When you see today's mail vans delivering letters and parcels up and down the country, spare a thought for the post riders, who used to do the job before the days of motorised transport. The horse and rider postal delivery system dates back as far as the 13th century in parts of Europe.
While today's postal service can deliver thousands of packages within 24 hours or less, in the days of the post riders, deliveries took place on average only once or twice a week. There was also a complex timetable, dependent on various horses and riders meeting up on the road, at pre-set locations, to exchange mail from different regions.
© Flickr - Archives New Zealand / CC BY 2.0
Considering this was centuries before modern methods of communication enabled real-time contact, it was nothing short of miraculous that the postal system was so efficient. It was testament to our four-legged equine friends that people were able to keep in touch across the miles in years gone by.
First post riders
The first post riders hit the roads in the late 13th century. The service originated in a few towns in northern Germany known as the Hanseatic League. The term described a collection of commercial merchant guilds and market towns that joined forces in the mid-12th century.
It was 1267 before the term "Hanseatic" first appeared in a historic document, even though the merchants' guilds were believed to have existed a century before this. Historians generally trace the origins of the Hanseatic League back to the north German town of Lübeck.
The concept of guilds started out small-scale, but by the early 15th century, it had grown into a massive trading network, spanning along the coast of Northern Europe. Trading goods such as timber, resins, wax, furs, amber, rye and wheat, the guilds, or "Hansa", believed joining forces with their neighbours gave them a greater chance of success when trading overseas.
In 1274, the Hanseatic League launched its own mounted service to deliver business and diplomatic messages among its member towns. The league's postal service was very well-organised, with its own post-horses used exclusively to deliver letters. At each stop, the time of the despatch of the post-bag was written on the front of each letter, so its origins could be tracked.
Post riders of the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a region of territories in central and Western Europe that existed from the early middle Ages until 1806, when it was dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars.
Franz von Taxis, of the German Princely House of Thurn and Taxis, set up a courier network of post riders that spanned across the whole of Western Europe by the mid-16th century. Each post station was around a day's journey apart on horseback.
Over the years, new economic centres grew around the post stations, with meeting places, trade centres, public rooms, inns and stables, where the horses could rest and feed after their arduous journey.
Post stations were central to the development of villages and later cities. The postal service was used primarily for government correspondence, but wealthy families could use it privately by obtaining a state licence.
Elizabethan England
During the Elizabethan period, the post riders in England began to serve everyone, despite the government preferring to keep the service restricted solely for its own use. As well as the wealthy sending letters and packages by horseback, ordinary people who could read and write also used the service.
Farmers, merchants, early police officers, innkeepers, soldiers and sailors benefited from the postal system. So many people were sending letters that a huge number of horses were needed to keep the service operational.
Carrying mail up and down the country was tiring for the post riders, so each stage was only ten miles before a fresh horse was deployed. The horses were stabled at inns and hostelries until they recovered sufficiently after each journey.
For the first time, the service had fixed routes and a system of post roads was introduced, so the powers-that-be could keep an exact track of the mail's whereabouts.
American post riders
Post riders began to operate regularly in the United States of America in around 1780. Prior to this, a local service had operated in the colonies from 1673, when post riders connected New York and Boston, providing mail services for the small settlements en route.
Initially, the services were operated by private contractors, who were commissioned to deliver the mail for a set period of time before new tenders were invited. Letters weren't delivered to people's homes in the early years. The townsfolk had to go to a central location to collect their mail.
In the late 18th century, the system was small, consisting of only the Postmaster General, a secretary, an inspector, three surveyors, 26 post riders and 75 post offices, covering around 2,000 miles of highways. The post riders were exempt from military service so that the postal service was never disrupted.
The post riders' importance was recognised officially when a law was introduced to fine anyone who interrupted them during their working day. They had to stick to tight schedules and make good time. This was the first time their progress was measured in terms of punctuality, so roadside milestones were used so they could estimate whether they were on schedule.
An 1838 Act of the United States Congress increased the use of railroads to transport mail, so the work of the post riders declined, although they were still used in regions where there was no railway.
The Pony Express was particularly fast, covering an area from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast from April 1860 to November 1861. However, it was a dangerous job and numerous Pony Express riders lost their life.
Were specific horses used?
There wasn't a specific breed of horse used for the postal service, although there was a requirement that they needed to be fast and hardy. James MacSparren, a Rhode Island clergyman, described the post horses as "remarkable for their fleetness and swift pacing".
He said some of them could cover a mile in just over two minutes, noting that they were also "very hardy". They needed to be, as it was a tough life for horses, particularly in the early years. There were few well-surfaced roads and many of the designated post roads were little more than dirt tracks. With no specific training for the horses, the riders must be able to follow the correct route, organise their time efficiently and make sure the horses were properly cared for.
Typically, by the 18th century, each post rider would have a set schedule and route, arriving at his destination once or twice a week to deposit the latest batch of mail. On the way, he would have met with other post riders coming from different parts of the country at various meeting points.
The post riders must be fairly literate and intelligent, since they had to co-ordinate all the stops, ensuring they met up with the other post riders from different districts at the correct time to exchange mail.
What were the dangers for post riders in England?
In England, the post riders were often youths, known as post boys, who delivered the mail for more than 150 years. It would take two days to deliver mail from London to Bath, with the riders travelling at around 5mph and changing horses every 10 miles. Sadly, they were often accosted by highwaymen and lost much of the mail.
According to a news report in the 18th century, a post rider had dismounted about three miles from Hyde Park Corner and stopped for a beer at an inn, leaving his horse outside. In his absence, thieves cut the mail bags' straps and fled with all the mail - there was little help for the unarmed post rider, in an era when even horse-drawn carriages were stopped and robbed in broad daylight by pistol-wielding highwaymen.
Why did the service stop?
After the railroad service dented the use of post riders in the 19th century, more mail began to be transported by other means, such as by sea and eventually by motorised transport and by air. The use of post riders began to die out in the late 19th century.
The service is still used in some very remote parts of the world, where other forms of transport aren't practical. Some remote towns in mountainous parts of Sichuan and Tibet are still served by horse couriers.