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Beginnings of a postal service
Reader G.S. Moorthy wants to know when Madras first got a postal service. The beginnings are anything but definite in the records I have been able to peruse. As far back as 1688, the East India Company Directors wrote from London that they felt that
Post Offices should be established in Madras and Bombay and “you must make it highly criminal to send letters to any place where you have established a Post Office by any other conveyance than by the Office erected for that purpose.” The Directors’ desire, however, does not appear to have been translated into significant action to judge by the silence on the subject.
It was during the Governorship of Edward Harrison (1711-1717) that there appears to have been taken the first formal steps to establish a regular postal service. By 1712, a service had been established to Calcutta, ‘Tappy peons’ (tappal/dak runners) taking the mail from Madras to Ganjam – about three-fourths of the way – in 16 days and exchanging mail bags with the runners from Balasore in Bengal. Harrison had hoped that the runners from Bengal “would have found means to meet us with the same expedition,” but he regretted that they did not seem to display the same energy. Covenanted employees of the Company were exempted from paying any rates. Bengal to or from Madras cost nine fanams (a fanam being about 33 to the pagoda), for others.
It was in July 1785, that John Philip Burlton, a junior Civilian, pointed out that postage must be borne by the correspondent and not the Company or the public. He provided a 10-point plan to establish a General Post Office in Madras and Post Offices, each under a Postmaster, in the “out settlements”. He also recommended the appointment of a Postmaster General. In March the following year, Thomas Lewin, a more senior Civilian, presented a more detailed plan for the establishment of a postal system.
He suggested three divisions, Madras north to Ganjam, Madras southwest to Anjengo (erstwhile Travancore) and Madras west to Vellore. At each stage, there should be three Tappy peons stationed with, where necessary, a Masaulchy (a torch-bearer, for night travel). Madras to Ganjam (700 miles) was to be run in 78 stages, Madras to Anjengo (500 miles) in 56 stages and Madras to Vellore (100 miles) in 11 stages. No torch bearers were provided for the Vellore run, so, presumably, it was done in around 12 hours, from dawn to dusk.
Soon after Sir Archibald Campbell arrived as Governor in Madras in April 1786, he took up Lewin’s suggestion, made a few alterations to it and Government resolved that a postal service would come into operation on June 1, 1786. Later in the year, a Madras-Bombay postal link was established, via Ongole, Hyderabad and Poona. Archibald Montgomery Campbell, a cousin of the Governor, was named the first Postmaster General and a Robert Mitford his deputy. Neither seemed to have any occupation at the time – and it is not surprising that the Court of Directors objected to the appointments. London recommended the appointment of Burlton, but the Council did not favour him. Eventually, after a stopgap arrangement, Oliver Colt took charge of the Department; he, not long afterwards, founded the Bombay service, ensuring Bombay too, like Calcutta, received its letters from Madras in around 25 days.
S. MUTHIAH
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