permanent office of 500l. a year. He was asked to resign it, and to accept at the same salary an engagement for two years, in which he was to introduce his scheme. He was to begin the struggle against all the strength of a powerful and hostile department, with a mark of degradation thus put upon him. He met the insult by offering to work without salary, but this was declined. A letter written by his brother, M. D. Hill, to the chancellor of the exchequer, exposing the folly and the meanness of the proposal, had such a startling effect that the salary was raised to 1,500l.; but the engagement was still only for two years, though it was subsequently extended to three. This offer was accepted. Rowland Hill now for the first time saw the post office at work. It was not to it that he was attached, but to the treasury, which exercises a controlling power over the expenditure of all the government offices. Over the post office he was not to exercise any direct authority. The officials there were left with great powers, which they exerted to the utmost in order to ruin a plan whose success they had foretold was impossible. They threw every obstacle in Hill's path, and multiplied expenses, so that the scheme might prove a financial failure. On 10 Jan. 1840 penny postage was at last established. The difficulties Rowland Hill met with in getting the machinery of the department into working order were vast, but in the next two years a great deal was done. In September 1841 the whig ministry was overthrown, and Sir Robert Peel came into power. Peel, in September 1842, at the end of Hill's third year, dismissed him from office, without any reward for his great services, leaving his scheme to be worked by men who would delight in its ruin. The folly of the ministry roused a strong feeling of public indignation. On 10 April 1843 Hill petitioned the House of Commons for an inquiry into the state of the post office, and on 27 June a select committee of inquiry was granted. It was appointed too late in the session for a proper investigation to be made.

For the next three years Hill was first a director, and then chairman of the Brighton railway, and in this capacity had the chief merit of introducing the system of express and excursion trains which were first run on that line. In June 1846 he was presented with a testimonial amounting to 13,000l., raised by public subscription. In the following November, on the return of the whig ministry to power under Lord John Russell, he was offered the post of secretary to the postmaster-general, at a salary of 1,200l. a year, Colonel Maberley, who was hostile both to him and the penny postage, being retained as permanent secretary to the post office at a higher salary, and with full command of the staff. With great hesitation Hill accepted the inferior post. For more than seven years this arrangement was continued, by which postal improvement of every kind was delayed, and some millions of public money wasted. In 1854 Colonel Maberley was transferred to the board of audit, and Hill was appointed sole secretary. In 1851 his youngest brother, Frederic Hill, one of the inspectors of prisons, had been transferred to the post office as assistant secretary, where he rendered services of very great value.

In 1864 Rowland Hill's health broke down under the long strain of work, and on 4 March he sent in his resignation. By this time he had transformed the whole service, extending conveniences, cutting down expenses, shortening the hours of work, raising wages, reducing rates, and increasing the revenue. By establishing promotion by merit he had breathed fresh life into every branch of the service. The number of chargeable letters had risen since 1838 from 76 millions to 642 millions, the gross revenue from 2,346,000l. to 3,870,000l., and the net revenue from 1,660,000l. to 1,790,000l. The business of the money order office had been multiplied fifty-two fold, and post office savings banks had been opened on the plan suggested by Sir Charles Sikes. In the years 1887–8 the number of letters, postcards, book packets, circulars, newspapers, parcels, and telegrams amounted to 2,332 millions, the gross revenue to 11,064,000l., and the net revenue to 2,851,000l. His great reform, to use Mr. Gladstone's words, ‘had run like wildfire through the civilised world; never