Showing 4 results

Records of central administration of the Post Office Telegraphs and Telephones (later Post Office Telecommunications) including records of the Post Office Board (including meeting papers TCB 54), Post Office Advisory Committee and other central functions.

The records concern both strategic telegraphy and telephony activities, such as policy, planning, legal papers (including on the takeover of the National Telephone Company) and routine reporting, and central operational activities including personnel and communications (including Joint Production Council publications, staff magazines, press notices, media coverage and training school and studio photographs).

These central administration records also include the minuted papers relating to telecommunication services 1889-1977 that, for various reasons, fell outside previous archival transfer. The subjects in these minuted papers (TCB 2) include satellite communications (Early Bird), international telephone services, policies toward staff and unions, telephone information services (including ship telephone services, roads and weather, teletourist service, speaking clock and the Santa Claus service), and technological developments (including telephone kiosks, the answering machine, "Amplifying Telephone" and "Laryngaphone").

Records of the Post Office Engineering Union (POEU), formerly the Post Office Engineering and Stores Associstion. 1916-1917, 1926-1928, 1947-1960, 1964-1968, comprising:
Post Office Engineering and Stores Association, Electric Light and Power Branch: Branch and Committee minutes, 1916-1917;
Post Office Engineering Union: Eectric Light and Power Branch: Committee minutes, 1926-1928;
POEU: Post Office Railway (London) Branch (Mount Pleasant): branch minutes 1947-1960;
POEU LPR Branch (St Martin Le Grand later Mount Pleasant): branch minutes, 1964-1968.

Telecommunications minuted papers relating to Post Office telegraph and telephone services. Minuted papers were those papers which had been submitted to the Postmaster General for a decision, and then been retained in the Post Office registry.

At first, the papers minuted tended only to be the particular case submitted to the Postmaster General but, as time went on, registry staff followed a practice of continuing to add physically to an existing minuted case all other cases on that subject which came to hand. As a result, the minuted papers frequently consist of quite large bundles of files on a common subject spanning many years. The date range of the files is consequently often much earlier or much later than the date suggested by the Former Reference used by the registry staff.

POST 30 records concern telecommunications issues in England and Wales, 1792-1952; POST 31 concern Ireland, 1841-1960; and POST 32 concern Scotland, 1864-1966. On its introduction in 1921, POST 33 superseded these sequences and is concerned with telecommunications issues across all these geographies 1921-51, as does its successor in 1949, with POST 102 covering years 1936-76.

The subject of individual files among the minuted papers can be wide-ranging, from the mundane administrative minutiae to policy decisions on developments of critical importance. The diversity and depth of these files can be seen by such examples as the introduction of Bell's telephones to the Post Office (POST 30/330), signalling systems for Belfast and County Down Railway Company (POST 31/74) , arrangements for female telephonists working late duties (POST 32/254D), development of Rugby Radio station (POST 33/1079B), design of telephone kiosks by Giles Gilbert Scott (POST 33/1448), voice recording service for British and Allied armed forces (POST 102/6), telecommunication scheme plans in case of wartime invasion (POST 121/360), and the London to Birmingham television cable linke (POST 122/471).

This series encompasses the surviving records of a number of early domestic and international telegraph companies which pioneered the development and growth of the public telegraph network.