Trivia: First Fare Anomaly

[Egg Centric]

I asked the man in the ticket window for a single to Barnstaple. He told me a single was £8.80, but he could do me a return for £4.40.
‘You wouldn’t care to explain the logic of that to me, would you?’ I asked.
‘I would if I could, sir,’ he replied with commendable frankness.

The above I recall from "Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson (a classic if you haven't read it), a travel book from the early 1990s and end days of British Rail.

Fare anomalies have been with us for a a long time. Any idea what was the first?

The existence of the Railway Clearing House in the Victorian era suggests that they have been going back an awful lot longer than the 90s!