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1
435
Her Majesty's Mails
·
William Lewins
222
The
Duke
of
Argyll
succeeded
Lord
Canning
in
the
management
of
the
Post-Office
in
1855,
and
his
years
of
office
are
distinguished
by
many
most
important
improvements
and
reforms.
One
important
change
consisted
in
the
amalgamation
of
the
two
corps
of
London
letter-carriers,
effected
soon
after
the
installation
of
the
Duke
of
Argyll
at
the
Post-Office.
The
two
classes
of
"General
Post"
and
"London
District"
letter-carriers
were
perhaps
best
known
before
1855,
by
the
former
wearing
a
red,
and
the
latter
a
blue,
uniform.
The
object
of
this
amalgamation,
for
which
Mr.
Hill
had
been
sedulously
striving
from
the
period
of
penny
postage,
was
to
avoid
the
waste
of
time,
trouble,
and
expense
consequent
on
two
different
men
going
over
the
same
ground
to
distribute
two
classes
of
letters
which
might,
without
any
real
difficulty,
be
delivered
together.
The
greatest
objection
in
the
Post-Office
itself
to
completing
the
change,
arose
from
the
different
status
of
the
two
bodies
of
men,
the
one
class
being
paid
at
a
much
higher
rate
of
wages
and
with
better
prospects
than
the
other
class.
This
difficulty
was
at
length
surmounted,
when
the
benefits
of
this
minor
reform
became
clearly
apparent
in
earlier
and
more
regular
deliveries
of
letters.
Inside
the
Post-Office
the
work
was
made
much
more
easy
and
simple,
and
the
gross
inequality
existing
between
two
bodies
of
public
servants
whose
duties
were
almost
identical,
was
done
away.[131]
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