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Inland mails organisation: the Inland Office and the Circulation Department

A separate domestic postal service originated early in the 17th century when a split developed from the foreign service. By the 1670s the General Letter Office in London comprised an Inland Office, with 43 staff, and a Foreign Office, with only four staff. By the end of the decade they were both housed in Lombard Street, as two distinct services with separate staff, although there was a considerable overlapping of work. By the end of the century the staff of the Inland Office greatly increased and the department brought in two-thirds of the GPO's profits. (The staff of the Foreign Office increased to a lesser extent). The Inland Office was managed by a Comptroller and Accomptant and staffed by cashiers, clerks of the roads, an alphabet man, window men, sorters and letter carriers and receivers. By the middle of the 18th century the Inland Office also had a Deputy Comptroller and the outdoor service accounted for most of the staff.

In the early 19th century three overlapping services existed; the Inland Office, Foreign Office and Twopenny Post Office, each with separate staffs. The Inland Office had general charge of the whole postal system for the British Isles, including the mail coaches to and from London. Its staff consisted of a Superintending President, presidents, vice presidents, clerks of the roads, sorters and letter carriers for London. The Foreign Office dealt with mails going to and coming from foreign countries. There was a separate Ship Letter Office and Dead Letter Office. The Bye and Cross Road Letter Office had been absorbed into the Inland Office by this time, (see below).

In 1829 a new central office opened in St Martin's le Grand, to house the General or Inland Office, Foreign Office and Twopenny Post Office. All had distinct letter carriers and their own receiving houses. Foreign Office letter carriers were abolished in the early 1830s. In 1844 the Twopenny Post Office was renamed the London District Post Office.

In the mid-19th century there occurred a gradual amalgamation of all divisions connected with circulation of mail. On 6 April 1840 the Foreign Office was consolidated with the Inland Office and in July 1849 the Ship Letter staff were placed on the Inland Office establishment. By 1850 the Inland Office and London District Post Office were the two departments directly engaged in mail circulation - collecting, sorting, delivering and charging the letters and newspapers in London and its immediate neighbourhood, and in despatching mail to all quarters. The Inland Office was charged with the despatch of mails from London to the provinces or to foreign parts and with the delivery in London of letters received from the country or from abroad. The London District Office was charged with similar duties in respect of the correspondence carried on within London itself and a district around it of 24 miles in diameter, and, sometimes, with the delivery of letters from the Inland Office. This arrangement and duplication of duties meant there was a wastage of manpower. In 1854 proposals were put forward to unite them under one superintendent and consolidate the Dead Letter Office within them. The establishment of the Circulation Department was authorised by the Postmaster General in October 1854. The Circulation Department was managed by a Controller, assisted by a vice controller, and a number of deputies. Below them was a body of clerks and then the sorters and letter carriers. Arrangements for the operation of the new Circulation Department gradually came into force over the next few years.

By 1870 the Circulation Department comprised various branches including the Surveyor and Controllers Office, the Inland, Newspaper, TPO, Foreign and Registered Letter branches, East Central Office and Lombard Street branch.

Bye and Cross Roads Office

In 1660 there were 6 main post roads - North Road to Edinburgh; West Road to Plymouth; Chester or Holyhead Road, Roads to Bristol, Dover and Norwich. Other places were served by branch posts working out of the main roads. Letters between intermediate towns on the main roads were carried by bye-posts. There were no cross posts connecting places on different main roads; the post had to pass through London which caused much delay. By the end of the 17th century a number of cross posts, which did not pass through London, had been established, beginning with a direct post between Bristol and Exeter. The Act of 1711 legalised the cross posts.

In 1720 Ralph Allen was given the contract to farm the Bye and Cross Road posts. He continued in that role for 44 years, until his death, making many important reforms and improvements in the conveyance of letters. Under Ralph Allen the Bye and Cross Road Letter Office was a completely separate part of the postal service. When he died in 1764 it came under the management of the GPO and the Postmasters General. It was governed by a Comptroller, Philip Allan (Ralph Allan's nephew), appointed in 1764. The Office was transferred from Bath to London and housed separately from the Inland Office as a fourth distinctive branch of the GPO - beside the Inland, Foreign and Penny Post offices. Philip Allan managed the Office until his death in the early 1780s when John Staunton took over. The Bye and Cross Road Letter Office became known as the Bye Letter Office by 1788 and remained a separate department for some time until it became essentially a branch of the Inland Office towards the end of the 18th century. By then its distinctiveness had largely ceased, as the network of routes made the difference between a country letter and a by letter and a cross road letter largely meaningless. The office of Comptroller was also abolished toward the end of the century.

London Penny Post, Twopenny Post and London District Post

In 1680 William Dockwra, a London merchant, set up a London Penny Post. It was stopped by the Duke of York in the Courts for infringement of State monopoly and taken over by the Postmaster General in 1682, administered separately from the 'General Post'. This official penny post was also known as the London District Post. The Act of 1711 legalised the London Penny Post. An Act of 1801 abolished the London Penny Post, after an existence of 120 years, and replaced it by what became known as the Twopenny Post (still relating to London and its environs only). In 1805 the limits of the Twopenny Post were restricted to the General Post delivery and letters crossing these bounds became a Threepenny Post. (In 1839 it became a penny post again). In 1844 the Twopenny Post Office became officially known as the London District Post Office. This was amalgamated with the Inland Office and Dead Letter Office in 1854, to form the Circulation Department.

Dead and Returned Letters

The Dead Letter Office was established in London in 1784 to deal with dead and missent letters, when the addressee could not be found. Similar offices in Edinburgh and Dublin opened shortly after. Each was headed by an Inspector. In 1813 a Returned Letter Office was organised to return undelivered letters to writers and collect the postage due. Prior to 1813 the only letters returned were those supposed to contain money or items important enough to escape destruction. During the 19th century the department for dealing with undelivered and returned letters was variously named the Dead Letter Office, Dead and Returned Letter Office and Returned Letter Office. The latter title became gradually more favoured as it prevented any confusion by the public with dead persons and sounded less gruesome. In 1854 it became a branch of the newly formed Circulation Department. By the early 20th century the work of headquarters offices was devolved to separate Returned Letter Offices set up in major towns in Britain.

Mid-19th century revision of rural posts in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland

Although the French had set up the 'poste rurale' in the 1830s, until the mid-19th century the British Post Office was cautious in setting up deliveries in rural districts, only doing so when more than 100 letters a week were received in the village. A major expansion of rural posts throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland took place during the 1850s, under the auspices of Rowland Hill. Appointed secretary to the Postmaster General in 1846 and sole Secretary in 1854, Hill favoured the extension of deliveries to rural districts partly as a means of boosting the gross revenue. Surveyors were already setting up new postal deliveries where conditions justified. Under the revision plan some 700 new posts were set up by 1850, for delivering over 7,500,000 letters a year. A general revision that was begun in 1851 was pretty well complete by 1858. Many revisions of the 1850s included the introduction or enlargement of the free delivery boundary in rural post districts. By 1859 about 93% of mails were delivered free of charge by letter carriers to the houses of the addressees.

One of the most active and enthusiastic workers for these extensions was Surveyor Anthony Trollope, who wanted deliveries where most people were found in a rural district, not where the most influential people lived, and worked to do away with the rural letter carrier's practice of charging for letters delivered. Trollope surveyed of much of Ireland and all of south western England including the Channel Islands. Reports by Trollope can be found in case files POST 14/35, 40, 209, 213, 217, 218, 220 and 221.

The three series on rural revisions in POST 14 provide a detailed record of those changes, covering the establishment, expansion, alteration, preclusion and cessation of postal services and facilities. They also form a comprehensive guide to the rural posts existing in the mid-19th century, including collections, deliveries, routes, sub-offices, receiving houses, posting boxes, sorting offices, letter carriers, letter receivers, sub postmasters, modes of conveyance, facilities, equipment, salaries and allowances.

Rural posts were organised in rural districts under town post offices classified as 'post towns'. All rural routes were served by the post town and its branch or sub-offices. Each town post office, managed by a deputy postmaster, belonged to a national District. Each District was administered by a District Surveyor who reported to the Secretary. The Secretary reported to the Postmaster General. This administrative structure is reflected in the three series on rural post revision.

There were two types of revision: a 'general' revision of the rural posts under one town; or minor alterations to a rural post, often initiated by a petition from the local inhabitants. Decisions were, in practice, mainly made by the Secretary, who submitted them to the Postmaster General for formal sanction. Proposals were normally only rejected if the volume of letters was insufficient to warrant the resources, the Post Office favoured an alternative reform, a minority of local inhabitants desired the alteration, or a guarantee bond was not provided.