The Post Office

Bourne Post Office

Postal services were a vital part of Bourne's business communications during the 19th century. A General Post Office was established in England by Act of Parliament in 1656 and the collection and delivery of mail was mainly carried out by the regular coaching services but it was generally a costly business. The introduction of the penny post by Rowland Hill in 1840 brought the postal service within the reach of everyone and therefore resulted in a tremendous increase in the volume of mail and by 1849, the number of letters carried had reached almost seven million. 

This was of particular benefit to shopkeepers and businesses in those days before the telephone existed and the first Post Office was opened in Abbey Road in 1847 on the site of the present Corn Exchange building. By 1857, there was a daily collection and delivery of letters under the supervision of Mr Towns Gatliffe, the town's first postmaster. Horse-drawn carts were used to transport the mail between the Post Office and local railway stations and after the line arrived in the town in 1860, all of the village postal services were eventually linked to Bourne with a Post Office Savings Bank opening on the premises in 1861. The telegraph was connected to the Post Office in Bourne early in 1870 and the first telegram was despatched from the town on Saturday 5th February.

The old Post Office

These pictures of the first post office in Bourne are among the oldest photographs of the town in existence and were taken prior to 1870 when the building was pulled down to make way for the Corn Exchange. The bottom picture  also shows the mail man, John Kettle, and his horse-drawn mail cart, posing outside.

Photographed circa 1868

The telegraph and post office was moved from the Abbey Road premises in 1870 to make way for the building of the new Corn Exchange and a new post office opened in North Street. Mr Towns Gatliffe remained as postmaster until Friday 12th February 1875 when he retired with a pension from the Post Office after 28 years and John Thomas Pearce took over and ran the business in conjunction with his stationery shop next door.

The postmen who delivered the mail around the town were issued with uniforms in the summer of 1875, although those who worked in the rural areas had already received them. The Grantham Journal reported on Saturday 5th June that year: "Until the present month, Bourne has been behind other towns as regards postmen's dress which has hitherto been civilian. At last, however, a neat and useful uniform has been provided. The rural postmen were so equipped some two years ago."

The telephone was introduced to Bourne three years later after a demonstration at the Corn Exchange by Mr T Viccars, of Torquay, "on Professor Bell's long and short circuit telephones". The Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 1st March 1878:

There was a highly respectable audience and for a Saturday night as numerous as might be expected. The Rev G E Massey, Vicar, presided. The lecturer in a lucid manner explained the physical and psychological facts which were necessary to understand in connection with the action of the telephone. One of the rooms of Mr Morris, printer, [in West Street], had been connected with the Corn Exchange by a wire, and conversation was carried on between members of the audience and persons at the other end.

By 1903, the postal services had been considerably extended. J J Davies remembers this post office in his book Historic Bourne (1909) as " . . . a fine structure, splendidly managed, and equipped with the latest telegraphic and telephonic appliances."

Telephone trunk lines were erected through Bourne in the early years of the last century. The double poles, known as H-poles, that can be seen on photographs of the period, were moved into the area by rail direct from the factory in 1906, the freight train off-loading each consignment at railway stations and sidings along the route between Peterborough and Lincoln. Those destined for the Bourne area were then moved to the various sites by George Bullimore, a wood and timber merchant, based at the Crown Inn [now the Wishing Well] at Dyke, who transported them in wooden drugs, huge wagons normally used to shift tree trunks and pulled by up to six horses. Once the holes had been dug for them, they were erected by block and pulley and then fitted out with the required insulators before being brought into use in 1907.

In 1944, a manually operated telephone exchange was opened at the Post Office premises in North Street and this continued in use for more than twenty years when an automatic telephone exchange was built in Manning Road at a cost of £45,000. Work began in October 1962 and by July 1964, the electronic was being installed and the new system was brought into use at 1.05 pm on Friday 9th April 1965 when 560 subscribers were connected, enabling them to use the dials that had recently been fitted to their instruments by engineers. The exchange was such a momentous change in the development of communications for Bourne that an inauguration ceremony was held at the Darby and Joan Hall, attended by local authorities, civic and commercial organisations, and at the appointed hour the mayor, Councillor J K Mason, dialled the first call to the Mayor of Stamford, Councillor G W Gray, at the Town Hall in Stamford. At the end of the call, he pressed a button to bring the new exchange into public service.

A booklet was sent to all residents giving full details of the changes and how to use the dial telephone together with the various area codes through which subscribers could make calls to 36 other exchanges in the country. The 999 emergency service was introduced at the same time and as Bourne had lost the bulk of its manual telephonists because of the new system, these calls were handled by the Spalding exchange. There were no redundancies, however, and all staff were offered alternative employment.

The charge for local calls was 3d. for three minutes during the full rate period and 3d. for six minutes during the cheap rate period. The new boxes accepted only six-sided threepenny bits, sixpences and shillings and traders in the town soon found that there was an increased demand for these coins when offering change.

STD, or subscriber trunk dialling, was not immediately available and Bourne had to wait two years until the telephone exchange at Spalding was fitted with the necessary equipment. The opening also marked the appearance of a new type of pay and answer coin box at telephone kiosks throughout the town and public demonstrations were held at various venues during April to ensure that customers knew how to use them by making trial calls and listening to the pay tone, an added feature of the new system.

This picture was taken at the beginning of the 20th century when the post office was attached to shop premises in the Market Place. The billboard announces the annual ploughing match to be held on 11th October 1903 by the Bourne and District Ploughing Society with a total of £40 in prize money. The postmaster at this time was Mr John Thomas Pearce whose general stationery stores, selling a wide variety of goods from books and patent medicines to pianos and organs, were next door on the left and the lady in the picture is one of his three daughters who served behind the counter.

The Post Office in 1903

Letters from London were arriving four times a day and there were three daily deliveries. The last collection for the capital was between 7 pm and 8 pm and the wall letter boxes that had been introduced in 1853 were so popular that they were being cleared three times a day, the last time varying according to location, between 6.45 a m and 7.05 p m. There were many such post boxes around the town but they were much smaller than those in use today. 

John Pearce died suddenly in January 1905 at the early age of 59 and he was succeeded as postmaster by his son William who recognised the importance and potential of the postal work and immediately began enlarging the premises still further, moving the stationery business to a new shop in North Street. The work was completed by the autumn and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 24th November:

During the last few weeks, considerable alterations have been carried out on the premises that are in future to be used wholly as a Post Office. The stationery business of Mr Pearce has been removed to North Street and what used to be the shop and showroom is now converted into rooms for the Post Office work. A larger counter has been provided and a stand placed near the window for writing telegrams and in the corner has been placed the public telephone. Behind the counter, the room, used as a showroom, has been converted into the telegraph and telephone operators' rooms. The new portion of the Post Office was opened for public business on Friday last.

The former West Street post box

The Victorian letter box erected in West Road in July 1891 (left) remained in its original position for almost 100 years when it became too small for the size and quantity of the post from the western end of Bourne but survives as a museum item and is on display in the Heritage Centre in South Street where it was placed in 1989. There is another, older wall letter box at Northorpe, a hamlet adjoining Thurlby village, where it has been in use for 150 years (right).

Thurlby letter box

This one also carries the crest of Victoria Regina although the wall in which it has been set has recently been restored. At the time of its installation, it was emptied on weekdays at 5.35 p m, five minutes after the collection from Thurlby village post office, and the mail taken by cart to Bourne for sorting and onward transmission while incoming mail was brought to the village by cart at 6.30 a m every day for delivery by the postman.

The horse drawn mail cart used to transport postal items between Bourne and Peterborough was replaced by a motor van on 10th May 1915, as was the mail cart from Bourne to Folkingham. The motor van also started making collections and deliveries at Morton, Haconby, Dunsby, Rippingale and Kirkby Underwood to connect with despatches from Bourne at 10.30 and 11.45 a m. The new service resulted in some redundancies and Mr A S Allen, who had driven the mail cart to fetch the night letters for Dowsby for more than 23 years, was presented with a family bible to mark his lengthy service together with an acetylene lamp.

Business at Bourne Post Office continued to expand as the population increased and eighty years later, the premises had become so cramped and inconvenient for staff that a new Post Office, complete with sorting office at the rear, was opened in 1981, one of the most modern in South Lincolnshire. The site chosen was in West Street and included three old cottages, Nos 22, 24 and 26, that were demolished to make way for the new development. 

Three old houses in West Street, numbers 22, 24 and 26, were demolished in 1980 to make way for the new Post Office building which was opened the following year. They were owned by the Baptist Church next door. This picture shows the site being cleared.

Photographed circa 1980

The land was bought from the Bourne Baptist Church who had owned it since 1952 when it had been purchased at auction for £250 although it is not known how much they sold it for. The old Post Office premises were vacated and subsequently became an off licence and then after several months of standing empty, were taken over in 2000 by the estate agents Quinney Marks.

North Street facade in 1999
The old post office premises in North Street when they were being
advertised "To Let" in the autumn of 1999

The new red brick Post Office has been extremely popular with customers, providing more space for their transactions and, more importantly, for the regular queues that build up on pension day and at other busy periods, although there have been some problems. In 1984, the management at Peterborough insisted on closing on Wednesday afternoons to enable staff training sessions to take place to improve the standard of service to customers but townspeople complained that they were being denied a valuable service and the decision was later rescinded after official protests by the town council, the Post Office Users' Council and the local M P, who was then Sir Kenneth Lewis.

The Post Office may have modernised its operations over the years but the final delivery of letters is still dependent on the personal touch. This is Alan Bottomley, aged 35, a postman for the past 13 years, carrying out his duties in Beech Avenue, Bourne, during the summer of July 2001 when staff were allowed to wear light clothing during the hot weather to make their duties less arduous.

Photographed in 2001

A major restructuring of the Post Office in the summer of 1988 brought a fresh threat to the service when, because Bourne was one of the smallest Crown offices in the country, it was proposed to cut costs by downgrading it to an agency office. This would involve handing the business over to an agent or sub-postmaster who would be offered the premises on lease from the Royal Mail or run it from his own business address. The most acceptable application involved transferring the Post Office to premises at Nos 42-44 North Street which were then being used as a launderette and although the management considered this, it proved to be a major misjudgement and a wave of public protest followed when the issue was taken up not only by the local newspapers but also by the television and radio channels. The town council also complained that the premises were totally unsuitable for postal services and that customers would have to queue outside on the pavement while vans delivering and collecting mail would create havoc for passing traffic.

The management were forced to rethink their strategy and in 1991 the Post Office appointed a new sub-postmaster who was allowed to stay in the present building although it is now run under private contract. As a result, the postal services that were once the only transactions carried out here have been supplemented by a range of retail outlets such as greetings cards, sweets and stationery, designed to keep the business economically viable, although the aura is now one of a shop rather than the trustworthy and reassuring atmosphere that the post office exuded in past times.

Nevertheless, it remains in appearance and operation, the town's Post Office, a much loved facility, and in 2003, a second attempt to close it and relocate the business, this time as a counter service at the back of a liquor store 50 yards down West Street towards the Market Place, was abandoned after several months of protest by the public and local organisations.

The new manageress was Elaine Wells who remained in charge until March 2009 when she was succeeded by a new manager who took over with ambitious plans to extend services and even increase employment. Habib Hanif, aged 32, pictured right, had no previous experience of working in a post office but wanted to do something completely different from his employment for the past nine years as an auditor with the National Health Service at Peterborough. In an interview with The Local newspaper on Friday 13th March 2009 he said: "I will first concentrate on finding my feet before expanding the retail side of the business and hopefully employ more staff."

Photo courtesy The Local newspaper

 

Public seat installed 2004

TO REST THE FEET

A public seat was installed outside the Post Office in March 2004 to enable old people arriving here to collect their pensions each week sit while waiting their turn. It was provided by South Kesteven District Council to match other street furniture in the town, made of metal to deter vandals and embossed with their coat of arms.

 

PHOTO ALBUM

Photographed in February 1999

Although the Royal Mail’s Bourne delivery office is located behind the main post office in West Street, security remains high and new measures were installed in 1998 to deter intruders including entrance gates surmounted by spikes and sharp metal blades around the top of the perimeter wall.

Photographd in July 2015

By 2015, there were fears that our familiar post office pillar boxes around town such as this E II R model in Exeter Street were in danger of being phased out and indeed collections had already been cut to one a day and timings at some changed to inconvenient hours such as the early morning.

 

FROM THE ARCHIVES

In 1744, the people of Bourne were very excited and annoyed. They received no letters. The mail man arrived as usual, but no post bag, and he told the angry people that his van had been held up by highwaymen and all his letters and parcels taken from him. - from Bourne and People associated with Bourne by J T Swift (1925).

A daily postman is now appointed to leave Bourne at 8 o'clock in the morning with letters and newspapers free of any extra charge at Edenham, Grimsthorpe and Swinstead, where he arrives at 10 o'clock and remains until 4 in the afternoon, returning by the same route and announcing his progress by "the winding of the horn". This arrangement has given great satisfaction to the inhabitants, especially of the latter place, the persons formerly employed, although liberally paid, performing their duty very irregularly, about twice a week "wind and weather permitting". - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 6th June 1845.

A memorial to the Post Office seeking relief from the dreadful delay in the transmission of letters has been signed by everybody in Bourne. It emanated from the magistrates who have themselves felt the annoyance of the present disordered and most inconvenient state of the posts throughout Lincolnshire. If such a state of things is to continue, the law relating to advice in case of dishonoured bills and other monetary transactions must be altered, or the observance of the "law of England" in such cases will be impossible in Lincolnshire.- news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 15th August 1845.

THE DAY DELIVERY of letters in Bourne, which previously took place shortly after 3 o’clock in the afternoon, now commences about 11.30 a m. The train, which heretofore was due at Bourne at 10.58 a m, is now timed so as to reach Bourne at 11.20. By this alteration, a letter posted in London early in the morning may be delivered at Bourne the same day about noon. – news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 9th November 1860.

A few days ago, Mr John B Roberts, chemist, of North Street, Bourne, received a letter through the post upon which was written the following address: "In the care of the Postmaster of Bourne Fen, County Lincolnshire. To be forwarded to a Man That keeps a Druggist shop about 40 yards on the Morton Road on the right hand side." It appears that the writer, an Irishman, was sometime since at work in the fens in this neighbourhood and during that time had purchased ague medicine of Mr Roberts and having forgotten his name, he adopted the above novel plan of finding him. - news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 1st March 1861.

THE DERBY DAY: Within a short time after the race the public were informed of the result, by circulars issued by Mr Thomas Pearce, postmaster, printer, etc, who had received a special telegram. - news item from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 29th May 1875.

PENSION: We are pleased to learn that the Postmaster-General has sanctioned the payment of the sum of £22 a year to Mr John Kettle, late of this town but now residing at Swinstead, who for upwards of thirty-five years acted as rural postman between Bourne and his present place of abode. - news item from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 6th September 1879.

Letters for most of the neighbouring towns will, if posted at Bourne post office before 10.40 a m, be delivered the same afternoon. The 10.55 a m dispatch of letters has hitherto been available for London and the south only, but henceforth it will also be for the midland and northern counties. - news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 8th May 1885.

We regret to record the death of Mrs Andrew who for twenty-one years acted as postmistress at Bourne and who had for the past twenty-two years enjoyed a government pension of £10 a year. Mrs Andrew was one of the oldest and most respected members of the Wesleyan Society and funeral sermons were preached on Sunday in the Wesleyan Chapel by the Rev T Ratcliffe and Mr Seth Brown.
- news report from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 2nd November 1889.

THE DEATH occurred on Saturday morning last of a familiar figure to the residents of Bourne in the person of Mr William [Shelstone] Ball. Deceased was for many years a postman and only retired from active service some two years ago when he became entitled to a pension. He continued to reside in Hereward Street where he died somewhat suddenly, as stated above. At the time of his appointment as postman, he delivered the whole letters in the town. There are now three men regularly employed for the morning delivery and two for the afternoon. The funeral took place on Monday afternoon. - news item from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 28th December 1901.

 

REVISED MAY 2014

 

See also    

Memories of the mail cart     Post boxes may soon disappear

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