Records relating to the operation of British Postal Agencies.

This record series comprises copies (mainly published and submitted to the House of Commons) of conventions and articles of agreement made between the Government and/or The Post Office of the United Kingdom and overseas governments and/or postal administrations, for the exchange of mails and the regulation of these services. The conventions lay down the offices of exchange, despatch and delivery times, weight and dimension limits and postage rates.

POST 46/57 relates to the formation of the Universal Postal Union in 1875.

POST 46/62 relates to the establishment of an Imperial Penny Postage, introduced in 1898 and POST 46/63-65 concerns the payments of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for the conveyance of mail.

This record series comprises memoranda, letters and reports on the establishment and operation of the Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post, and agreements between the Post Office of the United Kingdom, and foreign postal authorities and shipping companies. It also includes papers relating to 1970s and 1980s overseas parcel services.

This POST class comprises contracts of agreement between, the Postmaster General and individual persons and shipping companies, for the conveyance of mail overseas by packet boat. The contracts lay down the standards required by the Postmaster General, for example the equipment and maintenance of the vessels, routes, ports of call and penalties incurred by non-compliance with the terms of agreement. The class also includes correspondence concerning applications for tender, papers relating to profits made by particular companies, returns showing particulars of existing contracts, and contracts for the establishment of a packet service between the UK and other countries.

On 1 April 1914, under authority of an Order in Council, responsibility for both the manufacture and distribution of postage stamps and related items passed from the Board of Inland Revenue to the Post Office. The work transferred included control of the contracts for the manufacture of watermarked paper, adhesive postage stamps, stamped stationery and postal orders. The records listed here are those created by the Post Office's Stores Depot, more recently known as the Royal Mail Stamp Depot. It was the latter which, in 1989, discovered this collection lying forgotten in its store, and transferred it in its entirety to the Post Office Archives. In 1995 material was sent to the Archive from Hemel Hempstead, and as other items have come to hand, they too have been transferred and added to this list. Please refer to the individual sub-series for the dates that they cover.

This Post class comprises material concerned with postage rates in the form of reports, correspondence relating to alterations of postage rates and franking privileges, postage rate tables based on individual post towns both inland and overseas, and House of Commons journal extracts covering franking privileges.

This series comprises minutes, reports, correspondence and statistics relating to postage stamps. It relates to the design, selection of designs and production of postage stamps and stamp books, matters concerning responsibility for production costs, the use of stamps as remittance, the introduction of King George V postage stamps, and questions regarding postage stamps put to the Postmaster General through Parliament.

This series consists primarily of 'proof books', that is bound volumes and files containing specimen impressions of new date, machine cancellation or other handstruck stamps (both steel and rubber) for postal use, authorisations and instructions for use, handstamp destruction records and historical summaries of machine cancellations.

These two main collections of proof books have substantial gaps, notably, for steel stamps, for the period after 1821, and, for rubber stamps, after 1831. It is believed that the proof books for these periods were lost in the major fire which occurred in 1957 at the Supplies Department, Mount Pleasant, where these records were once housed. Regrettably, when the surviving volumes in these two collections were rebound in c1960, the original volume numbers were lost, and new artificial numbering sequences were given to the newly-bound volumes. This destroyed the evidence once offered by the original bindings, making it impossible now to determine exactly what has been lost from the original series.

This Post class comprises material on how the Post Office operated during wartime and civil emergencies. The greater part of the collection relates to the vital task of maintaining communications, including handling prisoners-of-war mail, censorship and civil defence arrangements during the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945). Among the early papers are documents relating to the South African War of 1899-1902 and some nineteenth century notices and field manuals of the Post Office Rifles Association.

Some records have been transferred from POST 14.

This series contains material on the recruitment of Post Office staff. It covers methods of recruitment, the examinations involved, the various types of posts, the different methods of admission, and the problems encountered regarding recruitment, such as shortage of labour and the employment of disabled persons.

This series contains records relating to the nomination and appointment of staff, both Established and non-Established. It consists mainly of volumes, in which vacancies, nominations, and appointments were recorded. It also contains records relating to bonds paid, and papers relating to the appointment of specific individuals.

Prior to 1831 appointment records were not kept uniformly over the country and separate series were created. In 1831 centralised employment records were created by copying the relevant minute numbers and brief details relating to appointment, transfer, dismissal, resignation, retirement, or death.

Some records were transferred from POST 14.

Within this class are volumes and files that contain basic information about established Post Office staff and about the principal Post Office branches in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. This class also contains details of Post Office establishments abroad, packet boat services, deceased officers, vacancies and committee reports regarding the Post Office Establishment, amongst much else. There are 24 volumes (POST 59/1-24) covering the period 1691-1798, but the majority of the material consists of lists of salaried officers at various British Establishments for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The class is divided into eight Sub-series, a few of which should be mentioned at the outset. Sub-series 1 is the largest of these and contains the main Establishment books and lists of officers from 1691-1983, published annually from the late eighteenth century (bound copies for this series for the period 1869-1980 can be found in the BPMA search room). Sub-series 3 contains the Establishment books for provincial postal regions across Britain and so is naturally considerable in size, although the period covered for these books tends to be late nineteenth and early twentieth century only. By contrast, Sub-series 4 and 5 contain major and minor Establishment books for the London Postal Region, spanning nearly a 200-year period from 1800. The only series that does not contain lists of basic information (which is the essence of most of the Establishment books) is Sub-series 6, which contains 20 papers and committee reports for the period 1793-1923 that describe changes that have occurred and have been proposed to the Establishment system; a useful starting point for understanding the organisational development of the Establishment structure.

The sort of information included has changed over this 300-year period, but a large proportion of the information found in any particular Establishment book is likely to include an employee's name, their department or location, date of appointment, and yearly salary (or weekly wage). Similarly, the type of employee that has been included in the yearly establishment books has changed over time (and some consideration of the difference between 'established' and 'unestablished' staff will follow), but as a rule of thumb, in the main Establishment books that were published annually (which can be found in Sub-Series 1), it is staff who have been occupied in more senior positions within the Post Office hierarchy who are likely to be found. As a consequence, most of the yearly establishment books within this class will only ever list by name a modest proportion of the entire Post Office workforce for any given year. (It may be helpful for prospective researchers to note that the best starting point in searching for records relating to 'rank and file' employees are the appointments indexes and pensions indexes. A guide to these sources can be downloaded from the BPMA website and a printed version can be found in the BPMA search room, entitled 'Guide to Family History Research'.) POST 59/ 26, 28, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 42 and 91 include brief summaries of duties performed by officers. POST 59/ 7, 11, 18 and 20 give complements of Packet Boats.

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.

This POST Class comprises material mainly relating to the design, manufacture and distribution of uniform, but also includes some material relating to discipline within the Post Office.

It includes reports on the manufacture and distribution of uniform, papers relating to the Committee of the Joint Working Party on Uniform and Protective Clothing, registers detailing patterns produced, contract statistics and schedules of entitlement, volumes containing decisions made by the Postmaster General which set precedents for the issue of uniform, correspondence relating to all aspects of uniform including the running of the Stores Department and photographic records of uniform garments with pattern numbers, guides to disciplinary procedures, papers relating to disciplinary cases and correspondence and memoranda relating to other aspects of discipline within the Post Office.

This series contains records on all aspects of The Post Office's welfare policy and its implementation. It mainly consists of reports and reviews, minutes and annual reports, correspondence, policies, leaflets and guides, and newsletters. These relate to matters such as Health and Safety in the workplace, refreshment facilities, general health and well being of employees, work related issues such as equal opportunites and harassment, Post Office benevolent societies, staff awards and recreational clubs.

This series consists of reports, memoranda and correspondence outlining training activities in The Post Office and considering the training needs of Post Office staff.

This series relates to the provision of medical care for staff through the appointment of medical officers, the monitoring of sick leave and the establishment of the Post Office Ambulance Corps.

This series comprises material relating to the formation, functions and administration of Post Office Staff Associations.

This series relates to arrangements for the payment of pensions, the establishment of the Superannuation Fund in 1821 and the development of the types of pensions payable to include both contributory and non-contributory pensions.

POST 66/18-19 relates to the establishment of the allowance form system and POST 66/22 concerns discussions on the format of order books. POST 66/20 and 22 relate specifically to pensions paid in Guernsey and Jersey . POST 66/24 comprises brief histories of paid allowance and pension orders and postmasters accounts for the twentieth century. The class also includes information on changes to women's employment and salaries, pension fraud and copies of documents conveying a grace and favour pension paid to the Duke of Schonburg and Leinster (POST 66/1).

This series consists of Royal Letters Patent to Postmasters General and Receiver Generals giving the sovereign's written authority to perform their duties. The series also contains a letters patent for the office of Court Post. The patents give: name of appointee; dates of appointment; salary and duties. All have their seals missing but the original seal attached.

This POST class comprises papers and copy minutes of the Post Office Board (1934-[1992]), the Post Office Management Board (1970-1979), and the Posts and Girobank Board (1980-1981). The signed minutes of the main Post Office Board are included, 1969-1972.

This POST class also includes papers of subsidiary boards and committees established by the board, or whose papers and minutes were received by the Board. These include the Girobank Board, Parcels Business Board, Post Office Finance Limited Board, the Post Office Board Emergency Committee, the National Joint Policy Council, the Managing Director's Committee: Posts, the Chairman's Executive Committee, the Post Office Executive Committee, the Girobank and Counters Committee, the Audit Committee, the Counters Executive Committee, the Major Projects Expenditure Committee, the Royal Mail Executive Committee, the Letters Management Committee, the Corporate Identitity and design Committee, the Counter Automation Management Committee and ad hoc committees established by the board.

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.

This Post Class comprises reports, minutes, papers, leaflets and newsletters produced by Post Office Advisory Councils. These were external bodies set up to liaise with users of the Post Office, to monitor and review the performance and activities of the business and advise the Post Office on matters of mutual concern to the customer and the business.

This class consists of papers spanning the period from pre-regionalisation, when the country was separated into Districts run by District Surveyors, reporting directly to the Postmaster General, up until the early 1990s.

It includes papers on Regional surveying duties and the stretching of resources in the light of an increase in work load due to rapid expansion of the Post Office in the nineteenth century.

In addition it incorporates papers from various Committees including:

-The Decentralisation Committee, appointed to consider devolution of powers in the light of mounting criticism of centralisation of Post Office administration leading to inefficiency and an inability to concentrate on development of policy.

-The Committee of Enquiry on the Post Office (Bridgeman Committee) appointed to consider change in Post Office administration, which had various wide ranging recommendations, including that of the introduction of a Regional system with powers devolved on Regional Directors.

-The Committee on Metropolitan and Regional organisation (Gardiner Committee), appointed to carry through the recommendations of the Bridgeman Report, culminating in the creation of two experimental Regions in Scotland and the North East.

-The Working Party on Regionalisation appointed to assess the progress of Regionalisation and to recommend further innovations if necessary.

It also includes papers from the experimental Regions and various Regional Conferences, as well as papers from the individual Regions. Subjects covered by this material include papers covering the civil disturbances in Northern Ireland and papers relating to the London Postal Service and the inauguration of the London Postal Region. Also included are papers concerning the input of the London and Midlands Regions into the several reviews of efficiency of the Post Office conducted by McKinsey and Company.

There are also papers relating to the split of the Post Office into two separate divisions: Postal and Telecommunications, and how this might best be carried out across the Regional structure.

The papers incorporate a wide range of material, including annual reports, meeting minutes and papers, financial paperwork, organisational diagrams, Regional Board papers, Regional publications, reviews, strategic plans and photographs of Regional representatives.

This series comprises reports and papers on the establishment and operation of, and facilities and services provided by The Post Office Savings Bank. This series comprises those records that did not form part of the National Savings Department holdings in 1969.

This series consists of reports, memoranda and accounts relating to the organisation, structure, functions and operations of Post Office factories and the Factories Department.

This POST class mainly comprises correspondence, committee and other reports, statistics, staff manuals, and training information for new staff, relating to the organisation, development and operation of the Post Office Supplies Department.

It also includes a collection of material on posting boxes, including information relating to the design, development, positioning, installation, painting and repainting, locks and keys, and indicator and notice plates for pillar boxes.

This series consists of annual reports of the Contracts Department, reports, correspondence and papers relating to the organisation, staffing, functions, policy and review of procedure of the Contracts Department and of contracting functions.

This series consists of records of the Public Accounts Audit Commissioners' checks on GPO annual accounts and the Accountant General's checks on accounts received from agents and postmasters in the first half of the 19th century. Also included are various reports and other papers relating to financial systems, methods of accounting and collecting, collating and presenting business statistics in the Post Office.

This series comprises material relating to the introduction and operation of agency services provided by The Post Office. It covers: the payment of Old Age Pensions at post offices; the sale of Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance stamps; the floatation of the 'War Loan', in 1915, to help finance the war; and the payment of money due to public corporations through The Post Office.

Post Office publications. This series consists of publications produced by the Post Office with the purpose of disseminating news throughout the organisation, and publications intended for the general public. Publications cover annual reports and accounts, the provision of postal services throughout the country, and staff newsletters from across the organisation, lecture notes, philatelic publications, and publications regarding postal history.

Papers relating to Sir Richard Owen, 1991, comprising a set of 20 stamps and 5 postcards designed by Brian Keale, showing Iguanodon, Protoceratops, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus. First issued on 20 Aug 1991, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Sir Richard Owen's publication Dinosauria, (1841).

Transcriptions of source material and notes by Douglas on Elizabethan and Stuart journalism, [1935-1954], mainly comprising typed transcriptions of newspapers, pamphlets and similar sources of news, 1566-1622, with associated notes and references by Collins, and including typescript of 'Elizabethan journalism, 1590-1610' by Collins; manuscript and typescript introduction, table of contents and bibliography of A Handlist of News Pamphlets, 1590-1610 (Walthamstow South-West Essex Technical College and School of Art, London, 1943) by Collins; file of correspondence with archivists (mainly at Essex Country Record Office, the Bodleian Library and Chester City Record Office), concerning sources of Elizabethan and Stuart journalism and pamphlets, 1948-1954, with a manuscript copy of an interim report on the subject, [1949]; notebook containing research on the early modern postal service; manuscript notes on Sixteenth Century French news pamphlets and related material, including research undertaken on Collins' behalf by Robert J North, with covering letters from North to Collins, 1934.

Letter from Thoomas Algernon Dorien-Smith of Tresco Abbey, Isles of Scilly, Cornwall to James Hooper, 28 Dec [1883-1884]. Intending to send flowers by the next mail. Discussing the demerits of the parcel post for the flower trade's deliveries. The islands are suitable for growing flowers, espcially narcissi, but strong winds prevent fruit-growing.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from William Eden of Farm, [Beckenham, Kent] to the Marquess of Buckingham, 22 Sep 1800. Discussing the possibility of a penny post.: 'I cannot pospone my thanks for your letter of the 14th. With respect to that part of it which relates to the Post Office I hope to obtain good information ... on the practicability of establishing a "sort of penny-post from all the great Towns to the Villages, etc" - We already have a regular penny post at Bath, Liverpool, Manchester, and, I believe, at Birmingham, for those palces and for their suburbs. And it is every year more productive to the Revenue, which is the surest proof of its being an accomodation to the Public. I am well satisfied ... that such a system would be useful; and even that it might be expedient to give a very general extension to it.' Much of the remainder of the letter concerns crops.

Autograph, with signature.

Manuscript volume of financial abstracts relating to Customs and Excise duties, Exchequer bills and the Post Office, as follows:
1.'A true copie of the table of proportion whereby the money received out of the country upon the account of excise is applyed to the severall duties of excise...Excise Office, London, 9 July 1703', from an original signed by Deane Mountague'.

2. 'A state of the Exchequer bills issued by vertue of three act of Parliament that passed on the 8th, 9th and 12th year of the reign of William III computed from 26th April 1697 to 27th August 1703'.
3. Account of the Salt Act bills of credit, 1696-98.
4. Account of principal and interest paid on the several registers following, between Michaelmas 1702 and Midsummer 1704.
5. Account of the revenue of the General Post Office, 1702-1703.
6. Penny Post Office account 23 Sep-23 Dec 1702.
7. 'List of the officers and messengers belonging to the Peny Post Office with their several salaries and wages'.
8. 'Gross and net produce of the whole excise from 24 June 1704 to 24 June 1705'.