Birmingham Philatelic Society
The Birmingham Post Office in the First Half
of the 19th Century (part 3)
Mr. Gottwaltz, the postmaster died in 1817 and his daughter, Miss Gottwaltz was appointed as Birmingham's postmistress on the 17th March.
The following year the lease on her house expired and the opportunity was taken to demolish the premises and construct a new road from where the post office had stood up to St. Phillip's Churchyard. This road, still in existence today, was named Bennetts Hill, the name being taken from the name previously used to described the rising ground on which it was built.
Miss Gottwaltz had a new residence built on the west corner of New Street and Bennetts Hill, a far superior building, more befitting to the neighbourhood. The post office accommodation was contained in rooms on the Bennetts Hill elevation of the building which had a porch supported on Doric columns under which four people could stand in order to transact business. Miss Gottwaltz was granted an allowance for providing the post office accommodation which by 1837 amounted to £65 per annum in addition to her salary of £400 plus other expenses.
It is recorded that even in the late 1830's the porch was usually adequate to accommodate the number of people using the post office at any one time but in 1840 the introduction of Uniform Penny Postage resulted in far more postal communication and the facilities proved totally inadequate. The opportunity then taken by the postal authorities to transfer their business to the opposite side of New Street into premises, originally known as Portugal House which had been enlarged by the addition of two projecting wings and a centre colonnade entrance extending to the street front, and converted into a hotel, known as the New Royal. The centre colonnade was removed and the building re-opened in 1842 with the ground floor of the right wing fitted out as a Post Office.
The Post Office and postmistress's house built in 1818 (Birmingham's fourth post office)
Miss Gottwaltz, Birmingham's Postmistress from 1817 to 1855
The first floor became the Inland Revenue office and the Letter Carriers (postmans) sorting office was situated in the original rear section. Miss Gottwaltz continued in her position of postmistress until her retirement in 1855.
The 'New Royal Hotel' taken from an 1838 bill heading
The 'New Royal Hotel' when converted to a post office
Thus we have covered the development of Birmingham's post office over a period of some fifty years by which time the mail coaches had given way to a new form of transport - the train, and the Railway Era had begun - which is another story.
References: The New Triennial Directory of Birmingham by R. Wrighton 1818 The Making of Birmingham by R.K. Dent 1894 England in 1815 by M. Halevy 1964 Plus various records in the Post Office Archives etc. This article was taken from a publication compiled by Alan Spencer and Eric Lewis and is the copyright of the Birmingham Philatelic Society