Between the ownerships of Col Northey and Mr Jack Fudge, it had been used for various businesses, the last a tailor's shop. The house had been built for a Lt.Col Northey in 1832 before the coming of the railway and before the London road was built. This is borne out by the records which show Mrs Sarah Fudge, his widow, as sub postmistress in charge of Box Post Office in 1885.Ä«etween 18 Mrs Sarah Fudge acquired the present post office building including the land stretching all the way up to the railway line. According to family memory James Fudge died young. In 1871 he is described as Draper and Assistant Overseer. Mr Fudge appears to have had a draper's shop in the Market Place next to Bence's, or it may have been the precursor of Bence's. Some few years later, a linen draper in Box, called Mr John (often known as James) Fudge, took over the Post Office from Mr Charles Hardy, who had been the postmaster for the previous 20 years. In 1865 Box Post Office was authorised to handle money orders and Post Office Savings Bank business and in 1875 it had its own telegraph office. ![]() It is not known when the first Post Office was established in Box, but it is on record that in 1814 Box was No.9 in the Bath penny post deliveries and in 1824, it became No.9 in the Chippenham penny post. Date stamps were then developed to cancel the postage stamps so they could not be used again. A Dundee bookseller, James Chalmers, suggested little gummed slips of paper to show that the letter had been paid for - and the postage stamp was born. Led by the great reformer Rowland Hill, a uniform charge for letters depending on weight and paid for by the sender was introduced. Mail was first carried by the new railways in 1830 and the next fifteen years saw a dramatic change in the postal system. The Bath Road was well maintained and the journey to London took only 16 hours. When the post horn was heard, all other traffic was set aside, the toll gates were thrown open and the mail coach sped through, often at full gallop. The mail coaches had an armed guard and had free transit through the toll gates. By 1812 it cost 13 pence to send a letter from London to Edinburgh, despite the use of special Mail Coaches, introduced by John Palmer of Bath in 1784. The penny post was paid in advance and in those days a penny was a lot of money. This consisted of a charge of one penny for local deliveries and was added to the general post charges for letters from other towns. There were no deliveries to specific addresses until William Dockwra introduced the local penny post in 1680 in London. The sheet was then folded and fastened with sealing wax. As the charge was per sheet, writers usually wrote on three sides of a folded page and addressed it on the fourth side. The cost of postage was high and it was usually the recipient who was asked to pay. But it was not until 1635 in Great Britain that the Royal Mail was made available for private letters. ![]() Here in England during the middle ages, special tradesmen were stationed at posts about twenty miles apart along a few important routes to carry messages in relays. The Roman Empire had a postal service called the Cursus Publicus, but it was reserved for government use.
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