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Ralph Allen
Ralph Allen (c. 1693 – 29 June 1764) was a British postmaster, merchant and philanthropist best known for his reforms to Britain's postal system. Born in St Columb Major, Cornwall, he moved to Bath, Somerset to work in the municipal post office, becoming its postmaster by 1712. Allen made the system more efficient and took over contracts for the British mail service to cover areas of England up to the Anglo-Scottish border and into South Wales.
He purchased local stone mines from his postal profits and had Prior Park built as his country house to show off the versatility of Bath stone, using the old post office as his townhouse. Working alongside architect John Wood, the Elder, the stone Allen mined was heavily used in construction work for development works in Bath. However, the mines did not consistently make a profit and he subsidised them from his postal profits.
After his death, he was buried in a pyramid-topped tomb in Claverton, Somerset. Allen is commemorated in the names of streets and schools in the city of Bath and was the model for the character of Squire Allworthy in the 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding.
Much is unknown or obscure regarding Allen's early life. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives his father as Philip Allen, reputed to be an innkeeper. As a teenager, Allen worked at the Post Office at St Columb, run by his grandmother. He moved in 1710 to Bath, where he became a post office clerk, and at the age of 19, in 1712, became the Postmaster of Bath. In 1742 he was elected Mayor of Bath.
At the age of 27, Allen took control of the Cross and Bye Posts in the South West under a seven-year contract with the General Post Office, although he had no official title. At the end of this period he had not made a profit, only breaking even, but he had the courage to continue.
Over the next few years, he reformed the postal service. He realised that post boys were delivering items of mail along their route without them being declared and that this was lost profit. He introduced a "signed for" system that prevented the malpractice. He also improved efficiency by not requiring mail to go via London.
Allen's reputation grew and he took over more and more of the English postal system, signing contracts every seven years until he died aged 71. It is estimated that he saved the Post Office £1,500,000 over a 40-year period. He won the patronage of General Wade in 1715, when he disclosed details of a Jacobite uprising in Cornwall.
With the arrival of John Wood in Bath, Allen used the wealth gained from his postal reforms to acquire the stone quarries at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines. Hitherto, the quarry masons had always hewn stone roughly providing blocks of varying size. The resulting uneven surface is known as "rubble" and buildings of this type – built during the Stuart period – are visible throughout the older parts of Bath.
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Ralph Allen
Ralph Allen (c. 1693 – 29 June 1764) was a British postmaster, merchant and philanthropist best known for his reforms to Britain's postal system. Born in St Columb Major, Cornwall, he moved to Bath, Somerset to work in the municipal post office, becoming its postmaster by 1712. Allen made the system more efficient and took over contracts for the British mail service to cover areas of England up to the Anglo-Scottish border and into South Wales.
He purchased local stone mines from his postal profits and had Prior Park built as his country house to show off the versatility of Bath stone, using the old post office as his townhouse. Working alongside architect John Wood, the Elder, the stone Allen mined was heavily used in construction work for development works in Bath. However, the mines did not consistently make a profit and he subsidised them from his postal profits.
After his death, he was buried in a pyramid-topped tomb in Claverton, Somerset. Allen is commemorated in the names of streets and schools in the city of Bath and was the model for the character of Squire Allworthy in the 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding.
Much is unknown or obscure regarding Allen's early life. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives his father as Philip Allen, reputed to be an innkeeper. As a teenager, Allen worked at the Post Office at St Columb, run by his grandmother. He moved in 1710 to Bath, where he became a post office clerk, and at the age of 19, in 1712, became the Postmaster of Bath. In 1742 he was elected Mayor of Bath.
At the age of 27, Allen took control of the Cross and Bye Posts in the South West under a seven-year contract with the General Post Office, although he had no official title. At the end of this period he had not made a profit, only breaking even, but he had the courage to continue.
Over the next few years, he reformed the postal service. He realised that post boys were delivering items of mail along their route without them being declared and that this was lost profit. He introduced a "signed for" system that prevented the malpractice. He also improved efficiency by not requiring mail to go via London.
Allen's reputation grew and he took over more and more of the English postal system, signing contracts every seven years until he died aged 71. It is estimated that he saved the Post Office £1,500,000 over a 40-year period. He won the patronage of General Wade in 1715, when he disclosed details of a Jacobite uprising in Cornwall.
With the arrival of John Wood in Bath, Allen used the wealth gained from his postal reforms to acquire the stone quarries at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines. Hitherto, the quarry masons had always hewn stone roughly providing blocks of varying size. The resulting uneven surface is known as "rubble" and buildings of this type – built during the Stuart period – are visible throughout the older parts of Bath.