The printed letter below was sent out from the Tithe Commissioners for England and Wales in November 1844.
The Tithe Commissioners were a three-man government board established in London under the Tithe Commutation Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 71) to oversee the conversion of traditional agricultural tithes into monetary payments.
For centuries, English and Welsh farmers were legally required to give one-tenth of their crops and livestock (tithes "in kind") to support the local parish church and clergy. By the 1830s, this system caused immense social unrest, religious disputes, and economic inefficiency. The commissioners replaced physical collections of grain or animals with a variable annual cash payment known as a tithe rentcharge. This monetary value was index-linked to the national seven-year average price of corn, wheat, oats, and barley.
The commissioners deployed a network of local Assistant Tithe Commissioners and surveyors across the country. They conducted a comprehensive Tithe Survey to map out every single parcel of titheable land in England and Wales. The commission favoured voluntary agreements between landowners and the church. However, if a parish could not agree on valuations, the Tithe Commissioners had the legal power to step in, resolve the boundary or financial disputes, and issue a compulsory Tithe Award.
The contents of the printed letter were as shown below:
Following the 1840 postal reforms, government departments paid for mail through centralized bookkeeping accounts with the Post Office rather than using physical stamps.
Departments did not purchase stamps over a post office counter. Instead, the General Post Office calculated the weight and volume of the mail generated by each department and charged the total to that department's parliamentary budget.
To indicate that a letter belonged to a state department and its fee was accounted for, the GPO introduced distinctive, specialized "Official Paid" handstamps. These circular, oval, or crown-designed marks were usually struck in red ink to show the postal clerks that the item was prepaid via government accounts and should be processed without delay.
Departments printed custom stationery, official envelopes, or paper wrappers featuring the department's name. The signature of an authorised clerk or official was often required on the front corner of the envelope to certify that the contents were strictly for state business, preventing the personal mail abuse that plagued the pre-1840 system.
The letter was sealed with the seal of the Tithe Commission, and initialled on the front.
Although from 1840 postage was determined purely on weight, packages exceeding three feet simply could not fit into standard leather mail sacks or the secure, locked mailboxes built into Royal Mail coaches.
Following the Tithe Commutation Act 1836, the Tithe Commission was tasked with mapping every single parish in England and Wales to convert traditional crop tithes into monetary payments. The resulting tithe maps were extraordinarily detailed, large-scale drawings. When rolled up for transport, these heavy parchment maps routinely spanned over three feet in length.
Because the official Royal Mail framework could not handle these oversized parcels, the Tithe Commission relied on ordinary commercial stagecoaches or passenger coaches. Commercial passenger coaches possessed large exterior boots, under-seat storage, and roof racks meant for heavy passenger luggage, making them perfectly suited to handle long, awkward tubes containing maps.
