The penny post

As the scale of commerce between companies grew in the 1830s, and with the population becoming both larger and more mobile, the need for a proper postal system became pressing. Post had been not only very expensive, but paid for by the recipient. The privilege granted to MPs, of sending their mail free, was widely abused on behalf of their friends. This was just the kind of problem for a utilitarian solution, and a utilitarian was ready, in the person of Rowland Hill (1795-1879), a Kidderminster-born educationist with a keen interest in inventions and current affairs, and a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. From 1835 he conceived and promoted the idea of a national flat-rate postage charge, of one penny, using adhesive stamps, and his Post-office Reform was published in 1837. The technology was available; the railways were offering a rapid transport system; his problem was to convince the Post Office. In 1840, the flat-rate penny post was introduced. From 1846 to 1864, Hill was secretary first to the Postmaster General, then to the Post Office, and initiated further innovations, including parcel post, to provide Victorian Britain with the most efficient postal service in the world.

Education for all

One aspect of community life which the churches did control, or heavily influence, was education. Once a prime purpose of education had been to produce priests, and virtually all schools above the level of the dame-school teaching basic literacy were run by clergymen, whether Anglican or Dissenting. Religious education naturally was a large element in the curriculum. From Tudor times the sons of the upper classes had been sent away to school – a privilege they shared with the more fortunate orphans who were brought up in charitable foundations. These schools were notorious for brutality and bullying, and a process of gradual and uneven reform began under Thomas Arnold at Rugby School in 1828: the ethos of self-reliance, team spirit, competitiveness, sportsmanship, responsibility and conformity would influence other schools and certain national institutions, especially the army. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge were open only to committed male Anglicans; all their teachers had taken holy orders. Non-conformists wishing to educate their sons beyond grammar school level still sent them to Dissenting academies, where they were well taught but could not receive university degrees, or to one of the four Scottish universities.

Partly through fear of stirring up religious controversy, of stepping into church preserves, and spending money, the government avoided the matter of national education as much as possible until 1869. But from 1833 grants had been paid from central funds to help maintain church schools, at first only £20,000 a year, but by 1860 it was closer to £1 million. In the 1860s, such children as went to school normally left it at the age of eleven, to begin work. Two million children under eleven, it was estimated, were receiving no education at all. England was lagging far behind other countries in this respect. The United States and Prussia, with universal education, were seen to be moving into leading positions in the industrial and technological fields. France, Austria and Russia had much better technical education facilities. To institute a state education service in England was almost a revolutionary move, but from the radical section of the community there was an insistent demand; and even conservative Liberals like Robert Lowe, resistant to further political reform, could see the need. The Education Act of 1870 brought the state into education, though further acts would complete the process and universal free elementary education was only established in 1891. School boards were set up, with authority to compel attendance. The resultant great increase in the number of schools was significant in providing, for the first time, a large number of jobs for educated women. School education for girls led to the demand for higher education also, and the universities with varying degrees of reluctance – far greater among the old ones than the new ones - gradually opened their doors to female undergraduates. The faculties of medicine, law, and, of course, divinity, were the last bastions to fall.