This series relates to the establishment and operation of colonial post offices in British North America [Canada], Australia and New Zealand. The records include instructions from the Postmaster General via the Secretary (POST 44/1-12), returns to surveys relating to the volume of mail processed and the costs of running the offices, details of the staff employed at these offices and their duties (POST 44/24-33).

This series relates to the transmission of newspapers by post and comprises records relating to the franking privilege of the Clerks of the Road, the transmission of newspapers overseas, and the postage rates of Newspaper Post. The majority of the class consists of published lists of newspapers registered at the Post Office for transmission under the Newspaper Post, (POST 24/21 - 24/72). Also included are items relating to the introduction of a rural newspaper delivery service in the 1970s.

This POST class consists of volumes containing a précis of, or reference to, every minute submitted to the Postmaster General from the Secretary relating to all aspects of Post Office administration. There are also separate bound indices to the minutes arranged by different subjects. POST 35/1-6 consists of volumes of minutes from the Postmaster General to the Secretary relating to all aspects of Post Office administration.

Much of the actual paperwork referred to in these volumes can be found in the accompanying class POST 30 (England and Wales Minute Papers). For further details of how this class relates to the other report and minute classes, see the following section 'Related Material'.

The class is divided into four Sub-Series. The date range for almost all of the records in the class is 1792-1921. However, there are three volumes in Sub-Series 3 'Indices to minutes between the Secretary and the Postmaster General' that contain records that cover the period up to 1969 (see POST 35/1699-1701).

The material is arranged in date order within series. All pieces consist of one volume unless otherwise stated.

This is an 'artificial' series, as maps have been removed from other POST classes and added to POST 21 in order to group them together by format; in addition, maps from numerous different depositors, both internal and external have been mixed together so that it is difficult to find any strands of original order. It has been possible to impose a loose order on the maps by grouping them together by subject as follows:

circulation maps, county maps, town maps, district maps, postcode maps and overseas mail maps.

The majority of the series consists of maps that were commissioned by the Post Office or maps that have been adapted for use in the daily routine of various post office departments.

It includes Ordnance Survey maps which have been annotated to indicate changes to postal boundaries as well as printed town maps, post office directory maps, road maps and hand drawn sketch maps. The maps have been produced using a variety of different methods including lithography, engraving and printing; many of the maps have ornamental cartouches and many are coloured.

Several of the maps in the collection are black and white copies of originals which have not been retained. Unfortunately it is not possible to discern the significance of lines which were colour coded on the original map.

Many of the maps centre on London and there is a sub-series of maps relating to the different postal districts in London, including maps depicting the official postal districts after they were put in place during the period 1857-1858 (see particularly POST 21/772: a reproduction of a map of the London postal districts produced by Richard Weller in 1858, which gives information on the division process). There is also a set of maps from 1948 showing the routes taken by postmen on their daily rounds in the west end of London, which include buildings damaged by bombs during World War Two.

Other maps include postcode maps for areas in Sheffield, Lincoln, Manchester and London; several nineteenth century District Surveyors' maps, some of which show 'armed and unarmed rides' in the various districts and include letters to Francis Freeling and several maps from 'Atlas Universel' (1757) produced by the Vaugondy family [Father and son], depicting various European postal routes and including ornamental cartouches engraved by the Haussard sisters.

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 series consists of volumes containing a précis of, or reference to, every minute submitted by the Post Office Secretaries, of England and Ireland, to the Postmaster General in London, in relation to all aspects of postal operations and administration within the Irish postal service.

Much of the actual paperwork referred to in these volumes can be found in the accompanying class POST 31 (Irish Minute Papers). For further details of how this class relates to the other report and minute classes, see the following section 'Related Material'.

This series comprises copy letter books relating to administration of the Post Office in Britain and Ireland and, to an extent, overseas.

POST Class 17 contains papers on the mail handling cycle, from collection to delivery. The bulk of material relates to sorting and processing operations. The Class is divided into 19 series. Series 1 and 2 comprise sorting and circulation directories. Series 3-9 generally relate to mechanisation of processing and sorting operations, including development of mechanical aids and the postcode system, letter, packet and parcel sorting machinery, the Post Office Letter and Parcel Post Plans introduced in the late 1960s, new mechanised offices and environmental controls. Series 10-12 concerns the introduction and marketing of postcodes. Series 13 and 14 comprise papers and audit reports on operational organisation and efficiency. The next four series cover local authorities and postal addressing, various sorting methods, processing and sorting equipment, and delivery and collection methods. Series 19 comprises papers relating to general circulation issues.

This class relates to the arrangements for circulation of mails in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland between the 18th and 20th centuries. It comprises three major sections: letter copy books of the Inland Office, 1794-1836, order and notice books of the Inland Office and Circulation Department, 1794-1868, and volumes and files relating to the revision of rural posts in the mid-19th century. The rest of the class is made up of a variety of items on the management of inland mails, including a number of London Postal Service order books, records of the Dead Letter Office, Bye and Cross Road Letter Office and Twopenny Post Office. Due to the incorporation of the Foreign Office with the Inland Office in 1840, a number of records in this Class also refer to the circulation of overseas mails, particularly the orders and notices books of the Inland Office and Circulation Office, (14/289-334).

This series relates to the introduction and implementation of the registration service, the compulsory registration scheme and compensation for the loss and damage to registered mail.

It also includes items relating to the Recorded Delivery Service and other Special Delivery Services designed for sending valuable items or items required to arrive on a specific date and at a specific time via the postal system.

Reports, correspondence and memoranda relating to the introduction, implementation, policy and operation of the inland parcel post service. Some pieces relate to the introduction of both the inland and overseas parcel post.

This series contains historical accounts, annual, financial and other reports, letter copy books, minutes and correspondence on the establishment, operation and development of the money order and postal order services. The series also contains records on the prevention and detection of fraud, the use of postal orders as currency in wartime, and information on agreements with other Empire or Commonwealth countries for the sale of British postal or money orders in their territories.

This class comprises reports, papers and correspondence relating to the establishment, development and operation of Britain's Inland Letter Post service, spanning the period from 1635 to 1989. At present, POST 23 is divided into 14 Sub-Series, containing some pieces originally in POST 22. There is a small amount of material that relates to seventeenth and eighteenth century developments (see Sub-Series 1 'Establishment and Introduction of the Inland Letter Post' and Sub-Series 5 'Introduction of the Penny Postage'). However, the majority of the records held in this class relate to developments that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which was the period in which a great expansion and modernisation of the inland letter service occurred within Britain. For the nineteenth century, there is interesting general information in Sub-Series 2 'Inland Letter Post, General' and, in Sub-Series 3 'Missing Letter Branch Case Papers', there are over 50 files of records created by the Missing Letter Branch, who investigated mail thefts between 1839-1859. The largest group of records within this class for the twentieth century is Sub-Series 8 'Two-Tier Inland Letter Service, Correspondence and Reports' which relates to the substantial changes that occurred from the 1960s that accompanied the introduction of a first class and second class postal service, amongst other changes that further modernised the system. Other than Sub-Series 14 'Seditious, obscene and libellous publications sent through the post' which comprises records for the years 1876-1927, the latter half of this class (Sub-Series 9-13) is filled with reports, business plans and material related to other significant developments that have occurred within Britain's letter post service from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.

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

This series relates to the operation of counters business and services. The majority of the records relate to the policy on the establishment, closure and up-grading of sub-offices and the review of the scale payment sub-office system.

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 relates to conveyance of mails within the United Kingdom and Ireland by sea. The majority of records are on the Irish and Scottish packet services, with a few contracts for mail services to the Scilly Isles, Lundy Island and the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, placed at the end of the series.

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.

Papers of the Post Office Investigation Department (POID), consisting of reports, instructions, memoranda, annual reports and research notes.

This series comprises material relating to Post Office services supplementary to the core activity of the business. It consists of reports, minutes, correspondence and memoranda relating to the introduction, operation and development of individual Post Office ancillary services, their profit and expenditure, recommended improvements and alterations, and information sheets and guides to the services.

Contains some pieces originally in POST 22.

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.

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.

POST 114 comprises Acts of Parliament relating to Post Office business covering the years 1657-1986. Parliamentary warrants, treasury warrants, details of parliamentary debates, memoranda and related reports can also be found within this class. The class is thematically separated into 24 Sub-Series' (which in turn are organised chronologically) covering a wide range of legislature, from major Post Office Acts that established such historic privileges as the state monopoly of postal communications, to numerous acts of a less celebrated nature, such as Road Repair Acts or Electric Lighting Acts. A number of important Acts can be found in Sub-Series 1 'The Establishment of the Post Office and Postage Rates', including the Post Office Acts of 1657 and 1969. Reports, policy reviews, various bills and other papers of a similar nature are gathered in Sub-Series 2 'Growth and Expansion of the Modern Post Office'. These records cover the years 1951-1986. All of the major branches of business that have been under the control of the Post Office during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are represented in this class, including: telegraphs and telephones (Sub-Series 7); savings banks (Sub-Series 12); pensions (Sub-Series 15); and National Insurance (Sub-Series 16), amongst much else.

This series comprises accounts of British packet services and overseas posts, including records of agents and postmasters, packet stations, and packet boats. The accounts cover income, expenditure, salaries, allowances and disbursements.

Photo library created by a number of different departments within the Post Office, including the Public Relations/Communications department.

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).

London Parcels Delivery Company records comprise: board of directors' minutes, 1837-46; and notes concerning the early history of the company, circa 1926-9. No other records of London Parcels Delivery Company are known to survive.

Papers of Cuthbert Grasemann, consisting of original documents, together with Grasemann's notes and transcripts either used in his book or intended for use in a book on Isle of Wight transport. Relating to the latter subject are transcripts of letters extracted from the Ryde Pier Company's letterbook, 1848 to 1852; original letters and office copies of correspondence between local officers of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and of the Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company with their respective general managers, 1870 to 1872. Relating to cross-channel services are lists of the vessels employed, 1790 to 1939; of Newhaven to Dieppe steamers, 1856 to 1933; of the steamers of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company, 1845 to 1896; a table of passengers carried on South Railway routes to the Continent, 1850 to 1938. In addition there is an illustrated book of the lights and buoys on the south and east coasts of England from Harwich to Land's End, prepared ca.1832 for Captain David Stephenson (c 1779-1846), an Elder Brother of Trinity House, and containing detailed sailing directions.

Papers of Lt Col Leonard George Gage, on service with Army Postal Service, 1939-1945; principally comprising correspondence on the introduction and operation of the airgraph service to the Middle East; letters of congratulation on mention in despatches, 1941, and award of MBE, 1944; photographs of army postal services in France, 1939-1940 and the Middle East, 1942-1945; copy of Parade No.124, 26 Dec 1942, containing illustrated article 'Mail Up for Christmas'

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'.

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.

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.

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.