Page 55 - Bulletin 9 2005

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Almanac confirms Melville’s contract and notes that Melville’s receipts for that year
were £180. It also records that the mails were now dispatched for Simon’s Town on

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.00 am, arriving back in Cape Town at 5.00 pm

on the same day.

New contracts for 1849-1851 were tendered on but Melville underbid and a Mr. Henry
Green secured the mail contract. He was the owner of the British Hotel in Simon’s Town

and had been Melville’s agent there. Green had limited success and was accused by locals

of considering the post to be a secondary affair. In the winter of 1849 he gave up the mail
contract which returned to Melville who retained it for a further ten years. This was despite

a letter in Die Zuid Afrikaan, dated 12 October 1849, in which Melville’s conveyance was
described as a “miserable jolting old cart.” (Fig. 2.2)

The Cape Town-Simon’s Town Mail Routes for 1849 were detailed in The Cape Almanac

as Route 29 Cape Town to Simon’s Town via Wynberg, dispatched daily (Sundays

excepted) at 2 o’clock in the afternoon to arrive at Simon’s Town at 5 o’clock that
afternoon; Route 30 Simon’s Town via Wynberg to Cape Town, dispatched daily (Sundays

excepted) at 7 o’clock in the morning to arrive at Cape Town at half-past 10 that morning.
The above notice also appeared in The Cape Almanac 1851 edition.

In 1857 omnibuses as well as post-carts were allowed to be used for the first time to
dispatch mail from Cape Town to Simon’s Town, and in the terms of the tender for the

mail contract it was now stated that “the contractor will be at liberty to carry such numbers
of Passengers or Parcels in the Mail Vehicle as he may think fit, and to make his own

charge for the accommodation thus afforded; provided that part of the Box or Well of the

cart specially appropriated for the Mail shall not be mixed up with any other Packets, &c.,
not appertaining to such mail. But the Contractor will not be allowed to carry in his

Vehicles, by himself or any of his Servants, any Letters or Newspapers, excepting those
delivered to him by the respective Postmasters; nor are they knowingly to permit any

Passenger to carry any Letter or Newspaper. The Post Rider or Driver shall be provided by
the Contractor with a Bugle or Horn, to be sounded when approaching any Post Office or