DEATH OF SIR ROWLAND HILL.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1772, 24 October 1879, Page 3

DEATH OF SIR ROWLAND HILL.

At the ripe age of eighty-four, Sir Rowland Hill expired on August 27th, at his residence at Hampstead. For nearly a week he had taken no food, save a little milk, and for the last two or three days he lay in a more or less unconscious state. He was unconscious at tho time of his death, and passed away peacefully and almost imperceptibly. Sir Rowland Hill was the third son of a schoolmaster, who lived near Birmingham. The future author of the penny postal system was born in 1795, and, at the age of thirty-two, married the daughter of Mr Joseph Pearson, of Graialey, near Wolverhampton. Eight years after his marriage he was appointed Secretary to the Commissioners for the Colonisation of South Australia, and from that date he appears to have devoted his attention to the development of a postal system on improved principles. In 1837 he published his first pamphlet on tho subject, tho effect of which was such that tho House of Commons appointed a Committee, the result of whose deliberations waa to recommend Mr Hill’s plan for adoption. This scheme so strongly commended itself to the sense of the nation that thousands of petitions were presented to Parliament in its favor ; and in 1840 the penny postage was carried into effect. Mr Hill, who was thereupon appointed to a position in the Treasury, was shortly afterwards, on a change of Ministry, removed from office; but tho prevalent opinion out of doors upon this unfair treatment of a universal benefactor was significantly emphasised by the public subscribing a sum of over £13,000 towards a national memorial. In 1815 Mr Hill became chairman of the London and Brighton Railway, and in tho following year was appointed secretary to the Postmaster General, from which position he was promoted, eight years subsequently, to the responsible position of Chief Secretary. In acknowledgment of his distinguished services the deceased gentleman was, in 1860, created a K.C.8., but the labors he had undergone were so severe that four years afterwards the failing state of his health compelled him to resign his appointment. On that occasion a minute was issued by the Treasury, in which was incorporated a letter from the. Postmaster-General of the day, bearing testimony to the eminent services which Sir Rowland Hill had rendered to the State. The same minute pointed out that although the period during which Sir Rowland hold office was but little in excess of twenty years, it was not by length of service that the merits and claims of such a man were to be measured, nor by any acknowledgment or reward which the Executive Government, in the exorcise of the powers confided to it, could bestow. Whilst awarding to Sir Rowland Hill for life his full salary of two thousand pounds per annum, the Lords of the Treasury observed that the recipient was not only a merely meritorious public servant, but a benefactor” to his race. Indeed, it is impossible fully to estimate the enormous benefits which Sir Rowland Hill has conferred, not only upon this country, but also upon the whole world, by proving to demonstration that a low and uniform rate of postage is equally beneficial to the public and remunerative to the Government. Some idea of the advantage gained by Sir Rowland Hill’s system may bo gathered from the official statement that, under its arrangements, in the year 1861 the letters transmitted through the Post Office had increased nearly ninefold, and had been carried at about one ninth of the former charge. What tho increase in numbers has been since may be learned from the annual Post-office reports. In a document, issued fifteen years ago for private circulation, the venerable author of tho present system sot forth amongst other results, up to that date, of tho Postal Reform, a very largo reduction in the rates of postage on all correspondence, whether inland, foreign, or colonial. As instances in point, he mentioned that letters were then conveyed from any part of tho United Kingdom to any other part, even from the Channel Inlands to the Shetland Isles, at one-fourth of the charge previously levied on letters passing between post towns only a few miles apart, and that the rate formerly charged for this slight distance, viz., fourponce, then to carry a letter from any part of tho United Kingdom to any part of France, Algeria included ; increased security in the transmission of valuable letters had been afforded, and temptation to the letter-carriers and others greatly diminished, by reducing the registration fee; a reduction to about one-third in the cost, including postage, of money orders; more frequent and more rapid communication between the metropolis and tho larger Provincial towns, as also between one town and another ; a vast extension of the rural distribution to many thousands of places, and probably some millions of inhabitants ; a

great extension of free deliveries ; greatly increased facilities afforded for the transmission of foreign and colonial correspondence; a more prompt dispatch of letters when posted, and a more prompt delivery on arrival; and the division of London and its suburbs into postal districts. A comparison of the year 1863 with 1838 (the last complete year under the old system) showed that the number of chargeable letters had risen from 76 millions to 643 millions, and that the revenue, at first so much impaired, had not only recovered its original amount, but had risen—the gross from £2,346,000 to about £3,870 000, and the net from £1.660,000 to about £1,700,000,