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The records in this class cover a variety of aspects regarding working for the Post Office. The material relating to pay includes volumes detailing salaries and allowances paid to staff, official reports into pay and conditions, comparisons of pay with other companies and papers relating to numerous pay claims. Under allowances can be found copies of correspondence between the Post Office and the Treasury, Committee reports, claims before arbitration for changes to various allowances, schedules showing extra duty rates and special allowances payable and a history of good conduct stripes. Conditions of service includes papers on Sunday labour, promotion, exemption from jury service, hours of working, annual leave, and grade restructuring. There is also a section on Committee/Group reports looking into the way both individual departments and working methods could be changed to allow improvements, and papers from the Tweedmouth, Hobhouse, and Holt Committees to consider improvements in Post Office wages and conditions.

This series consists of a series of quarterly accounts of salaries and allowances due and payable by incidents to the officers, clerks and tradesmen employed by the General, Twopenny and London District Post Offices (the Twopenny Post was replaced by the London District Post in 1844). Items 6/4-6, covering 1794-1799, also include separate quarterly accounts of tradesmen's bills and incidental warrants paid out of the revenue of the Bye and Cross Road Letter Office. Accounts cover a wide variety of items and are arranged under general subject headings, such as 'pensions', 'packets', 'tradesmen' and 'rents'. Entries include what the bill is for, name of person owed and the amount. The date of the Treasury warrant authorising payment is often included at the end of each quarterly account. Volumes are not indexed. The accounts include bills for:

• Pensions, salaries and allowances to chief and senior officers, clerks, sorters, messengers and servants working in London headquarters departments, including offices of the Secretary and Accountant General, and the Foreign, Inland, Express, Mail Coach, Dead Letter, Ship Letter and Bye Letter offices; packet agents; surveyors; postmasters inspectors of mails, letter receivers and carriers and packet ships; commanders and mates of packet ships, or their widows; letter receivers and carriers in London; and mail guards

• Expenses for mail conveyance by sea, including costs incurred by packet ships operating from Falmouth, Harwich, Dover, Whitehaven, Donaghadee, Weymouth, Milford Haven and Holyhead, and in the West and East Indies, notably hire charges, lighting dues, arms and ammunition stores, wages and victualling for captains, officers and crew whilst at sea, out of employ or while the ship is undergoing repairs; and ship letter mails

• Expenses for inland mail conveyance, notably for payments to mail coach contractors; road, bridge and ferry tolls; supply and upkeep of fire arms, time pieces, mail bags and mail guards uniforms; mail coach maintenance; and railway and steam packet company charges

• Compensation for abolished positions or duties

• Items supplied or work done by tradesmen

• Legal expenses notably relating to investigation, detection, capture, and trail of felons

• Rents, taxes and rates for offices in London

• Stationery printing costs

• Transit postage and tonnage dues to foreign post offices

• Travelling expenses, particularly surveyors'

Item 6/11, covering 1805-1809, is different to the rest of the series. It contains certified accounts of the quarterly salaries and allowances paid by incidents upon which the Civil List deduction, or tax, of six pence in the pound is chargeable. Each account lists the 'salaries' and 'incidents' of individual officers and clerks at the General Post Office headquarters in London, including the Postmaster General, Secretary and other senior officers, and the total duty payable each quarter.

These accounts probably originate from the office of the Receiver General, who was in charge of all moneys received and paid out of the revenue of the Post Office.

Schedules of annual property and income tax assessments made upon the salaries, annuities, and pensions of employees in the General Post Office in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, with signed certificates of affirmation and verification by the GPO Assessors and Commissioners (senior officers in the GPO, notably from the offices of the Secretary and Receiver General).

Accounts are arranged mainly by department or section and cover: establishments in GPO headquarters in London, Edinburgh and, from 1854, Dublin, including the Postmaster General, Secretary, Accountant General, Receiver General, Solicitor, Surveyors, heads of departments such as the Inland, Money Order, Returned Letter and Circulation offices, and their inspectors, clerks, sorters, stampers and messengers; letter carriers and receivers in London, under the General Post (up to 1856), Twopenny Post (up to 1844) and London District Post (from 1844); superannuated officers; provincial establishments in England, Wales, Scotland and, from 1854, Ireland, including postmasters, sub-postmasters, clerks, letter receivers and messengers; Colonial agents and postmasters; mail guards; officers of the railway or travelling post; telegraph and engineering establishments (from 1871); and Savings Bank staff (from 1862).

Entries state the name of employee, office or position held, amount of income assessable, exempt amount of income, duty payable and rate, rebates allowed and total deducted.

From POST 7/2 onwards, volumes consist of standard, printed schedule and certificate forms. POST 7/1 contains various pasted-in summary lists and certificates, covering 1813-1818. It is divided into Domestic and West Indies taxes assessed by the Receiver General.

This series is a useful source for family historians, containing lists of staff employed in the GPO between 1843 and 1884 and in 1891, including their position and annual salary.