When stamps didn’t cost 95p


With the 1st class stamp in the UK just increased to 95p it seemed a good time to look back at how post was once handled in Benhall Green:.

 

In an 1855 local directory all post for Benhall was via Saxmundham but in 1861 Isaac Batho is mentioned as being a shoe maker as well as ‘Post Office’ though only as a receiver of letters. These arrive at 6:30 a.m. and are dispatched at 6:30 in the evening.
By 1890s the widow Hannah Pearce is the Post Mistress in Benhall Green and there is a pillar letter box at Bigsbys Corner. Letters arrive at 7 a.m. but are now dispatched twice a day to Saxmundham.
On 1901 census Benjamin Robert Ayden, widower, is Sub-Postmaster and shoe maker. His brother Ezekial is a rural postman and John Chambers, young son of the local school teacher, is assistant posting clerk and telegraphist. Edward George Ayden (known as Ted) was born 11th Dec 1897 and on this census is just 3 years old.

Letters are still received from Samundham however postal orders can now be issued in Benhall, though not paid. There is an additional letter box on Benhall Street and… a Sunday collection at Bigsbys Corner!

Benjamin’s eldest son John Benjamin left school in 1903 aged 14 and became the first ever telegraph messenger at Benhall Green, a job which often took him to Little Glemham Hall, the home of the dowager Lady North where he was later taken on as a page-boy. By then his brother Arthur Edmunds Ayden started as a telegraph messenger before he volunteered to serve in the Navy in 1908. Generations of the same family often worked for the Post Office.

By 1911 there were three additional postmen in Benhall Green: Ernest Mann and Harry Good who were rural postmen and George Hadley as an auxiliary postman (part time - see picture). George’s grandson said that George could have cycled round the world twice on his bicycle the amount of cycling he did on his round in Sweffling! 

 

Benjamin’s youngest son Ted Ayden became a telegraph messenger in Benhall and cycled to Glemham Hall and other big houses in the area as often as 3-4 times a day.  His wages were 6 shillings a week, which included one shilling for keeping his cycle clean!
In 1914 Ted, is appointed Assistant Postman in Saxmundham but enlists during WWI on 16th June 1916 for the A.S.C. M.T. (Army Service Corps, Mechanical Transport). Though injured and discharged in July 1918 he attained a position of Postman at Ipswich by the end of 1918. 
Ted (left) isn’t the only postman from Benhall Green to serve in WWI, George Hadley (right) served with the Yorkshire Regiment. 

 

Ted took over the duties of sub-postmaster on the death of his father in August 1921. His salary was £44 per year and he supplemented this by doing a post round for 7/6d per week. He was a founder member of the Ipswich branch of the Sub-Postmaster Federation and in a trade directory 1927 his varied occupations were stated as:
AYDEN EDWARD GEORGE, stationer, hairdresser & post office, Benhall Green

Postcard sent to George Hadley by Ted Ayden, postage 2 ½ D


Ted was a much-loved member of the community and is still remembered today. He was a postman from an early age, he knew everybody and delivered telegrams on his bicycle. Self-educated he was known to be reading The History of the Jews. He had a cleft palate, his speech was odd and his eye-sight wasn’t that good either. He would perm ladies hair, bake bread, make cakes and if anyone wanted any forms which they couldn’t cope with he would do that. He was a man of all trades. He had a dog called Pal, a white cross breed absolutely devoted to him, wherever Ted was Pal would be too. If Ted locked Pal up, then Pal would escape and go looking for Ted. 

 

Ted with Pal in photograph

 

Ted retired aged 60 in 1957.


Did you have a Benhall Post Office Savings book? This book dated February 1956.

 


 

The Post Office was then believed to be taken over by the Benhall Stores on the corner of the entrance to Benhall Green.

 


The Stores then became the Top Shop C 1980s and the Post Office was transferred to Fred and Rose Ward at 8 Benhall Green who ran the P.O. and the shop from a lean-to attached to their house until Fred died in 1995.

 

 

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