Mail Catcher Apparatus

Thanks to David Chambers (Cogenhoe - railways collector), who answered a query placed on the www.smj.me website, the precise location of the mail catcher apparatus at Blisworth may now be reported with certainty.  He is in possession of a good photographic copy of a Victorian linen map of a very long stretch of the main line which includes Blisworth Station.  The map probably predates the station map already on this website and shows enough detail.  Mail was caught on the embankment between the road arch bridge and the cast-iron and concrete canal bridge.  The main map reproduced here shows the location some 240 yards away from the canal bridge and probably well hidden by trees growing on the embankment.  Catching was done on both the down line and the up line and each catching station had a small hut, positioned ahead of the "fork", for the postman to sit in while waiting for the express.  Surprisingly the map shows no path down from the embankment and therefore one surmises a path must have been established making for the lane, Ford Lane now known as Station Road, somewhere near the canal bridge.

Derek Smeathers (Northampton - local expert on all postal matters) is pleased to learn of the "catchers' location" having tried, along with George Freeston, to gain this information for many years.  The name is new to him; the usual description in postal circles is a "mail exchange apparatus".   In a little handbook published in 1971 by Harold S Wilson are some details about the apparatus.  The original design for the apparatus was made by Nathaniel Worsdell in late 1837, but the GPO refused to buy his patent and behind his back they encouraged a young Post Office worker to produce a fresh design. It was his apparatus that was erected at Blisworth but it apparently failed or gave so much trouble that it was abandoned after a few weeks. It must have been replaced or repaired as referred to in the GPO accounts of 9th June 1840.  The next notable date is 1860 - Derek Smeathers has a copy of a Time Bill of 1860 for the Irish Mail train which left Euston at 8.30pm and used the Blisworth apparatus at 9.59pm and the Weedon apparatus 9 minutes later!  By 1890, quite a number of the Mail Trains were calling at Northampton and thus avoiding Blisworth, though the Liverpool Morning and Day Mails both called at Blisworth (first stop from Euston) using apparatus at Bletchley and Watford Junction but not at Blisworth since there would be time to offload onto the platform.  What it was like attending to the catcher is recorded here.

The main map also shows the path of the ex-mill stream through one of two culverts built under the embankment.  There are also shown some pipes extending from the lowest point in Station Road, which still floods occasionally, to join the stream at the culvert.  The pipes also link up with the spring in the middle of Stockwell Field.  A very small "cottage" is shown very near to the southern edge of the reservoirs for the Tank House.  The main road is marked as a "Turnpike" which means that the original mapping was done before 1875 and the first use of mail catching must have been before that date too - but we already know that from the details of the previous paragraph.  Some say that by 1945 the catchers had fallen into disuse.

 Tony Marsh 02 January 2011