Sending letters and parcels is an age-old activity. And ever since Brian Tuke was installed as the official ‘Master of Posts’ in 1517, the state has played a key role in connecting up the nation. With the establishment of the General Post Office in the 17th century, a world-renowned institution emerged that has weathered some of the most challenging points in British history: the Industrial Revolution, the Second World War and now, increasingly, competition from private couriers, emails, instant messaging and globalisation.

The Royal Posts
During medieval times – an age when only the wealthiest could read and write – a person wishing to send a letter or parcel had limited options. The wealthiest families could use a retainer, a servant who would deliver the letter, but this of course could take more than a few days. If one member of a village or a town was travelling in the same direction then another family could give them their letters to deliver on their arrival or ensure they were passed on to another traveller when the original messenger came to rest for the night at an inn. But there were also ‘common carriers’, merchants and tradesman who travelled about frequently. As Duncan Campbell-Smith explains: “Most treated letters and parcels as a profitable sideline, but for some they were more than that. In most market towns of any importance, there was a carrier licensed by the local worthies to collect letters and deliver them safely along a handful of popular routes.”

The King, however, could always rely on his word being sent around the country. Even in medieval times there are records showing that Edward IV and Richard III had a relay system in place for emergencies – a messenger would ride on horseback for 20 miles and then hand over to another messenger. This ensured that the important news was delivered at optimum speed. Indeed, according to F George Kay it was this system which warned Richard III of the impending uprising of Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, which led to the Battle of Bosworth.

When Henry VII’s son Henry VIII ascended the throne, he tried to establish a more formal system for himself that could be used not just for emergencies. The new Master of Posts, Brian Tuke, acting on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wolsey, decreed that all towns have at their disposal a horse ready at any moment for a messenger to carry the King’s messages. Those who supplied the horses and the stables in which to house them were paid relatively handsomely. Soon ordinary townsfolk began to tip the messengers to relay their own letters as the King’s and later Queen’s posts were much more reliable and faster than common carriers.

By the middle of Elizabeth I’s reign the use of the ‘Queen’s Post’ to relay private messages had become so widespread that a law was passed to regulate the system. It was stipulated that the messenger would receive three halfpence per mile when ‘riding on Her Majesty’s service’ but two pence per mile when ‘otherwise engaged’. These prices may sound relatively cheap to us but a journey of tens or hundreds of miles was still way out of reach for the poorest people. However, that is not to say that the Elizabethan posts were simply the reserve of the wealthiest. In fact another remarkable facet of this system was the degree to which literacy levels had risen since the Middle Ages. As F George Kay points out, “Merchants and farmers, constables and innkeepers and sailors were using the Posts.”

The informal network was formally opened up to the general public by Charles I in 1635 and then formally codified as an office of government by Oliver Cromwell ¬– The General Post Office – in 1657.

The Industrial Revolution
For the next 200 years the Post Office continued to evolve. One of the biggest differences between the service we know today and the pre-industrial Post Office is that in the past the postage was paid by the person receiving the letter rather than the person sending it. One common clever way around this was for the sender to write a sort of shorthand code on the envelope that the receiver could decipher without having to accept and pay for the letter. Postage was also determined by the distance in miles and the number of pages so those wanting to save money would often scrawl in tiny writing, even writing crossways. Apart from in London, letters and packages were also not usually delivered door to door. With many people living in more remote locations, letters were instead delivered to receiving houses or literal post offices where they could be collected.

By the late 1830s, however, it soon became clear that the Post Office could not keep up with the pace of change of the Industrial Revolution. As the population grew and the economy became more urbanised, the systems which had evolved, but had not changed dramatically, since the days of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell needed an overhaul. It was an expensive system for ordinary people and it was generally viewed as corrupt. An MP or peer had the right to free usage of the postal service so the well connected could could simply ask them to post their letter for them.

In stepped Sir Rowland Hill, a visionary figure who in 1837 published Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability. His plans were at first ridiculed by the establishment but were supported by the public and were soon given a two-year trial.

Hill’s plans for whole scale reformation of the Post Office included determining the price of postage on the weight of the package rather than on the distance. A flat rate of just 1p was agreed. This radically opened up the channels of communication for the working class like never before. Responsibility for payment of the letter or package would rest with the sender and this would be pre-paid. Where letters were delivered door to door – such as in London – Hill recognised that if the postage was pre-paid it could make the process of delivering letters a lot more efficient. Rather than the postman having to wait for the recipient to open their front door to haggle and argue with them about the price of the letter, the postman could simply push the letter through the door and move on to the next address.

In the first draft of his Post Office reform, Hill intended for the payment for letters to be made by the means of the sender purchasing a stamped cover sheet which would include the cost of postage from the Post Office. It was in the second draft of his paper that Hill proposed the revolutionary idea of a stamp – “a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp and covered at the back with glutinous wash”. The famous Penny Black stamp with Queen Victoria’s head – now a much sought-after collector’s item for avid philatelists – was introduced in 1840.

A letter-writing nation
As soon as Hill’s new system was introduced, the number of letters sent through the postal system doubled within a month and, within three months, use of the postal service had increased by 120%. Over the remainder of the century the postal service grew rapidly and by 1897 the Post Office had 100,000 workers and the service was carrying two billion letters a year.

This huge increase in the number of workers meant that our ancestors may have worked at The Post Office in a variety of new roles. According to the Annual Report of the Postmaster General on the Post Office in 1910, 22.5% of the full-time workforce worked outside as postmen or telegram boys – often young or teenage boys who delivered telegrams on bicycles; 17.1% worked indoors in the sorting depots and behind the counters in local Post Office branches; 5.2% worked as clerks; 11.1% as sub-postmasters and postmasters; and 0.3% were superior officers.

Amazingly the remaining 43.9% of the workers the Post Office employed were ‘unestablished’ – ie relief or auxiliary workers. These workers are perhaps comparable to those who work on zero-hour contracts today. Ostensibly they were supposed to be deployed only when the postal service was experiencing a high demand such as at Christmas but up until 1897, according to MJ Daunton, these workers were paid less and had fewer rights than formally contracted or ‘established’ workers yet often worked regularly. Some changes were made at the turn of the century but it wasn’t until the rise of trade unionism – the Union of Post Office Workers was established in 1919 – and the election of the first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 that workers’ rights began to improve and develop significantly.

By the start of the 20th century the postal service in London had become a vast and hugely sophisticated branch of the state that continues to intrigue and enthuse academics. One of the largest postal depots in the world was created at Mount Pleasant and in 1927 a 22-mile underground tunnel was created underneath London to move post between the six major sorting offices. The tunnel, known as the mail rail, closed in 2003. Even during the Second World War, when Britain was under siege and London was being bombed, the post continued to be delivered. In fact it was considered vitally important that it should continue because the delivery of the post each morning offered a level of normality and boosted morale during a dark period in British history.

Going further
There are a number of sources you can consult if you want to find out more about your Post Office ancestor. Census records and street directories will confirm your ancestor’s occupation. Some of these directories were compiled by the Post Office itself and often contain useful information relating to regional post offices. But the main source you may wish to consult are the British Postal Service Appointment Books (1737-1969). These show the name of the employee, their location, when they were appointed and if and when they were promoted to a new role. Unfortunately the Royal Mail archive is currently closed to the public but is due to reopen when the new Postal Museum opens in 2017 (see postalmuseum.org ).

If you are interested in Post Office history in general, there are a number of events and museums you can visit. In mid-2017 the Postal Museum will reopen in Clerkenwell, London after a huge redevelopment. Visitors will be able to take a 15-minute ride on the refurbished mail rail among other exhibitions.

Elsewhere in London there is also the accredited walking tour ‘From Pillar to Post’ which highlights all the major sites and will explain in further detail how the postal system developed. The tours leave from Farringdon tube station and end near Bank tube station. Check the Postal Museum website for details of the next event.

There are also regional post office museums across the country in places such as Bath and the Isle of Wight and there is also the Museum of the Post Office in the Community which is located in Blists Hill Victorian Town, near Telford, Shropshire (see ironbridge.org.uk/visit/blists-hill-victorian-town ).

Sources
D Campbell-Smith, Masters of the Post: The Authorised History of the Royal Mail (Penguin Books, 2012)
MJ Daunton, Royal Mail: The Post Office since 1840 (Athlone Press, 1985)
F George Kay, Royal Mail: The Story of the Posts in England from the Time of Edward IVth to the Present Day (Rockliff Publishing, 1951)