House naming and numbering
Who lives where?
In medieval times, the
manorial system of Lords of the Manor, Sheriffs (Shire Reeves) and
villeins and serfs, the strict class system resulted in little or no
social mobility. There was no postal system, of course, so ‘everyone
knew everyone’ – if you were wanted, you were easily found. In later
village life, if you wanted to find a John Worthington, you would be
directed to John Worthington’s cottage. At a pinch, you would ask some
person in authority, such as the local vicar. Such word-of-mouth
identification ran into problems following the Enclosure Acts, mass
migration to towns, then cities, and increasing density of buildings.
The Industrial Revolution affected much more than industry. Urban and
later sub-urban living developed.
Naming of buildings
At first, houses/addresses were given names to help identification of a
dwelling, workshop etc. Many buildings in Ipswich still carry their
name plaques, whether it be Parade
Field Terrace (Belvedere Road) or Morpeth
Villa (Alpe Street). Posties tended to know well their delivery
patch, so could usually find people within a named terrace fairly
easily. Unnamed houses were perhaps known to them as 'the bungalow up
the track by the bowling green' (or similar). However, that solution
could only go so far.
House names, where they exist as lettering on
gate-posts or on plaques built into the brickwork, are seldom used
these days – a matter of regret, perhaps.
Numbering of buildings
The house-numbering from the 18th century followed the ever-increasing
density of housing
and was intended to simplify the location of a person’s home.
The Postal
Museum is a great online resource on this area of interest (see Links for their homepage). However, their page
on house numbering makes virtually no refernce to the importance of
house names. We show below the pith of their page on house numbering,
which contains valuable information not found elsewhere. Notably, the
body which decided on the allocation of house numbers was the local
authority.
House numbering
from The
Postal Museum website.
'What did posties do
before houses had numbers?
Before house numbers, businesses used illustrated signs to show people
where they were, for example, a dragon for an apothecary (the
equivalent of a pharmacy today). However, when sending post people had
to rely on describing the address as best they could. Over time, the
need for house numbers became increasingly clear. In London, one of the
first recorded instances of a street being numbered is Prescot Street
in Goodman’s Fields in 1708. By the end of the century, the numbering
of houses had become well established and seems to have been done on
the consecutive, rather than the odd and even principle which we know
now.
'None of this was regulated and numbering systems varied even in the
same street. For example, about 1780, Craven Street in the Strand had
three sets of numbers. Street names were also confusing, in 1853 London
had 25 Albert and 25 Victoria Streets, 35 King and 27 Queen Streets, 22
Princess and 17 Dukes Streets. There were irregularities everywhere,
and the naming of streets and parts of streets was left to the
idiosyncrasy or whim of the owner.
'Just imagine the difficulties for the postmen trying to deliver
letters! It didn’t help that there was also no standard way of
addressing a letter, so posties would also have to deal with addresses
like this:
"To my sister Jean Up the Canongate, Down a Close, Edinburgh. She has a
wooden leg."
Postman’s work rules included the instruction to make every effort to
find the correct address by asking people on their route. When delivery
was not possible, letters were returned to the so-called ‘Dead Letter
Office’, where staff would try to decipher the letters and find the
correct address. This still happens today, in a huge warehouse in
Belfast (the office goes by a different name nowadays!).
'Pressure to regulate house numbers
came from the Post Office
There was no regulation of house numbers until 1855 with the passing of
the Metropolitan Management Act. For the first time, the power to
control and regulate the naming and numbering of streets and houses
were set out in law and given to the new Board of Works. Under pressure
from the Post Office, the Board started work in 1857 on the
simplification of house numbering and street names by working through a
hit list of the most confusing streets given to the Board by the Post
Office. In the same year, London was split into ten districts giving
each a code, for example, EC (Eastern Central), WC (Western Central).
This was the very early beginnings of what became the postcode.
However, postcodes, as we know them, were not introduced until the
1960s-1970s.
'There was some public resistance to changing street names and numbers
but, by 1871, 4,800 street names had been changed and 100,000 houses
renumbered in London. Even so, it took some time for the use of house
numbers to become established with the public.
Postal reformer, Rowland Hill, wrote that:
"On arriving at a house in the middle of a street, I observed a brass
number 95 on the door, the houses on each side being numbered
respectively 14 and 16. A woman came to the door, when I requested to
be informed why 95 should appear between 14 and 16; she said it was the
number of a house she formerly lived at in another street, and it
(meaning the brass plate) being a very good one, she thought it would
do for her present residence as well as any other."
'The mammoth task of renumbering and renaming streets continued into
the 20th century. Although house numbering is still decided by local
authorities across the UK, there is a booklet here in the archive
called GPO Notes on Street Naming
and Numbering of Premises (January 1966, POST 17/159), which
says:
"The Post Office has no power to insist upon the use of house numbers
and street names in postal addresses but once Local Authorities, in
fulfilling their statutory authority, complete the task of naming of
streets, numbering of premises and insisting upon the exhibition of
numbers a great deal can be done by the Post Office in persuading users
of the post to help."
'The Post Office certainly lived up to this aim, running numerous
publicity campaigns over the years, persuading people to address their
post correctly. The archive contains many posters and leaflets on this
subject. House numbers have transformed the job of delivering our post,
especially with all the online shopping we do now. Just imagine being a
postie these days without house numbers!'
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