Thomas Neale on a postage stamp.
Thomas Neale (1641-1699) was a British projector and politician and well known in the United States as being the first equivalent to a postmaster general of the colonies.
Neale was an MP for 30 years, Master of the Mint and the Transfer Office, Groom Porter, gambler and entrepreneur. His projects ranged from the development of Seven Dials, Shadwell, East Smithfield and Tunbridge Wells, to land drainage, steel and papermaking, mining in Maryland and Virginia, raising shipwrecks, to developing a dice to check on cheating at gaming. He was also the author of numerous tracts on coinage and fund-raising, and was involved in the idea of a National Land Bank, the precursor of the Bank of England.
In America
Throughout the beginning years of the colonial United States many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Boston for example, setting up a location in town that one could post a letter back home to England. Other attempts focused on postal service between two larger colonies, such as Boston/Delaware, but the available services remained limited and disjointed for many years.
Central postal organization first came to the colonies in 1691 when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service. On February 17, 1691, a grant of letters patent from William and Mary empowered Thomas Neale,
"to erect, settle and establish within the chief parts of their majesties' colonies and plantations in America, an office or offices for the receiving and dispatching letters and pacquets, and to receive, send and deliver the same under such rates and sums of money as the planters shall agree to give, and to hold and enjoy the same for the term of twenty-one years."
Rates of postage were accordingly fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and other Colonies soon passed postal laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neale's patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the Colonies. The chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic.
1691: Thomas Neale received postal patent (concession) for the American and West Indies Colonial Post; Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster.
1693: May 1: Hamilton started weekly service between Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Virginia. Campbell, Duncan and John organized first postal network in America.
1698: Neale dropped Hamilton; Hamilton had revenue of less than 2,000 dollars, expenses totaling app. 5,000 dollars for period in office
Neale's franchise cost him only 80 cents a year but was no bargain; he died heavily in debt, in 1699.
In England
He was one of the most influential figures of late Stuart England, and one of the least chronicled. He used his many contacts garnered via family, court and county connections, to act as middleman between men of money, the Court, other parties, fellow MPs and the general public.
He was Master of the Mint from 1678 to the date of his death, when he was succeeded by Sir Isaac Newton.
From 1688, Neale developed his interests as a Member of Parliament, sitting on 62 committees. In February 1678, he was appointed Groom Porter to Charles II, a post which he also held under James II and William III. His duties in that capacity were to see the King's lodgings furnished with tables, chairs and firing, to provide cards and dice, and to decide disputes at the card-table and on the bowling-green. He was authorised by the King to license and suppress gaming-houses, and to prosecute unlicensed keepers of "rafflings" and other public games. On his own account he originated a loan and lottery business on the Venetian system.
As a projector and speculator he promoted building schemes, among which were the converging streets of Seven Dials - one of them Neal Street, Long Acre, still bears his name - and Lower Shadwell.
He was named as Deputy Governor in the charter (dated 1692) of the Company for Digging and Working Mines, and was involved in ventures to recoiver treasure from wrecks off Broad Haven, Ireland, in the Bermudas, and in the region from Cartagena to Jamaica. All of these were floated as joint stock companies.
In 1694 he was married to England's richest widow and he became known as 'Golden Neal'.
This remarkable man died insolvent about 1699 after a varied career, during which he ran through two fortunes, doubtless through gaming and speculative tendencies.
Publications
- A Proposal for Amending the Silver Coins of England (1696)
See also
References
- P. Watson, ‘Neale, Thomas’, History of Parliament, Commons, 1660–90.
- C. E. Challis, ‘Mint officials and moneyers of the Stuart period’, British Numismatic Journal, 59 (1989), 157–97.
- C. E. Challis, ed., A new history of the Royal Mint (1992).
- J. Redington, ed., Calendar of Treasury papers, 1, PRO (1868).
- N. Luttrell, A brief historical relation of state affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 3 (1857), 160–61; 4 (1857), 595, 650.
- E. Hawkins, Medallic illustrations of the history of Great Britain and Ireland to the death of George II, ed. A. W. Franks and H. A. Grueber, 2 vols. (1885), vol. 1, p. 637; vol. 2, pp. 104–5, 744.
- J. A. Neale, Supplement to charters and records of Neales of Berkeley Yate and Corsham (1927).
- "Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs".
- C. T. Carr, Select Charters of Trading Companies, 1530-1707, (Selden Society 28, 1913), 238-41.
- W. R. Scott, The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720: II Companies for Foreign Trade, Colonization, Fishing and Mining (Cambridge University Press, 1910), 441 488.
External links
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