Rowland Hill (postal reformer)
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Sir Rowland Hill KCB, FRS (December 3, 1795 - August 27, 1879) was a British teacher and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of penny postage, and later served as a government postal official. He is usually credited in the UK with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service.
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[edit] Earlier life
Hill was born in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire. Rowland's father, Thomas Wright Hill, was an innovator in education and politics, including among his friends Joseph Priestley, Tom Paine and Richard Price. At the age of 11, Rowland became a student-teacher in his father's school. He would teach astronomy and earn extra money fixing scientific instruments. He also worked at the Assay Office in Birmingham<ref>http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/engine/resource/exhibition/standard/default.asp?resource=4276 Joseph Priestley and his Influence on Education in Birmingham</ref> and painted landscapes in his spare time.<ref>http://members.tripod.com/~midgley/rowlandhill.html Sir Rowland Hill, a social reformer</ref>
Hazelwood School In 1819, he established the Hazelwood School at Edgbaston, a "well-to-do" neighborhood of Birmingham, as an “educational refraction of Priestley's ideas”.<ref>W. H. G. Armytage, “The Lunar Society and its Contribution to Education”, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, (1967-8) V, 67.</ref> <ref>http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-1005%28198002%2928%3A1%3C46%3A%22TGSAE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E&size=SMALL. W. J. Bartrip, "A Thoroughly Good School": An Examination of the Hazelwood Experiment in Progressive Education. British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb., 1980), pp. 46-59</ref> Hazelwood was to provide a model for public education for the emerging middle classes, aiming for useful, pupil-centered education which would give sufficient knowledge, skills and understanding to allow a student to continue self-education through a life “most useful to society and most happy to himself”. <ref>Elie Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism. Faber (1972) pp.153-4, 249-478, 433, 491. </ref> The school included such marvels (for its time) as a science lab and swimming pool. In his Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in Large Numbers Drawn from Experience (1822, often cited as Public Education) he argued that moral influence of the highest kind should be the predominant power in school discipline, instead of caning. Science was to be a compulsory subject, and students were to be self-governing.<ref>http://members.tripod.com/~midgley/rowlandhill.html Sir Rowland Hill, a social reformer</ref><ref>http://www.answers.com/topic/rowland-hill Hill, Sir Rowland</ref><ref>http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Sir_Rowland_Hill Sire Rowland Hill</ref> Hazelwood so impressed Jeremy Bentham that the school was moved to Bruce Castle in Tottenham, London in 1827.
South Australia The colonization of South Australia was a project of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who believed that many of the social problems in Britain were caused by overcrowding and overpopulation. Retiring from teaching, from 1833 until 1839 Rowland Hill served as secretary of the South Australian Colonization Commission, which worked successfully to establish a settlement without convicts at what is today Adelaide. The political economist, Robert Torrens was chairman of the Commission.<ref>http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7829.html Denis P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists Revisited</ref> Under the South Australia Act 1834, the colony was to embody the ideals and best qualities of British society, shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to social progress and civil liberties.
[edit] Postal reform
Hill interested himself in a reform of the postal system, as well.<ref>http://www.newstodaynet.com/2005sud/05dec/ss13.htm V. Sundaram, "The Founding Father of Postal Reform," News Today, Chennai, India (December 28, 2005)</ref>. There are stories, most likely apocryphal, about how he gained this interest -- that he noticed a young woman too poor to redeem a letter sent to her by her fiancé. At that time, letters were most often paid for by the recipient, not the sender. The recipient could simply refuse delivery. Frauds were far from unknown; for example, coded information could appear on the cover of the letter; the recipient would examine the cover to gain the information, and then refuse delivery to avoid payment. Each individual letter had to be logged. In addition, postal rates were complex, depending on the distance and the number of sheets in the letter.<ref>http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basSoph7.html Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms, Series 2, Chapter 12. See II.12.25.</ref>
Hill published his famous pamphlet, Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability, in 1837. The report called for "low and uniform rates" according to weight, rather than distance, because Hill's study showed that most of the costs in the postal system were not for transportation, but rather for laborious handling procedures at the origins and the destinations. Postage was to be prepaid by the sender, with the prepayment to be proven by the use of prepaid letter sheets or adhesive stamps (adhesive stamps had long been used to show payment of taxes -- for example, on documents). Letter sheets were to be used because envelopes were not yet common -- they were not yet mass-produced, and in an era when postage was calculated partly on the basis of the number of sheets of paper used, the same sheet of paper would be folded and serve for both the message and the address. In addition, Hill proposed to lower the postage rate to a penny per half ounce, without regard to distance.<ref>http://imagesoftheworld.org/stamps/rowlandhill.htm Rowland Hill (1795-1879):
Post Office Reform, its Importance and Practicability</ref> He presented his proposal to the Government.
Hill's plan was adopted in 1839, despite strong opposition from William Leader Maberly, joint secretary to the General Post Office. Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system.
The prepaid letter sheets, with a design by William Mulready, were distributed in 1840. They were not a success and were widely satirized. According to a brochure distributed by the National Postal Museum, the letter sheets threatened the livelihoods of stationery manufacturers, who encouraged the satires. The government was forced to use most of them on official mail.
In May 1840, the world's first adhesive postage stamps were distributed. With an elegant engraving of the young Queen Victoria, the Penny Black was an immediate success. Refinements, such as perforations to ease the separating of the stamps, would be instituted in later issues.
[edit] Later life
Rowland Hill continued at the Post Office until the Conservative Party and Sir Robert Peel returned to office between August 30, 1841 and June 29, 1846. Hill was cast out.
Edwin Chadwick, Rowland Hill, John Stuart Mill, Lyon Playfair, Dr. Neill Arnott, and other friends in 1844 formed a society called "Friends in Council," which met at each other's houses to discuss questions of political economy. <ref>http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/1859map/chadwick_edwinbio_a4.html Biography of Edwin Chadwick</ref> Hill became a member of the influential Political Economy Club, founded by David Ricardo and other classical economists.<ref>http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7829.html D. P. O'Brien, The Classical Economists Revisited</ref>
In 1846, however, Hill became Secretary to the Postmaster General, and Secretary to the Post Office from 1854-1864. For his services Hill was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1860. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society and was given an honorary degree from Oxford.
He died in Hampstead, London in 1879. Sir Rowland Hill is buried in Westminster Abbey; there is a memorial to him on his family grave in Highgate Cemetery.
[edit] Legacy
Hill's legacies are three: the model for education of the emerging middle classes, the postage stamp, which we take for granted, and the system whereby postage rates, at least for basic rates, do not vary within a country. In fact the Uniform Penny Postage continued in the United Kingdom into the twentieth century, and at one point, one penny paid for up to four ounces.
There are three public statues of him. The first, sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock and unveiled in 1881, stands in the town of his birthplace, Kidderminster.<ref>http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/BM/WOwfKIxx002.htm Public Monument and Sculpture Association, National Recording Project</ref> The second, by Edward Onslow Ford stands at King Edward Street, London<ref>http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/CL/CLCOL211.htm Public Monument and Sculpture Association, National Recording Project</ref> The third, less known, by Peter Hollins, used to stand in Hurst Street, Birmingham but it is currently in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery store.<ref>http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/BM/WMbiBIxx138.htm Public Monument and Sculpture Association, National Recording Project</ref> A life size white marble bust by W. D. Keyworth, Jr. may be viewed in St. Paul's Chapel, Westminster Abbey.<ref>http://www.westminster-abbey.org/library/burial/hill.htm People Buried or Commemorated - Rowland Hill</ref>
At Tottenham there is now a local History Museum at Bruce Castle (where Hill lived during the 1840s) including some relevant exhibits.
The Rowland Hill Awards,<ref>http://www.ukphilately.org.uk/bpt/rowland/rhill.htm What Are the Rowland Hill Awards?</ref> started by the Royal Mail and the British Philatelic Trust in 1997<ref>http://www.ukphilately.org.uk/bpt/index.htm Welcome to the British Philatelic Trust </ref>, are annual awards for philatelic "innovation, initiative and enterprise."
In 1882, the Post Office instituted the Rowland Hill Fund<ref>http://www.cwu.org/default.asp?Step=4&pid=110 Rowland Hill Fund</ref> for postal workers, pensioners and dependants in need.
[edit] References
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Literature
- Matthew Davenport Hill and Rowland Hill, Plans for the Government and Liberal Instruction of Boys in Large Numbers Drawn from Experience (1822)
- Rowland Hill, Home Colonies. (1832)
- Rowland Hill, Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability (1837)
- Rowland Hill and Arthur Hill, A History of Penny Postage with intro. by George Birkbeck Hill, "The Life of Sir Rowland Hill and the Penny Postage". 2 vols. (1880)
- David Allam, The Social and Economic Importance of Postal Reform in 1840. Batley: Harry Hayes, 1976
- R. H. Coase, Rowland Hill and the Penny Post. Economica, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 24 (Nov., 1939), pp. 423-435.
- H. W. Hill, Rowland Hill and the Fight for the Penny Post. Frederick Warne, 1940
- M.J. Daunton, Rowland Hill and the Penny Post, History Today, August, 1985.
- Jean Farrugia, The Life and Work of Sir Rowland Hill, 1795-1879.de:Rowland Hill (Postmann)
