Before the establishment of the Penny Post system, it had become very expensive to post letters, especially across long distances within Britain. With literacy rates increasing, more and more people were wanting to write and send letters, but were constrained by the exorbitant cost. The system was also very uneven, as payment could either be made by the sender or the recipient, and recipients often refused to accept delivery of the item in order to avoid having to pay. The Penny Post did away with these irregularities, as well as much of the corruption inherent in the old postal service, as it made the Royal Mail a government monopoly. The new system massively increased the number of letters sent, almost doubling from 1839 to 1840, and d…

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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Penny Post founded". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=843, accessed 23 November 2024.]