Photo library created by a number of different departments within the Post Office, including the Public Relations/Communications department.
VariousThe 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.
UnknownThe newspaper cuttings follow the development of the postal and telecommunications services from the postal declaration of 1685, and early accounts of the collection of mail from coffee houses in the eighteenth century, through to contemporary reports.
The most complete run of catalogued material covers the period 1843-1903, during which time the cuttings were bound into large volumes, each volume spanning one to two years. These cuttings are largely concerned with the early development of the telegraph and telephone and include details of private telegraph companies (particularly the Electric Telegraph Company, founded in 1846) and their takeover by the state; the relationship between the postal and telegraph services and the railways; international expansion of the system; and, later, the growth of the telephone service, and negotiations which eventually led to the transfer of ownership from the private telephone companies to the state in 1912. Some items are included because the report was received by telegraph and do not have any obvious postal connection. The majority of cuttings were collated centrally, with some early selections marked 'For the information of the Postmaster General', but the collection also includes albums collected by individuals or at a local level.
The twentieth century is not represented as comprehensively, with very little material from the First or Second World Wars, or the interwar period. Wartime reporting restrictions and the rising cost of newsprint, combined with the role of the Post Office on the home front probably contributed to the absence of material during this period. In the second half of the twentieth century, cuttings are more likely to be found arranged by local area or by subject, e.g. the 1971 postal strike. Since 1999, photocopies of selected cuttings, entitled 'What the media are saying', have been received from the Royal Mail Press Office on a weekly basis, and these are arranged chronologically, but have not been catalogued.
During BPMA stocktaking 2005 a quantity of material was transferred from the search room portfolio collection to the archive. These cuttings cover both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, and have been catalogued by decade or, in a very few cases, by subject. The nineteenth century material includes many engravings and illustrations.
Cuttings have been taken from a variety of sources - national and local newspapers; satirical magazines; government and Post Office publications; and scientific and trade journals; but the volumes also include original items such as share application forms, annual reports, tariffs, technological specifications, photographs, cartoons and illustrations. The cuttings cover many aspects of postal history and legislation which are officially documented in other post classes, but offer alternative perspectives and provide a good indication of both public opinion of the postal administration, and public response to postal innovations, including new issues of stamps, new buildings and the introduction of new uniforms. They also provide an opportunity to gain an overview of developments in the service during a particular period.
In addition to specific postal information, the class provides a record of the influence of the Post Office on British culture, demonstrating its role in the growth of mass communication and technological advances; education; the development of employment opportunities for women; and the trade union movement. Some volumes contain personal stories of the lives of postal workers, which may be of interest to family historians, and many volumes include interviews with employees and accounts of the daily running of the postal service which provide information about the duties attached to particular posts. Obituaries are a particularly good source of personal information relating to senior postal officials.
The catalogue entries include an overview of the material with a list of examples of particular interest, some volumes contain indexes of every item.
UnknownThis series comprises reports, papers, presentations by postal IT staff, handbooks and user guides relating to the different aspects of data processing in the Post Office. Although automatic data processing (ADP) was first introduced to the Post Office on a large scale with the LEAPS system in 1958, POST 113 focuses on ADP in the Post Office from the 1960s onwards. It charts the process of the introduction and implementation of ADP and computer applications and systems to different areas of postal work in order to capture data, streamline postal operational processes and generally improve the daily running of the Post Office.
Examples of material include: a number of reports from the 1960s on new proposals to implement ADP and several files which provide background to: the planning and control of ADP in the Post Office (POST 113/5), the structure of the Computer Development and Office Services Department (POST 113/10) and details of the different computer hardware already in place by the 1960s (POST 113/11).
This series also contains information on the different computer applications and systems proposed and implemented within the Post Office, such as PIVOT (POST 113/23-POST 113/25) and reviews undertaken by the Post Office and external organisations to suggest improvements to existing systems (for example, POST 113/21). In addition, there are files covering the Mails Circulation Project (POST 113/33 and POST 113/34) and the Counter Automation Project (POST 113/38 and POST 113/40).
Finally, there is information on IT strategies within the Post Office and details of the work of the National Data Processing Service (see POST 113/37 for details on the considerations of data protection and computers).There are also examples of computer handbooks and user guides in POST 113/41, POST 113/42 and POST 113/43.
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