Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION THREE.
THE PASSAGE.
V. POST OFFICE AND ADMIRALTY PACKETS.

From 1820 until 1837 the British Post Office carried the
mails between Dover and Calais, on steamships which were
built specially for the purpose ; and those Government
steamers, being deemed the most reliable, they gradually
absorbed all the ordinary passenger traffic, as well as
conveying King's Messengers and Royal personages.

In 1834 a King's Messenger came down to Dover with
re-lays of foaming steeds to fetch Sir Robert Peel from
Rome to form an administration ; and there being no
steamer or sailing packet ready on the instant, the Messenger
at once embarked in an open sailing boat, making the
journey in about three hours. It was mentioned, in Sir
Robert Peel's Biography, that in his journey from Rome to
London, in 1834, which occupied twelve days and twelve
nights, he encountered as much difficulty as Constantine did
in travelling from York to Rome 1,500 years earlier, with
this exception, that on the Dover Passage Sir Robert
enjoyed the up-to-date advantage of a well-fitted steam
packet ; although from Dover to London he had to use one
of the time-honoured stage-coaches, steam travelling on the
water having preceded steam travelling on land by nearly a
quarter of a century.

The Post Office, in 1837, transferred the Dover and
Calais Mail service from their own vessels to the Admiralty,
which department continued to carry mails and passengers
on the Dover and Calais route for seventeen years. During
that time great improvements were made in the speed and
comfort of steam packets on the Passage. Captain Luke
Smithett, a Dover man, who was afterwards knighted, was
Commodore, under the Admiralty, of the Dover Packet
service, and in those days the vessels that he personally
commanded nearly always made the quickest passages.
Amongst the steamers on the Passage, in 1846, the swiftest
were the " Princess Alice," the " Onyx," and the " Violet."
Captain Luke Smithett was very proud of the " Princess
Alice," and did not believe that she could be beaten. When



THE PASSAGE 1 57

the " Onyx " came on the Passage, in 1846, a race was
arranged between that vessel and the " Princess Alice,"
which had then been running two years. In a run of an
hour and a half along the Kentish coast the " Onyx " proved
swifter by nine minutes. The average time of the " Onyx "
between Dover and Calais from 1846 to 1848 was one hour
and twenty-five minutes.

There are ample facts given as to the Admiralty
Packets, their speed and the mails carried, in the Admiralty
Records, but the passengers are not mentioned. From the
newspapers of that time, we have compiled the returns,
which, compared with later years, are disappointing. In
the summer of 1848, a steam packet carrying as many as
thirty or forty passengers was considered uncommon. In
July of that year it was mentioned as extraordinary that the
cross-Channel packets were carrying nearly fifty passengers
each voyage; but at that time the Dover and Calais route
was at a very low ebb, owing to there being no railway to
Paris from Calais, although there was one from Boulogne.
In the week ended June 24th, 1848, 900 Continental
passengers passed through Dover, being 500 on the Ostend
route, 300 on the Boulogne route, and only 100 on the
Calais route.

On the 2nd September, 1848, the Northern Railway of
France was opened to Calais, and at the end of January,
1849, the Admiralty ceased running mail packets to Boulogne,
after which date Calais resumed its old position as the
principal port for English travellers. During that summer
the Dover and Calais packets carried about fifty passengers
each voyage, but in the summer of 1850 the average per
voyage, reckoning twenty-eight voyages a week between Dover
and Calais, was one hundred passengers each trip; in the
winter of the same year the average was barely twenty. In
the year 1851, when the great exhibition was held in London,
the passenger traffic was greatly increased by arrivals, but
there were fewer departures in the early summer; the
incoming packets were crowded, averaging about two hundred
passengers each voyage. It was in this year that packets
began to embark and disembark passengers at the landings
of the Admiralty Pier.

In 1850 a Parliamentary Committee considered the
advisability of submitting the transit of the mails, on the
Dover and Calais route, to tender. That Committee was



158 ANNALS OF DOVER

informed that, after allowing for the receipts from passengers,
the carriage of the mails between Dover and Calais cost
^6,244 per annum, and at that time the South Eastern
Railway Company offered to carry the mails across for
^,^9,825. As it appeared that the acceptance of that tender
would involve increased expenditure, no action was then
taken. In 1854, however, tenders were again invited, and
Mr. Joseph George Churchward's tender of ^^i 5,000 was
accepted. Between the years 1850 and 1854 the cost of
the mail packet service to the Admiralty had much increased,
and it was said in Parliament that the contract would be
an annual saving of ^10,000. This contract being entered
into for the purpose of economy, it was not expected that
there would be any great improvements in the service, but
there were some. The time occupied by the voyages was
slightly lessened, the fittings of the steamers were more
adapted for the comfort of the passengers, and a railway
connection having been made between the railway station
and the Admiralty Pier landing stages, passengers could
walk direct from the steamer to the railway train. These
advantages poplarised the Passage, there being an average
daily total of about 400 passengers. Up to this time the
benefit of the passenger traffic had been chiefly felt by the
hotel keepers and tradesmen who catered for them, the
work of building and repairing steamers having been done by
the Admiralty at the Dockyards; but Mr. Churchward, for
keeping his fleet in repair, established the Dover Packet
Yard near the docks, creating a new local industry, which
has been perpetuated down to the present time.



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