borough having no places for the depositing of letters nearer than the general office at Welling(sic) place and the London road at St. Leonards. People in both towns now very pertinently asked – Where was the benefit derived by a postal change which a few sanguine but mistaken members of the Town Council had so energetically advocated for several years, despite the equally determined protest of all those who would be most affected by the change?
As proof of how necessary it was to retain the post office at St. Leonards, as a general office for the convenience of a rapidly growing part of the borough, there are now, at the time of writing and have been for some years, within the St. Leonards postal delivery not fewer than three principal offices, besides pillar-boxes, and a specially constructed building for the receipt and despatch of mails, the sorting of letters and the delivery of the same by the now numerous postmen. Apropos of the original St. Leonards Post Office, the Hastings News of June 21st, 1861, had a paragraph as follows, under the term of
Public Improvement:-
“This term may be allowed, we think, in reference to the alterations which are now nearly completed at Dorman’s Victoria Library. Mr. Dorman’s establishment (like that of his respected predecessor, Mr. Southall) combines Post Office, Branch Bank and Electric Telegraph Office, besides his ordinary business. The new proprietor has recently remodelled his premises, which now present a vastly improved and modernized appearance. The Post Office department remains in its old corner, but new partitions of polished mahogany and glass have taken the place of the old structure. At the southern end of the shop, the Bank (London & County) and the Telegraph Office (London, Brighton and South-Coast line) occupy separate corners, partitioned off en suite with the Post Office. Neither has the alteration ended here, for all the old-fashioned glass cases and counters have had new ones substituted, with mahogany and plate glass fittings. The numerous exterior windows are now each occupied by a single sheet of plate-glass. The changes have been carried out in a spirit which speaks well for the enterprise of the present proprietor, and will, without doubt keep the establishment A1 in the township of St. Leonards.”
Testimonials.
A movement associated with the Post Office was the raising by subscription the sum of £121 8s. 4d. for presentation to Mr. John Woods, the late many years postmaster of Hastings, as -
