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Mail coaches were introduced in 1784, and a year later Parliament
passed an act which exempted these coaches from paying tolls on the
roads. This was a serious problem to the trusts that maintained the
roads, since the narrow iron wheels on the heavy coaches caused a
lot of damage to the roads. The trusts complained, and as a
compromise, the exemption was revoked in Scotland starting on June
8, 1813. This didn’t make much sense, since Scotland had the fewest
coach routes of any region in Great Britain.
To cover the fees, the Post Office was allowed to add a halfpenny
tax to any letter carried by coach within Scotland. A number
of different handstamps were authorized to be applied to letters to
show that the surcharge was collected. This letter, mailed on
September 27, 1839, shows the fraction one-half in a box. This is a
late example of the surcharge because it was abolished in December,
1839 when uniform four penny postage was introduced.
For more information on the tax, see the
The Halfpenny Scottish Wheel Tax
site and Ron Shanahan’s page on the subject.
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