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Medical officers were first appointed to the Post Office in 1854 after a committee of enquiry decided that all candidates should be examined prior to appointment in order to assess their fitness for public service. The Medical Officer was responsible for overseeing health care in The Post Office and from 1893 he compiled an annual report with sick leave statistics to show the level of staff absence for the different districts and departments. Many of the medical officers to have served over the years also wrote medical articles and, following the work of Dr John Sinclair, were involved with The Post Office Ambulance Corps. The Post Office Ambulance Corps was established in 1902 following a suggestion by a group of employees. Many of the members of this group held first aid certificates but were concerned about the length of time taken for medical assistance to arrive at the scene of an accident and wished to provide a first aid service during this period. However, they were not allowed to provide this service until they had achieved further qualifications from the St John Ambulance Association and there was no provision for such courses to be run at The Post Office. The group therefore sought and received the support of the Chief Medical Officer, Dr John Sinclair, and a course of lectures was set up. From its creation the Corps expanded throughout the organisation and maintained close links with the St John Ambulance Association. Annual competitions evolved as an opportunity for teams to demonstrate their skills in an emergency, and these became increasingly popular. In 1911 courses were arranged for women and two women's branches were formed. In 1928 the name was changed to the Post Office Ambulance Centre and re-organised to enable non-members of the St John Ambulance Brigade to join. The Centre was valuable in both World Wars and provided first aid posts and wards staffed by volunteers from the Corps in some of the most bombed areas of London.

There have been many staff associations, unions and representative bodies acting on behalf of the large numbers of staff employed by the Post Office in the modern era. Staff associations became increasingly prominent in the twentieth century. The Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) has had the largest membership and has been involved in all of the major wage negotiations since its inception in 1919. In 1980 it became the Union of Communication Workers (UCW) and in 1995 it merged with the National Communications Union to form the Communication Workers' Union (CWU). In 2005 it had a membership exceeding 250,000, comprising men and women working for the Post Office, British Telecom and other telephone and communication companies.

Post Office Staff Associations have their origins in the nineteenth century. The first efforts to improve staff conditions occurred in a number of meetings held in secret in and around St Martin's le Grand in the 1840s. A 'confederacy' was formed protesting against low pay and extra duties, with the support of some societies, clergymen and journalists. In the 1850s, similar small groups of Post Office employees joined with Lord's Day Societies and gained temporary successes in abandoning Sunday work. A small 'London Committee' concerned with the interests of letter carriers remained active through the 1860s and even met with Postmaster Generals a number of times, although the leaders of those agitating for increased pay were often sacked. The following decade saw the entry of telegraphists into Post Office employ and these were amongst the first to strike in 1871, and despite increased organisational endeavours, including William Booth's best efforts on behalf of the letter carriers, all efforts at creating a formal union failed. This was finally achieved with the creation of the Postal Telegraph Clerks Association in 1881, following a significant reorganisation of grades and negotiations with Postmaster General Henry Fawcett. In the final 20 years of the nineteenth century, there was a ferment of proto-union organisation across the Post Office workforce. This included the founding of the United Kingdom Postal Clerks Association in 1887 by provincial Post Office clerks; the Postmen's Union in 1889; and the Fawcett Association comprised of London sorters in 1890. Although the major pay claims were unsuccessful, the right to meet in public was secured over this period, the Fawcett Association gained their first full time representative officials in 1892 (albeit against its will) and the first large scale strike occurred in 1890. By the turn of the century, every Post Office grade had gained a representative association.

From this time until the outbreak of the First World War there were a number of large-scale public enquiries into the grievances of Post Office employees. Arguing the case of the lower grade workforce was the National Joint Committee (also known as the Amalgamated Postal Federation), which was the precursor in loosely uniting the disparate associations to the post-war amalgamation into the UPW. There were five main hearings that were respectively overseen by Tweedmouth (1895-7); Bradford (1904); Hobhouse (1907-8); Holt (1912-13); and Gibb (1914). In the first of these inquiries, the improvements gained were widely deemed to be inadequate and precipitated militancy, especially from many telegraphists. By the time of the Hobhouse inquiry, the union associates were recognised for the purposes of negotiation and a more thoroughgoing representation of Post Office employees was secured by the time of the Gibb inquiry. By this time the British labour movement had become heavily unionised and the period 1912-14 was one of acute industrial unrest on a broad scale and many concessions were gained during the Holt inquiry, including a more equitable system of 'differential' wages, where the level of pay varied according to region.

In 1919, the 44 representative associations of various workers employed by the Post Office were amalgamated into the UPW. These associations had represented the workers of four main grades: manipulative (those who handled mail and the like), supervisory, clerical and other. The following is a list of these associations:

There were 17 associations for manipulative grades: Postmen's Federation; Postal Telegraph Clerk's Association; Amalgamated Society of Telephone Employees; UK Postal Clerk's Association; Fawcett Association; Engineering and Stores Association; Irish Post Office Clerks; London Postal Porter's Association; Central London Postmen's Association; Women Sorters Association; Sorter-Tracers Association; Registry Assistants, Second Class Assistants; Tube Staff Association; Postal Bagmen's Association; PO Telegraph Mechanicians Society; Tracers Association; Messengers Association.

There were 14 associations for supervisory grades: Postal Telegraph and Telephone Controlling Association; London Postal Superintending Officers Association; Society of Post Office Engineers; Association of National Telephone Engineers; Central London Male Supervisors Association; London Association of Head Postmen; Society of PO Engineering Inspectors; Assistant Head Postmen's Association; Head Porters Association; Association of PO Superintendents; Second Class Assistant Inspectors and Telegraph Messengers; Telephone Exchange Managers Association; Association of Inspectors of Messengers; Association of Inspectors of Tracing.

There were 9 associations for clerical grades: Women Clerk's Association; General Association of Third Class Clerks; PO Engineering Clerks Association; London Postal Clerks Association; Association of Third Class Clerks (Surveyors); Representative Committee of Metropolitan Third Class Clerks; London Telephone Service Association; Engineer-in-Chief's Office Supplementary Clerk's Association; First and Second Class Clerks (Provinces) Association.

There were 4 associations for other grades: National Federation of Sub-Postmasters; PO Medical Officers Association; Head Postmasters Association; Established Sub-Postmasters Association.

In addition to these associations, which were poorly funded and mostly run by Post Office employees in their spare time, there were numerous clubs and guilds such as the Post Office Socialist League and sports and debating societies, which produced a wide range of literature and would have their successor Post Office social clubs through the twentieth century.

The amalgamated UPW was set up at the time when the government introduced the Whitley Councils, in 1919. The Whitley system dominated inter-war wage bargaining for the civil service as a whole and arguments presented for increased pay tended to be based on demands for a wage sufficient to cover the cost of living, and that was comparable with wages in the private sector and was thus guided by the market value of pay. Here, successive governments were cornered into having to 'set an example' in the formulation of reasonable wage schemes, especially following the economic downturns of the early 1920s and 1930s. During this period, and despite having little involvement in the general strike of 1926, the UPW became subject to the 1927 Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, which prohibited civil servants from joining unions affiliated to the Trade Union Congress. This state-enforced ban on trade union collusion in pursuing joint industrial interests circumscribed the effectiveness of the UPW until the end of the Second World War when this legislation was overturned.

From the amalgamation into the UPW in 1919 and for much of the remaining century, the organisational history of Post Office Associations and of staff representation in general concerns secessionist groups and the difficulties of keeping the UPW unified in its industrial negotiations. Because the amalgamated UPW acted on behalf of a qualitative and quantitative variety of job types, special interest groups composed along similar lines to the pre-amalgamated associations continued to exist, breaking away from the UPW and competing for their respective and often conflicting interests. This is a theme that Alan Clinton has emphasised in his comprehensive study 'The Post Office Workforce: A Trade Union and Social History' (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984). The secessionist groups with the largest membership in the inter-war period were the Guild of Postal Sorters; The Association of Counter Clerks; The Guild of Sorting Clerks and Telegraphists (SC&Ts); and the National Association of Postmen. Smaller groups included the Government and Overseas Cable and Wireless Operators Association and the Northern Ireland Postal Clerks Association.

Likewise, the secessionist organisations and representative bodies distinct from the UPW that dominated the post-war era were the National Guild of Telephonists; National Association of Postal and Telegraph Officers; Engineering Officers (Telecommunications) Association; Clerical and Administrative Workers Union; Civil Service Clerical Association; and after 1972, the Association of Professional Executive Clerical and Computer Staff.

The political and economic environment of the immediate post-war period was changed in that a Labour Government committed to full employment and an enlarged civil service gave the UPW more bargaining leverage and although gradual, significant improvements in pay and conditions were secured through the 1950s, as the UPW General Secretary Ron Smith argued in 1961. The Conservative dominated 1960s saw a more concerted effort to keep wage levels down and this precipitated a spate of negotiation and arbitration between the UPW and the government. The initial wage increases were too modest for many, leading to strikes in 1964, but a national all-out official strike was avoided when a more substantial pay increase was achieved later that year. In 1965, Tom Jackson became the UPW General Secretary and the following years were turbulent times for the UPW with protracted negotiations over capital and labour, instances of industrial action, particularly in 1968, culminating in the largest strike in the history of the Post Office: a six-and-a-half week national strike of all UPW members in January and February 1971. The UPW failed to gain the wage demands it had made in October the previous year when its members voted 14-1 to end the strike. The whole affair is estimated to have cost the Post Office £25 million in lost revenue. Clinton has argued that the strike had long term consequences for the UPW and Post Office wage bargaining, coming as it did at the beginning of a period in which the Post Office ceased to be a government department and in which it was stripped of its telecommunications functions (this was privatised under BT in 1984), along with the more recent restructuring that has included the more general amalgamation of Post Office Associations with the wider communications workforce in Britain.

Many facets of the above associations, strikes, negotiations and arbitration are covered in this class, including pre-amalgamation records, as well as material relating to the organisational structure and history of the UPW and the major controversies of the twentieth century including the UPW strike of 1971. For a full history see Alan Clinton 'The Post Office Workforce: A Trade Union and Social History' (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984). For Staff Associations and Union Publications see POST 115.

The position of 'head of The Post Office' was first entitled 'Postmaster General' under the Commonwealth Act of 1657. Previously he had been known by various titles, Master of the Posts, Comptroller General of the Posts and Postmaster of England. The Post Office Act of 1660 provided that 'one Master of the General Letter Office shall be from time to time appointed by the King's Majesty, his heirs and successors, to be made or constituted by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of England, by the name and style of his Majesty's Postmaster General'. The appointment was generally not made for a fixed length of term and Postmaster Generals were succeeded upon retirement or resignation. From 1691 two Postmasters General were appointed to hold office conjointly. At that time one was a member of the Whig party and the other a member of the Tory party. This joint appointment continued as a government policy until 1823, although the political ramifications lost much of their initial importance. Between the years of 1784 and 1831, the Post Offices of Great Britain and Ireland were separate and had separate Postmasters. The post of Receiver General was established in 1677, with the responsibility to receive and account for all payments received and expended by the Post Office. In 1855 these duties were combined with those of the Accountant General. The Office of Court Post, which was abolished [1798] was that of messenger responsible for conveying the sovereign's letters and those of his Principal Secretaries of State to the nearest stage of post town.

In 1934 as part of a general re-organisation of the Post Office, a Director General was appointed to replace the office of Secretary to the Post Office. At the same time a Post Office Board was created under the Chairmanship of the Postmaster General. Further re-organisation also took place in 1934 with the replacement of district surveyors by regional directors, who were given full powers of day-to-day control of local postal and telecommunications affairs in their regions.

The establishment of a functional board for the Post Office was first recommended in the Bridgeman report of 1932, and the Post Office Board was subsequently established with eleven members, including all the General Directorate and Directors. Recommendations made by the Board were put before the Postmaster General through the Secretary's Minutes to the Postmaster General. However the board had no executive power, and decisions rested ultimately with the Postmaster General. Although the Bridgeman Committee had envisaged the Board as a controlling body, in time it came to be more of a reviewing body and, due to its increasing size and the consequent difficulty of assembling members, its meetings became less frequent.

In November 1964 the board was reconstituted with the following members: Postmaster General, Assistant Postmaster General, Director General and the General Directorate, with Directors invited to attend as appropriate. The board considered and gave decisions on all major issues of policy and administration. In general, ministerial approval on important issues of policy was sought by submitting papers to the board and not by submitting minutes to the Postmaster General, except where a decision was urgently required before the board could be convened.

Before 1967 at Post Office Headquarters, 'common' engineering, finance, and personnel departments operated in parallel with Postal and Telecommunications service departments, all reporting through the general directorate to the Postmaster General. From 1967, Posts (which incorporated the existing remittance services and New Giro service) and Telecommunications were put under separate Managing Directors, each with nearly complete finance, personnel, and technological support provided by dividing up common departments.

A substantial 'central' personnel function remained and legal and some other services were left centralised. Telecommunications took on procurement and research for both businesses. The National Data Processing Service was established by Act of Parliament and began to function as an independent (central) service. Managerial links between Posts and Telecommunications began to disappear.

1969 was a year of change; with the passing of The Post Office Act in October 1969, the Post Office became a nationalised industry, established as a public Corporation.

For this reason there was two Post Office Boards in 1969; the 'old' Post Office Board (with Board papers carrying the 'POB' prefix) had its final meeting on 22 July 1969, after this, a newly constituted Board was formed and it had its first meeting on 25 July 1969 (Papers produced by the new Board were given the reference 'PO').

The Corporation was split into two businesses, Posts and Telecommunications. The office of Postmaster General was discontinued, and the Post Office was headed by a Chairman and Chief Executive/Deputy Chairman. This role was directly appointed by the Post Office Board. Members of the board also included the Managing Directors Posts and Giro, and Telecommunications, the head of the National Data Processing Service, members for industrial relations, technology and, from January 1970, a finance member.

Following the establishment of the Post Office Corporation, a second board was created, the Post Office Management Board. Both were responsible for overseeing operations, but the Post Office Board took responsibility for strategic issues, while the Post Office Management Board took over the day to day running of the Corporation. The Post Office Management Board was a non-statutory board which consisted mostly of full time board members and two officials. It was to meet monthly and receive reports from the businesses on their operations and review them in accordance with board policies, consider capital projects for which board approval was required, to examine the annual investment programme and other tasks as required.

In 1971, the Post Office Board established an Emergency Committee to handle the strike of that year.

During 1978-1979 the board operated under an experiment in industrial democracy with about half of its membership nominated by unions. This experiment was, however, considered to be unsuccessful.

In 1980, in preparation for the departure of British Telecom from the Post Office, two separate boards were established for the Telecommunications and Posts and Girobank businesses. These two new boards replaced the Post Office Management Board, and were additional to the main Post Office Board.

The main Post Office Board continued to oversee the transition period, although it met less frequently. The Chairman of the Post Office was the Chairman of both new boards (as was the Secretary) and the boards were intended to deal with matters wholly or mainly the concern of each business. They had the power to defer matters to the Post Office Board, and power to authorise action to proceed on decisions made by the board. It was stated that these boards were not intended to replace the Managing Director's Committees.

At this time, discussion was also begun regarding what procedures would be put in place to replace the 1978-1979 experiment in industrial democracy. It was suggested that a new joint body should be created for each of the businesses (Posts, and Telecommunications) titled the National Joint Policy Council, consisting of executive board members and the General Secretaries / Presidents of unions to meet and discuss a wider range of issues than the National Joint Council General Purposes Committee had done so previously. The idea was to air important policy, planning and performance issues on the National Joint Policy Councils before board decisions were taken to increase awareness of union views. In 1981 the National Joint Council General Purposes Committee was renamed the National Joint Council Posts and Giro Committee.

In 1980 the Chairman's Executive Committee was established by the Post Office Board. This Committee considered matters affecting the running of the Posts and Giro businesses relating to performance and progress against targets and personnel. This committee was renamed the Post Office Executive Committee (POEC) in September 1992.

In 1981 a Girobank and Counters Committee was established which comprised the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, board member for Finance, Personnel and Industrial relations member, Miss E Cole, Sir Clifford Cornford, Mr P E Moody, Senior Director National Girobank, the Director of Marketing and Customer Services National Girobank. In 1985 a Giro Board was created in anticipation of the establishment of Girobank as a public limited company (plc).

Also in 1981, the telecommunications business of the Post Office became a separate public corporation, trading as British Telecom. When the responsibility for telecommunications was transferred from the Post Office Corporation to British Telecom, copies of board papers relevant to the new corporation were passed to British Telecom. Following the 1981 split the Post Office was then re-organised into two distinct businesses: Posts and Parcels.

In 1981, the Post Office established an Audit Committee consisting of three part time members, the board member for finance and external auditors and internal auditors invited to attend as appropriate. It was to meet four times a year, with two meetings to consider the accounts, one to consider the external auditors letters to management, and one to meet internal auditors. The terms of reference for the committee stated that it was 'to review, as necessary, the financial policies and procedures of the Corporation and their implementation, including particularly the adequacy of the Corporation's internal control systems, and to report thereon to the Board through the Chairman of the Corporation.'

The Post Office was restructured during 1986 to create three businesses: Subscription Services Limited, Royal Mail, and Parcelforce, and the make up of the board members reflected this. In 1987 the network of Post Offices was established as Post Office Counters Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Post Office, and the Counters Management Committee was established in 1986 to replace previous monthly AD meetings. The principle of this committee was that it would deal with matters of a collective concern and of a longer term nature, for example, monthly monitoring reports and progress against the business plan. It was an effort to make more effective use of management time, and provide for more effective management of the counters business. It was renamed the Counters Executive Committee in July 1993, and reported to the Post Office Counters Board, and the main Post Office Board.

In 1988, business boards were established for the Letters, Parcels and Counters Businesses. A Major Projects Expenditure Committee (MaPEC) was also established during this year to deal with the financing of major one-off projects.

In 1990, Post Office Parcels changed its name to Parcelforce Worldwide and was launched as an independent division. National Girobank was also privatised in this year and sold to Alliance and Leicester Building Society.

The Postal Services Act 2000 created a company with more commercial freedoms and a more strategic relationship with government, and on 26 March 2001, it became a plc wholly owned by the UK government (its sole shareholder). A new regulatory framework was set up with an independent regulator (Postcomm) and a reformed consumer body (Postwatch). On 4 November 2002, a name change from Consignia to Royal Mail Group plc occurred.

The Royal Mail Group website states that the 'Royal Mail Holdings plc Board sets the strategic vision of the company. It is responsible for driving the four goals of the renewal plan: being a great place to work; improving customer service; returning to profitability; and delivering positive cash flow.' The Management Board 'comprises all the Executive Directors of Royal Mail Holdings plc and certain other Senior Executives of the Group. The Management Board develops and monitors deployment of the Group's strategy, annual operating plans and budgets for Board approval. It reviews operational activities, and sets policies where these are not reserved to the Board.'

There are three formal committees of the board including the following; Nomination Committee, Remuneration Committee, Audit and Risk Committee. Terms of reference for these committees can be found on the Royal Mail Group website. (http://www.royalmailgroup.com/portal/rmg/jump1?catId=23200529&mediaId=23200554 - last accessed November 2006).

A system of outside consultation of Post Office administration was initiated by Herbert Samuel, the Postmaster General, as early as 1913 in the form of local telegraph and telephone committees. These were set up by chambers of commerce, trade or, in their absence, by local authorities. In 1921 Frederick G Kellaway, the Postmaster General, under pressure from the Federation of British Industries, set up a national body known as the Post Office Advisory Committee. This was the direct ancestor of bodies still operating today. These committees had only a limited effect, mainly on particular details of the running of the service, and they did not have much impact. By the early 1930s, the national council was meeting very infrequently. In the years immediately following World War Two the local committees were revamped to cover all aspects of Post Office work.

In August 1969 it was decided to establish a Users Council. This was titled the Post Office Users National Council (POUNC). Its aim was to represent at national level the interests of the users of Post Office services, to ensure the existence of adequate consultative arrangements at local level, to receive proposals from the Postmaster General, and to make recommendations to him about the services.

These powers were established under the 1969 Post Office Act. POUNC was an independent statutory body, funded by the Department of Trade and Industry. It was modelled on the consultative or consumers councils of the major nationalised industries. It covered the whole of the British Isles, and three country councils covering Scotland, Wales and Monmouthshire and Northern Ireland. These councils were independent from The Post Office. An independent chairman, (although appointed by the Postmaster General), sat with thirty two members who were unpaid, except for reasonable out of pocket expenses. All members were appointed on 1 January 1970 and would serve, initially for three years. These members formed a cross section of Post Office users, and, as they served in a personal not a delegate capacity, were free to express their own views, and to represent the views of the ordinary Post Office user. Some of its work was delegated to individual committees, one for postal matters, one for telecommunications, other committees were formed as the need arose. From its establishment the Post Office provided a secretary and premises. The work of the council would arise from matters put to it by the Post Office, the public, and local advisory committees. This gave the local advisory committees a direct link to Post Office headquarters, something not previously available to them. POUNC maintained close liaison with Advisory Committees, receiving regular reports of their meetings, and circulating a periodic POUNC newsletter.

Between 180 and 200 Post Office Advisory Committees existed in 2000 throughout the United Kingdom. New committees were often formed and existing committees merged, when for example, a Head Postmaster's area of responsibility was enlarged. Membership was drawn from local authorities, commercial organisations, local voluntary bodies, and individuals. The committees were non-statutory. Post Office managers attended meetings to explain Post Office policy and answer questions about local issues. The aim was to increase the confidence of the business community in the Post Office. Advisory Councils acted as liaison points between the Post Office and the local community on matters of mutual concern. Prior to the enactment of the Post Office Act of 1969 Advisory Committees were sponsored and, in some cases, financially supported by bodies such as the Post Office itself, Chambers of Commerce, Chambers of Trade and Local Authorities.

On 1 January 2001, the Secretary of State transferred all the property, rights and liabilities of the Post Office Users' National Council to Postwatch. The following was based on information taken from the Royal Mail Group website (http://www.royalmailgroup.com) in November 2006:

Postwatch (initially called the Consumer Council for Postal Services) was established to promote the interests of users of postal services within the framework of the Postal Services Act 2000. It replaced the Post Office Users' National Council (POUNC) and had a more extensive regional structure.

Postwatch was responsible for monitoring postal service standards and acts as a focus for consumer issues and complaints. It was consulted on key decisions including variations in the services for which postal licences were required, the granting and modification of licences, and the enforcement of licence conditions. Together with the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm), Postwatch also monitored and advised on the network of Post Office branches.

Postwatch stated that its role was to protect, promote and develop the interests of all customers of postal services in the UK. It campaigned for a better overall postal service for customers, advising Government, the Regulator and Royal Mail Group on consumer views, demands and needs.

Postwatch had a network of nine regional committees around England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The chairman of each committee sat on the National Council. The regional committees included; Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England, Wales, Midlands, East of England, Greater London, South East England, and the South and West. Postwatch also established the Counters Advisory Group 'to identify, consider and act on consumer concerns about issues affecting the post office network and to inform Postwatch's national policy development and campaigning work.' Postwatch also conducted research into consumer views.

According to information taken from Postwatch's website (http://www.postwatch.co.uk/) in September 2009, the body was merged with energywatch and the National Consumer Council (including the Welsh and Scottish Consumer Councils) on 1 October 2008 to create Consumer Focus, an organisation established to support the rights of consumers in England, Scotland, Wales and, for post, Northern Ireland.

Prior to the 1930s, the Post Office structure was based upon the central Secretariat and decision-making was extremely centralised. London as a metropolitan district was arranged by service with a Controller of London Postal Services, London Telephone Service, and the Central Telegraph Service. The Surveyor/Postmaster Surveyor was the Postmaster General's principal representative for all the services in the provinces and these were arranged geographically, not by services (e.g. postal or telecommunications). Outside of Inner London, and excluding Edinburgh, the country was divided into 22 districts for Post Office purposes. Of these 13 were under the charge of Surveyors and nine (which were the largest towns within their surrounding area) were under the charge of Postmaster Surveyors. In Scotland, Post Office organisation was under the control of a Secretary in Edinburgh, responsible to the main Secretary to the Post Office. A controller was in charge of postal and telegraphs services in Edinburgh and the surrounding area.

Throughout the nineteenth century there were concerns that there was too much concentration of administration in Post Office Headquarters and at the turn of the twentieth century there was a marked increase in volume and complexity of administrative work, which put pressure on the higher officers. The Decentralisation Committee was established in 1908, amidst a rising fear that excessive centralisation of powers was leading to inefficiency and inflexibility. It was thought that the Secretariat formed a bottle neck in the operation of the Post Office, with a resulting waste of power and loss of efficiency, as those at the centre were too caught up in the minutiae and were unable to devote time to questions of policy. The Committee's aim was to consider redistribution of responsibilities and it made several recommendations along these lines. These were not taken up, as objections, particularly those of Herbert Samuel, Postmaster General, were strong and ultimately it was decided to retain the current structure with some very minor changes.

By the early 1930s, there was renewed concern about over centralisation of administration and in 1932 Viscount Wolmer produced a report entitled: 'Post Office Reform: Its importance and practicability', speaking out against the current organisation of the Post Office. Fuelled by this, criticism began to mount and culminated in a Memorial signed by over three hundred MPs and addressed to the Prime Minister requesting the appointment of a committee to enquire into the status and organisation of the Post Office, with a view to making any changes to its constitution that were seen as necessary to improve efficiency.

As a result of this, the Post Office Organisation Committee, chaired by Lord William Bridgeman, former Home Secretary (also known as the Bridgeman Committee) was set up and reported in 1932. Its terms of reference were as follows:

'To enquire and report as to whether any changes in the constitution, status or system of organisation of the Post Office would be in the public interest'.

The main recommendation of the Committee was that the GPO, though still part of the civil service, should be run like a large public corporation with a board headed by the Postmaster General and served by a Chief Executive instead of a Secretary. In addition, as a means of decentralising Post Office control, the Committee advised the division of the Post Office into geographical divisions, each with its own Regional Board which would execute the general policy formed at Headquarters.

In line with this recommendation, the establishment of eight regions was suggested, each to be in the charge of a regional director who would be responsible for the control and coordination of all Post Office services (post, telegraph and telephone) within his territory; this role would effectively replace that of Surveyor. To aid the work of the new regional director, substantial powers were to be delegated to them - in some cases the full powers of the Postmaster General. A Regional Board would assist the Regional Director and devolved powers were to be given to Head Postmasters and Telephone Managers, who were next in the line of authority. In London, two regional organisations were to be set up to deal respectively with posts and telecommunications.

The Committee on Metropolitan and Regional Organisation, chaired by Thomas Gardiner (also known as the Gardiner Committee) was set up to implement the recommendations outlined in the Bridgeman report and immediately commenced working out plans for decentralising control.

One of their recommendations was that special committees for each Headquarters Department should examine the prospects for devolution. Reports are included within this class on the subject.

The scheme which emerged from the Gardiner Committee was based upon organisation under a Regional Director, with technical and financial guidance from the Engineer-in-Chief and the Comptroller and Accountant General, except in London where there would be separate telecommunications and postal Regions.

Implementation of complex changes began on an experimental basis in March 1936, when two regions were established (Scotland and the North East). In 1938 this experiment was deemed to be a success, and the remaining regions and telephone areas were established on a systematic plan. In 1939 the North Western region was inaugurated, and a sub-region in Northern Ireland as well as a number of telephone regions outside of the established regions. By the middle of 1940 the Home Counties, Midland, South Western and Welsh and Border Counties regions had full stature. The London Postal Region was organised in October 1936, and the London Telecommunications Region in April 1938.

The Bridgeman Committee had been anxious that communication should be maintained between all sections of the business and as part of this, regional directors were encouraged to visit one another's regions and exchange views and information. Close contact between the regions and headquarters was also encouraged with proposals for the interchange of staff.

In 1951, a report was prepared by the Working Party on Regionalisation (chaired by Lumley) on 'The present system of regionalisation in the Post Office' (GPO, October 1951). Its terms of reference were 'To examine within its existing framework the working of the regional organisation of the Post Office and to recommend any changes which appear desirable in the light of experience, with an estimate of any financial effect thereof; and in particular to report, with recommendations, on the following matters:

a) Whether existing devolved powers were being fully exercised at each level of the structure

b) Whether further devolution was practicable and desirable in present conditions

c) Whether any work now being done at Headquarters or in Headquarters Departments should be transferred elsewhere and whether any work now being done at Regions should be transferred to lower formations

d) Whether the instruments of control in operation are adequate and no more than adequate to ensure the efficiency and economy of the services.

The Working Party generally commended the prevailing situation with certain recommendations regarding the continued monitoring of the Regional set up to ensure its continued efficiency.

At this point, the Post Office was run by the Postmaster General (assisted by the Assistant PMG) as the Head of the Post Office; in addition he was the Chairman of the Post Office Board, a body consisting of principal permanent officials of the department and responsible for policy decisions. The work of the Post Office was divided into five main functions including Postal services, Telecommunications services, Engineering services, Establishments, staff and buildings, and Finance. These functions were carried down into the regional organisations which in 1951 consisted of ten territorial regions spread over Great Britain and Northern Ireland as follows; London (Postal), London (Telecommunications), Home Counties, South Western, Midland, Welsh and Border Counties, North Eastern, North Western, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These were still under the control of the regional directors. At least two regional directors were members of the main Post Office Board. In order to ensure cooperation and sharing of information, five or six conferences a year were attended by all Regional Directors under the chairmanship of the Postmaster General. The Regional Directors also held private meetings under their own chairman. This situation was replicated at lower levels with regular conferences held of regional controllers, Chief Regional Engineers, and finance officers.

In April 1965 a proposal was put forward to split the Home Counties Region into two separate regions: the Eastern Region and South Eastern Region respectively, this proposal was approved and the action subsequently went ahead.

In 1966 the House of Commons Select Committee on the nationalised industries investigated 'devolution and control' in the Post Office.

As a result of this investigation, it was decided that further devolution would be advisable with regard to the administrative structure of the Post Office; the main focus being a split of the current Post Office Regions into separate postal and telecommunications functions. On 1 November 1966, the DEO (Director of Establishments and Organisation) delivered a memorandum at the Post Office Reorganisation Steering Group meeting on Functional split of Regions.

The official functional split of the Regions came with the passing of the Post Office Act in 1969; under the Act, the Post Office ceased to be a government department and was established as one corporation split into two divisions: Post and Telecommunications.

The Savings Bank was established by the Post Office Savings Bank Act 1861. This act empowered the Postmaster General to receive money on deposit, to make repayments, and to pay interest at the rate of two and a half per cent per annum on the balance outstanding to the credit of depositors. The Bank opened for business on 16 September 1861 using the already existing system of 301 Post Office Money Order offices and with 1,700 Post Offices acting as its local agents for deposit and withdrawal transactions. This quickly grew to 2,300 Post Offices. As the first institution of its kind in the world its success was immediate. The minimum deposit needed to open an account was fixed at one shilling.In 1861 the Savings Bank had twenty four thousand account holders and a staff of 200. By 1871 there were 1,300,000 accounts and the total sum on deposit was 15 million. The original system of manual book keeping lasted until 1926. Services were extended to include: government stocks and bonds in 1880; insurance and annuities in 1888; war savings certificates in 1916; (Renamed National Savings Certificates in 1920); premium savings bonds in 1956; investment accounts in 1966 and a Save as You Earn contractual scheme in 1969. A new logo for the Post Office Savings Bank, designed by Robert Gibbings and featuring a key, was introduced in 1936. In the mid 1960s as part of a general government policy to disperse staff from London, the Savings Certificate Division relocated to Durham, firstly into temporary accommodation then into a new purpose built office block. The move was completed by 1969. Other parts of the Savings Bank dealing with Ordinary and Investment accounts moved out of London to Glasgow. The Department was renamed 'Department for National Savings' in 1967. In 1969 the Department had a staff of over 14,000. By 1988, thanks largely to mechanisation and computerisation, this had been reduced to nearly half this size.When The Post Office ceased to be part of the Civil Service in 1969 and became a Public Corporation, the Savings Bank remained with the Civil Service and started a new life as a Public Corporation. The Post Office continued handling savings transactions over the counter on an agency basis.

The nationalisation of the private telegraph services in 1870 created a need for a specialist department of the General Post Office devoted to engineering. The first Engineer-in-Chief, R S Culley, was appointed on 29 January 1870 and many of the technical staff formerly employed by the old private telegraph companies formed the nucleus of his new department. At this time the existing telegraph lines terminated at railway stations, usually some distance from the towns, so the first job of The Post Office engineers was to extend the lines to post offices within the towns. New routes were also added, with 740 miles of wire laid under London's streets during the first few months of 1870. The British Isles were split into divisions for the purpose of local engineering control. These divisions, each under control of a Superintendent Engineer, who was directly responsible to the Engineer-in-Chief, later became known as engineering districts. The first Engineer-in-Chief's Office was in Telegraph Street, London, at the Central Telegraph Office which had previously been owned by the Electric Telegraph Company. A move to new headquarters, GPO West in St. Martin's-le-Grand, took place in 1874. In 1881 the Government authorised The Post Office to offer the public telephone as a service, in addition to telegraph services, and the first Post Office Telephone Exchange was opened at Swansea in March. In 1912 the Postmaster General took over the National Telephone Company and for the first time a unified telephone system was available throughout most of Britain. Approximately 19,000 staff were transferred over, of which about 7,000 were employed on engineering work, adding to the 9,000 already employed in the Engineering Department. Three Engineering districts were formed in 1901 to deal with London's telephones. These were the Metropolitan North, Central and South. The North district was abolished at the transfer, but within a few months the whole of the metropolitan area was put under the control of one superintending engineer for the London Engineering District. It remained the smallest engineering district in area, but was the largest in value of plant and number of staff. The rapid expansion of the GPO's telephone services and the development of other forms of telecommunication led to an increase in the work of the Engineer-in-Chief's department. It remained primarily engaged in developing, providing and maintaining telecommunications services, but it also had responsibility for matters concerning electrical power and, as time went on, the mechanisation of postal operations. The department and the office of Engineer-in-Chief changed radically after 1969 when the engineering work of the new Post Office Corporation began to be split between the new, increasingly separate, postal and telecommunications businesses. RoMEC (Royal Mail Engineering and Construction) was formed in April 1988 as a self-contained profit centre. Its customer base extends to every part of The Post Office. The RoMEC Group comprises six core product groups in the specialist areas of security, manufacturing, maintenance, datacommns, installation and consultancy.

The origins of the Post Office factories go back to 1870 when the Post Office telegraph system was established. One of the properties acquired was a factory previously run by the Electrical and International Telegraph Company. In 1892 a factory at Bolton was taken over, part of which was transferred to London. Later, the National Telephone Company's factory at Nottingham was acquired, the work and staff being subsequently transferred to Birmingham. The Factories department was a separate division of the Stores Department. The work of the factories was reviewed by a committee in 1910-1911. The committee's report (See POST 77/4) recommended that the factories should be placed under the control of the Stores Department, and factories were absorbed into the department in 1912. The factories were again removed from the control of the Stores Department in 1941 and a separate department was established under H A Thomas who acted as Controller of the department. The main functions of the Factories Department altered during the period covered by the material listed below. Broadly speaking its work covered the repair, reconditioning, assembly and manufacture of all Post Office equipment and machinery.

Prior to the setting up of the Office of Controller of Telegraph Stores in 1877, the purchase of postal and postal telegraph stores was the responsibility of the Chief Clerk of the Post Office and the Engineer-in-Chief. In 1901 a committee of enquiry into the organisation and working of the Department of Telegraph Stores suggested that consideration should be given to the amalgamation of the postal and telegraph stores departments, and this took place in 1902. At this same time an independent Factories Department was formed. A further change took place in 1941 with the setting up of a separate Contracts Department. The Stores Department later became known as the Post Office Supplies Department. This department provided both postal and telecommunication stores until the separation of the businesses into the Post Office, dealing purely with postal matters, and British Telecom dealing with the telecommunication business in the 1980s.

This class contains specimens of the engineering rate book and vocabulary of engineering stores; a number of descriptive booklets on the work of the department together with various committee, annual and other reports.

The Supplies Department was based at Mount Pleasant, London, with other premises situated in Studd Street London N1, Wembley, Bridgewater Somerset, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and with a number of satellite units supplying the most frequently requisitioned items to their local areas. A separate clothing store existed at Hook in Hampshire. The London operations and work from the Bridgewater depot was relocated to new purpose built premises at Swindon in 1975. This new office and warehouse complex was designed to use modern storage and handling methods including high level storage racking, conveyors, fork lift and pallet trucks. It handles all the requirements for stores from offices in England, and it also handles requests for general publicity items, the distribution of telephone directories, (carried out under a contract on behalf of British Telecom), and requests for uniforms from offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Other items for offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland are supplied from the Edinburgh site.

The Contracts Department was established on 1 April 1941 to take over all the contracting functions previously performed by the Personnel, Engineering and Stores Department. The Department became responsible for making specialised studies of contractual arrangements for the execution of works, the purchase and sale of supplies and for placing the relative contracts. It did not, however, deal with contracts for the transportation of mails, small buildings and local installation works. The department also liaised in respect of all matters pertaining to contracts with other departments of the Post Office and government purchasing departments. These departments existed until the early 1970s, when contracting work was no longer centralised and was instead managed partly by Purchasing and Logistics and partly by individual departments.

The Post Office annual accounts, like those of other government departments, were liable to examination by the Public Accounts Audit Commissioners. One of the main duties of the accountant General was to superintend the making out and examining of the general accounts of Post Office revenue and to certify their validity before the Exchequer.

The first Agency Service to be provided by the Post Office on behalf of the government was the Post Office Insurance and Annuity Scheme introduced at selected post offices in 1865. The payment of Old Age Pensions at post offices was introduced in 1909 and in 1912 Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance Stamps began to be sold. In 1915, through the medium of the Post Office Savings Bank, the Post Office helped to float the 'War Loan,' and in the same year it began to issue War Savings Certificates through its Money Order Department.

The first of the early telegraph companies was the Electric Telegraph Company, founded in 1846 by Sir William Fothergill Cooke (one of the inventors of the telegraph) and a number of City financiers. Prior to the Post Office takeover in 1870, some of the companies had already amalgamated or been taken over by competitors. For example: the Electric Telegraph Company and the International Telegraph Company merged in 1855, and the London Telegraph Company formally changed its title to London and Provincial Telegraph Company in December 1857.

The Postmaster General took over the private telegraph companies under the Telegraph Acts of 1868 and 1869, which authorised the Postmaster General to purchase, work and maintain telegraphs in the United Kingdom.

The first transmission of telegraphic communication to overseas routes was by submarine cable from Dover to Calais in 1850. Private telegraph companies pioneered this work, with the Post Office becoming increasingly involved in the management of overseas cables following its takeover of the UK domestic telegraph network in 1870. Private companies remained active in the international arena, particularly in providing telegraph services to places outside Europe. Many of these companies merged in 1929 to form Cable and Wireless Ltd.

Following the introduction of the first telephone of practical value in 1876-1877, a number of private telephone companies were formed, including The Telephone Company (in 1878) and the Edison Telephone Company (in 1879). Other similar companies also sprang up throughout the country. The Telephone Company and the Edison Telephone Company amalgamated in 1880 to form the United Telephone Company and, in 1889, with other companies, combined with the National Telephone Company. The National Telephone Company swiftly became the most prominent of the telephone companies, although following a ruling in 1880 on the legal powers of the Postmaster General under the Telegraph Act 1869, it operated under licence from the Postmaster General, which also began to operate its own telephone service in competition with the National Telephone Company. In 1896, the Post Office acquired the National Telephone Company's trunk (long distance) network, restricting the company to the provision of a network of local telephone services. In 1905, an agreement was reached between the Postmaster General and the National Telephone Company that the Post Office would purchase the National Telephone Company's system on expiry of its licence in 1911. The entire UK telephone service (with the exception of the service operated by Kingston-upon-Hull Borough Council) passed to Post Office control on 1 January 1912.

From 1880, the Post Office enjoyed a monopoly in respect of the provision of telegraph and telephone services in the UK, following a legal ruling on the powers conferred on the Postmaster General by the Telegraph Act, 1869. Private telephone companies in competition with the Post Office, principally the National Telephone Company, thereafter operated under licence from the Post Office. This remained the situation until 1912, when the Post Office took over the National Telephone Company which, by that time, was the last remaining telephone concern outside public control.

Overseas telephonic communication in its early days was mainly confined to services between London and Paris, the North of France, Brussels and Antwerp. The first telephone cable across the Channel was laid in 1891. During the early 1920s services were gradually extended to other European and Scandinavian countries. In 1927 a radio-telephone service was opened between Britain and the United States. The overseas services were developed rapidly during the late 1920s and early 1930s, and communications soon extended to Australia, Canada, South America, Spain, Italy, etc.

The possibility of transmitting signals from one point to another by electrical impulses without a connecting wire had attracted attention since the early days of telegraphy, and the Post Office, among others, conducted experiments in this field. In 1896, the Post Office (through its Engineer-in-Chief, Sir William Preece) provided facilities for Guglielmo Marconi to conduct experiments in the field of wireless telegraphy by means of hertzian waves.

Marconi gave the first demonstration of his new system of wireless telegraphy before members of the Post Office administration on 27 July 1896. With the transmitter on the roof of the Central Telegraph Office in Newgate Street, London, and the receiver on the roof of GPO South in Carter Lane, 300 yards away, signals from the transmitter were satisfactorily recorded. In August, the Post Office permitted Marconi to experiment with wireless equipment on Salisbury plain and elsewhere. The ensuing trials demonstrated the practicality of his system.

The following year Marconi was granted a British patent for his system by which "electrical actions or manifestations are transmitted through the air, earth or water by means of electric oscillations of high frequency". In July of the same year, Marconi parted company with the Post Office and, with other backers, set up the Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company.

In order to secure the control of wireless telegraphy, the Wireless Telegraph Act was passed in 1904 rendering it illegal for persons to install or work apparatus without a licence from the Postmaster General. In 1918, the Wireless Telegraphy Board was set up to coordinate interference problems in radio communication in the English Channel. The interests of users of radio other than Government departments were represented by the Post Office.

In 1924, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company entered into an agreement with the British Government for the provision of radio stations to set up an Imperial Wireless Chain in England, Australia, Canada, India and South Africa. From 1929 electrical communications across the Empire were overseen by the Imperial Communications Advisory Committee, on which the Post Office was represented.

The role of the Post Office in broadcasting began as an extension of the monopoly on telecommunications into the area of wireless telephony. Initially, the transmission of sound by radio was viewed as a new means for sending messages, rather than a potential tool for broadcasting.

The Post Office was responsible for issuing wireless licenses from the 1920s and also for the cabling relating to wireless. It derived these powers from the Wireless Telegraph Act of 1904; in this act it was provided that in order to operate an apparatus either for transmitting and receiving wireless signals, it was necessary to have a licence and also that this licence may be in a form and with conditions determined by the Postmaster General. The Broadcasting Department also afforded facilities to the Post Office for announcing policy developments, such as the introduction of reduced telephone charges.

It was also responsible in the 1950s for issuing television licenses and introduced detecting vans who 'combed' the country for illicit television receivers, i.e. those individuals who had not obtained a television licence.

Upon the creation of the new Post Office Corporation in 1969, the Broadcasting Department of the former GPO was assimilated (with its active files) into the new Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

Accounts created during the transaction of Post Office business.

POST 9 consists of the following series: statements and accounts of gross and net produce of the General Post Office revenue; Receiver or Accountant General's cash account journals; accounts of daily, monthly, quarterly or annual receipts and payments, inland foreign and colonial services; District Surveyors' incident expense accounts, England and Wales; District Surveyors' monthly accounts of provincial riding work payments to contractors, England and Wales; Account of provincial postmasters' allowances and payments, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; detailed returns of provincial post offices in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; ledgers and lists of old debts of postmasters and other officers; salary schedules and authorities, GPO London, Twopenny Post Office and London District Post Office accounts; accounts of individual post offices, inland and overseas; miscellaneous accounts.

The Marquis of Salisbury, together with the Earl of Chichester, held the appointment of Joint Postmaster General from 6 April 1816. In May 1822 it was ordered in the House of Commons that the office of one of the Postmaster Generals be abolished to save revenue. Salisbury (the junior of the two) gave orders that his salary should be discontinued whilst he retained the appointment of Postmaster General. It was not until Salisbury's death on 13 June 1823 that Lord Chichester was appointed sole Postmaster General.

Founded in 1826, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is an international scientific, conservation and educational charity whose mission is to promote and achieve the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It runs the Institute of Zoology, conservation projects in more than 50 countries, and two Zoos, ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade Zoo.

Born on 15 November 1866; educated at Merchant Taylors' School (1877–1885) and Jesus College, Oxford, 1885-1889; briefly worked as a private tutor at Dartmouth; selected by the Sandwich Islands committee (set up by the British Association and the Royal Society) to go as collector to the Hawaiian Islands, 1891; spent the greater part of the next ten years in the Hawaiian Islands collecting all groups of terrestrial animals; board of agriculture of the Territory of Hawaii, 1902-1904; director of the new division of entomology at the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association's experimental station, 1904; retired to England, 1912; awarded an Oxford DSc, 1906; gold medal of the Linnean Society of London 1912; elected FRS, 1920; died, 1955.

Born, 8 January 1803; educated at the high school, Edinburgh, and studied medicine at Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris; surgeon with the East India Company, 1823; visited India and China five times, availing himself of every possibility to pursue his interest in natural history; returned to Britain, 1829; helped to establish the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club; private medical practice; appointment in the zoological department of the British Museum, 1841; FRS, 1867; died, 1872.

Publications: Cyclopaedia of the Natural Sciences (1858)

Dubois or "The Sieur Du Bois" was an early traveller to the islands of Madagascar and Bourbon in the years 1669-1672. In his account of his trip he made many references to species of birds he encountered, many of which are now extinct.

Born, 8 May 1749, sailed in March 1765 for Bombay as an East India Company writer; appointed member of council at Anjengo, 1772; officiated as chaplain, 1775, later secretary, attached to British forces sent to assist Raghunath Rao in the Maratha civil wars; embarked for England, 1 December 1775; returned to India, 1777; returned to England, 1784; elected to the Society of Antiquaries, 1801; fellow of the Royal Society, 1803; died, 1819.

Publications: Oriental Memoirs Reflections on the Character of the Hindoos (1810)

Letters from France (2 vols., 1806)

Unknown

Born, 2 March 1811 ; educated at home until 1827; Thomas Arnold's school at Laleham, 1827; Oriel College, Oxford, 1828-1832; after he left Oxford, natural history became his main pursuit. He began to publish articles in the general areas that would continue to preoccupy him throughout his career: geological description, ornithology, and problems of classification and nomenclature. Accompanied William John Hamilton on a tour through southern Europe to Asia Minor, 1835-1836; summer journey through Scotland and Orkney, 1837; deputy reader in geology, Oxford University, 1850; elected a fellow of the Royal Society, 1852; died, 1853.
Publications: The Dodo and its Kindred (1848)

June M Hopkins raised several orphaned duikers and other animals for the Zoo of the University of Ibadan.

Born, 1897; Norland Place School, 1904-1908; St Paul's Girls' School, 1908–1916; unpaid research assistant British Museum (Natural History), 1917-1919; fellowship of the Zoological Society, 1917; curator, British Museum (Natural History), 1920; fellowship of the Linnean Society, 1923; honorary DSc from the Intercollegiate University, Chicago; curator of reptiles , Zoological Society, 1923-1931; involved in the design of Whipsnade Zoo; died 1931.

Born 1826; educated at Cotterstock, Northamptonshire, 1835–1837); Laleham, 1837–1839, Winchester College, 1839–1844, Christ Church, Oxford, 1844-1848; studied medicine, St George's Hospital, London, 1848-1851, house surgeon, 1852-1853; assistant surgeon in the 2nd Life Guards, 1854-1863; journalist for the Field newspaper, 1856-1865; started a weekly journal Land and Water, 1865; inspector of salmon fisheries, 1867; scientific referee to the South Kensington Museum, 1865-1880; died, 1880.

Publications: Curiosities of Natural History

Born, 1984; educated: Blundell's School, Tiverton, 1797; Winchester College, 1798-1801; Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1801-1804; fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1808; ordained as a priest, 1808; reader in mineralogy, 1813; reader in geology, 1818; Royal Society's Copley medal, 1822; canonry of Christ Church, Oxford, 1825; dean of Westminster and rector of Islip, 1845; died 1856.

Publications: Geology and Mineralogy (1836)

Romer's Tree Frog (Chirixalus romeri) is named after Romer, who first discovered it in a cave on Lamma Island, Hong Kong, in 1952.

Association of British Zoologists: formed at the Meeting of British Zoologists on 5 Jan 1929 "to ensure a permanent organisation, with a Council which can represent British Zoologists between their annual Meetings". The first Council meeting was on 11 Jan 1930. Final meeting held 13 Jan 1973.

Born in 1800 or 1801; educated at Macclesfield grammar school until 1814; Richmond, Surrey, 1814-1816; nominated for the Bengal civil service, 1816; East India Company training college, 1817; arrived in Calcutta early in 1818; studied Sanskrit and Persian at Fort William College; assistant commissioner of Kumaon, 1819; assistant residentship at the Nepalese capital, Katmandu, 1820; acting deputy secretary in the Persian department of the Foreign Office, 1822; Katmandu, residency postmaster, 1824; assistant resident, 1825; studied Nepalese institutions and commerce and became proficient in Nepali and Newari, 1820-1821; retained at his own expense a group of local research assistants, training himself and some of his staff as naturalists, specializing particularly in ornithology; he described 39 new mammalian and 150 bird species and published 127 zoological papers; collector of Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit and Tibetan and was the first to reveal to the West the Sanskrit literature of northern, or Mahayana, Buddhism; acting resident, 1829-1831; resident, 21 January 1833, resigned from the civil service and returned to England, 1844; returned to India in 1845; continued work on zoology and the physical geology of the Himalayas, but concentrated in particular on the ethnology of the peoples of northern India, relying extensively on linguistic comparisons; the botanist Joseph Hooker stayed with him from 1848 to 1850; left India in 1858 and retired to Gloucestershire; died 1894. Member of the Royal Asiatic Society (1828), elected a fellow of the Linnean Society (1835) and of the Royal Society (1877), made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (1838), and awarded the honorary degree of DCL at Oxford University (1889).

Maternity Alliance (1980-2005) was a national charity working to improve rights and services for pregnant women, new parents and their families, created in 1980 through the support of three organisations (National Council for One-Parent Families, The Spastics Society and Child Poverty Action Group) and individual campaigners, all concerned with issues surrounding poverty, pregnancy, birth and early parenthood. The Maternity Alliance was established as an alliance of organisations and individuals in response to inequalities in treatment outcomes and the need for support for pregnant women and families on low income. The focus of the organisation's work shifted over time to take into account social, medical and economic changes, in particular the perceived increase in the number of women who combined pregnancy and parenthood with work. Initially the organisation operated as a collective - the staffing structure was 'flat' without a hierarchy and with all staff on the same pay scale - though this changed over time. The organisation's priority in 2004 was to support families who were disadvantaged - talking to mothers and fathers about their experiences, working to find solutions to their needs and raising awareness of how to improve services and support during pregnancy, birth and the first year of life. The Maternity Alliance was a non-party-political campaign group that was very vocal on behalf of groups that did not traditionally have a voice within the political and health provision arenas. As such, MA was seen as being 'edgy' and more radical than other bodies working on the issues around maternity. The organisation ceased operating in Dec 2005, due to a financial crisis.

The history of the Museum Collection as a discrete collection within The Women's Library is less easy to trace than the Archive and Printed Collections. Fawcett Library members and related organisations often deposited objects with the Library, either as part of personal and organisational archives or as individual 'iconic' items. This ad-hoc collection continued after the transfer of the collections to the University in 1977, although several projects, including exhibitions, were carried out to highlight the importance of the visual material. In 1980-1981 The Fawcett Society deposited objects, including banners, with a number of museums (including the Fawcett Library). In 1984 the Mary Evans Picture Library became The Women's Library Commercial Picture Library partner. By the 1990s a contract Visual Materials Curator was appointed and it appears that the groupings by object type were made in this period as were some object descriptions. In Sep 1995 a project to identify, package and inventory objects from the museum and archives collection was begun; with the first museum accessions register started in 1998. Towards the end of the 1990s the Library was part of the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI). This created digital images of the banner collection which were posted on the web as part of the Visual Arts Data Service, VADS (later the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)) by the end of 2001. Between 2000-2001 there was also a project to document objects held within archive collections.

With the move to the new building in 2002 the importance of visual material (initially focusing on the banner collection) was formally recognised by the inclusion of an Exhibition Hall in the building. Initially this was designed for a 'permanent' exhibition of the suffrage banners and other treasures. However, the actual move to the building saw a change in the Library's audience development. This, together with a recognition that the banners could not be on permanent display due to conservation concerns, resulted in a programme of exhibitions. For the first few years a programme of 3 exhibitions per year was carried out. However, this was later reduced to 2 exhibitions per year in order to develop a more interactive public, university and schools programme of events. External curators are often appointed to work with the Special Collections Curator to bring specific expertise to the exhibition.

Alongside the move to the new premises in 2002 The Women's Library agreed to meet the standards for Museum Registration, and later Museums' Accreditation. A three-year project, 2002-2005 documented the museum objects, with funding provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Some 3500 objects were described on the archive-museum catalogue CALM to comply with minimum SPECTRUM standards and rehoused as part of this project. Subsequent to this the majority of museum catalogue entries were edited and made available to the public via the online catalogue (by 2008). As part of the 2002-2005 project, a template for cataloguing objects in CALM was produced, together with best practice guidance for rehousing specific types of objects held in the collections. This was used for subsequent deposits, including objects within archives (for which a SPECTRUM/ISAD(G) template was agreed). As part of the retroconversion project of archive catalogues, existing descriptions of objects in archives were edited to be more consistent with the 2002-2005 project.

The period between 1903 and 1914 was one of resurgence in the women's suffrage movement. At this time, the methods by all those involved began to change: although the suffragists' efforts were mainly aimed at forming parliamentary opinion, they also began to engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities. The Artists' Suffrage League (ASL) was established in Jan 1907 in order to assist with the preparations for the 'Mud March' that was organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in Feb of that year. However, it continued with the creation of suffrage propaganda for the NUWSS after this date. Other than the central committee of chairperson, vice-chair and treasurer, the organisation had no traditional formal structure or statement of aims. The body was responsible for the creation of a large number of posters, Christmas cards, postcards and banners designed by artists who included the chairperson Mary Lowndes, Emily Ford, Barbara Forbes, May H Barker, Clara Billing, Dora Meeson Coates, Violet Garrard, Bertha Newcombe, C Hedley Charlton and Emily J Harding. The ASL was responsible for the decoration of the Queens Hall for the celebrations in 1918 that had been organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.

Both Cobbe and Browne were involved in the nineteenth-century women's movement, whilst Eunice Murray was of a slightly later generation of women activists. Amongst other activities, Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904), journalist, anti-vivisectionist, suffragist and social reformer, was an early member of the Kensington Society, the Enfranchisement of Women Committee and later a founder of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and a member of the executive committee of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage. Annie Leigh Browne (1851-1936), suffragist, was a friend of Frances Power Cobbe, a founder of the Society for Promoting the Return of Women as County Councillors and a member of the Central Society for Women's Suffrage and its successor, the London Society for Women's Suffrage. Eunice Guthrie Murray (1877-1960) came from a family of Scottish suffragists, and by 1913 was President of the Women's Freedom League in Scotland. Later she became the first woman to stand in a parliamentary election in Scotland.

The suffrage campaigns of the early twentieth century were marked by a series of sensational cases and legal battles for which campaigners attempted to achieve as much press coverage as possible. When Lloyd George addressed a meeting at Woodford in 1912 certain suffragist hecklers were violently ejected from the meeting. One of these then brought a legal action against several prominent members of the Walthamstow Liberal and Radical Association. Mark Wilks was a teacher and the husband of Elizabeth Wilks (1866?-1956) nie Bennett, physician, suffragist and member of the Tax Resistance League. Elizabeth refused to complete a tax return or to pay taxes herself and informed the tax authorities that as a married woman her tax papers should be forwarded to her husband. He, in turn, claimed that he had neither the means to obtain the necessary information to complete the forms nor to pay his wife's tax bill and was imprisoned for debt. The League took up the case and achieved much publicity for it.

The Cat and Mouse [Temporary Discharge for Ill-health] Act of 1913 became infamous in the suffrage campaigns. Under this legislation a prisoner on hunger-strike and whose health was determined to be endangered by such actions might be released and then re-arrested once their health had improved. Mrs Ellen Mary Taylor (alias Mary Wyan of Reading ) refused release under the Act, claimed complete discharge and declined to give the prison governor any address. When she was conveyed to a nursing home she refused to enter until her full release was granted and continued her strike on a chair in the road outside. The police then removed her to the Kensington Infirmary where she eventually gave up her protest. Eliot Crawshay-Williams (1879-1962) was Lloyd George's Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1910 and MP for Leicester, 1910-1913. Whilst being in favour of women's suffrage, he condemned militant suffragette tactics and as a result organized lobbying against the Conciliation Bill in 1912. T. Smithies Taylor was a supporter of the militant suffragettes based in Leicester. He wrote letters to the national and local press on this and related subjects. Lloyd George addressed a meeting at Llanystumdwy in North Wales in September 1912. He was heckled by suffragists who were then turned upon by the crowd and scenes of violence against the protestors ensued. By three successive decrees in 1864, 1866 and 1869, known as the Contagious Diseases Acts, in certain towns containing military bases, any woman suspected of being a prostitute could be stopped and forced to undergo a genital inspection to discover if she had a venereal disease. If she did not submit willingly, she could be arrested and brought before a magistrate. If she was found to be infected, she could be effectively imprisoned in a 'lock' hospital. Josephine Elizabeth Butler ( 1828-1906 ) feminist and social reformer was one of the most celebrated campaigners against the Acts and the double sexual standard that they enshrined. The Acts were repealed in 1886 but the debate was not over either in Britain or other countries within the Empire.

Mrs Amelia (or Lilla) Millward was born at Andover in 1870 and died at Wellingborough in 1958. She was an active suffragist in Southampton and later in Teddington as a member of the Teddington branch of the National Women Citizens' Association. Alex Sydney Millward was her son.

Beatrice Mary Graves (-1950) née Leake was the daughter of Robert Leake MP of The Dales, Whitefield, Lancashire. In 1882 she married the Hon W Spencer Paget Graves, a Commander in the Royal Navy, and was widowed in 1909. She was, from 1910, Honorary Treasurer of the London Society for Women's Suffrage. She died in 1950.

Unknown.

Lucy Frances Nettlefold (1891-1966), known as Nancy, was educated at Leinster House School, completed the University of London intermediate examination in Laws in 1910 and gained a first class pass in Part 1 of the Law Tripos at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1912. In 1912-1913 she and three other Oxbridge women, Misses Bebb, Costello, and Ingram mounted a legal challenge to the Law Society over its refusal to allow them to sit for its examinations. This case became known as Bebb v. The Law Society. In 1914 Nettlefold took a first class in Part 2 of the Cambridge Law Tripos and in 1915 entered the firm of Rider, Heaton and Co. of Lincoln's Inn as an articled clerk. During the First World War, she worked at the Ministry of Food and became Deputy Assistant Secretary. In 1919 she became Director and Company Secretary of her father's firm of Nettlefold and Sons, wholesale ironmongers and manufacturers. On the death of her father in 1924 Nancy and her brother, Hugh, became Joint Managing Directors of the firm from which she eventually retired in 1948.

Nancy was an early and active member of the British Federation of University Women and held posts including Treasurer and was also Director of Crosby Hall. Her other activities included serving on the Managing Committee of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and on the Council of Bedford College and later as a Governor of Royal Holloway College. Nancy was also appointed to the Royal Commission on Equal Pay which reported in 1945, She was for many years a conservative member of St. Marylebone Borough Council, serving on a great variety of Council committees and becoming an Alderman in 1956. In 1956 she was elected to the London County Council from which she eventually retired in 1960 after serving on the Welfare and Education Committees. She was awarded the OBE in 1960 and retired to South Africa where she continued to be active in local political and social life.

Ruth Homan was the daughter of Sir Sydney Waterlow, (1822-1906), first baronet, Lord Mayor of London and philanthropist. She took classes at the South Kensington School of Cookery and underwent basic nursing training at St. Bartholomew 's Hospital, London. In 1873 she married Francis Wilkes Homan but was widowed in 1880. Mrs Homan was elected to serve on the London School Board in 1891. She served as Chairman of the Tower Hamlets Divisional Committee and also as Chairman of the Domestic Subjects Sub-committee. By 1902 she was also Vice-chairman of the Industrial Schools Committee. In these capacities, Mrs Homan endeavoured to promote the teaching of cookery, laundry work and homecraft. She was also active in related organisations such as the Poplar Board School Children's Boot and Clothing Help Society, of which she was treasurer, and the London Schools Dinners Association.