POSTAL WORKERS
In its 500 years the Post Office has employed thousands of people. Susannah Coster of the Postal Museum explains how to start uncovering their story
Do you think you have an ancestor who worked for the postal service? If that’s the case the new Postal Museum’s Discovery Room is the place to start your research. The Postal Museum opened at its new Central London site in July this year, exploring the history of the Post Office and development of communications in Britain.
The new museum has several galleries, educational and research facilities and a café. For the first time, a section of Mail Rail (the underground railway used to transport mail under the capital from 1927–2003) has been opened up for the public. You can enjoy a ride on this two-foot gauge railway following part of the route that so many letters took in the past.
The museum is also the home of the Royal Mail Archive and the definitive place to find out about past postal employees in the UK. Many of the records held in the archive are of potential interest to family historians. Royal Mail Group (separated in 2013 from the still government owned Post Office Ltd) is still one of the largest employers in the country, and with 500 years of history has had an impact on countless lives.
The early days
The earliest record currently in the archive is from 1636. It is a letter from the Master of Foreign Posts to the Mayor of Hull, reproving him for not punishing people in his area for continuing to use private mails. They should of course have been using the Royal Mail by then, enabling the Crown to collect the revenue.
Other records held at the archive include mail coach time bills, maps, stamps and stamp
artwork, posters, films, records of technological advances and innovations and items relating to specific events, such as The Great Train Robbery, for example.
The first regular postal system in England was established in around 1512 by Henry VIII, when he appointed a Master of the Posts to manage the royal correspondence. In 1635 Charles I approved the expansion of the postal network and opened it up for the people to use. The service was expensive and literacy was not enjoyed by all, so not everyone was able to benefit from it. Nevertheless, it was a significant step in the development of what was to become the General Post Office (GPO).
In the 1600–1700s, the service developed into a system of postboys travelling on horseback in relays along sections of road, known as ‘posts’. Records show there were postboys aged from 11 to older than 40. They were vulnerable to attack, and extreme weather, and were poorly paid. Mail was often lost or delayed. In the late 1700s mail coaches were introduced.
Before 1840, the cost of sending a letter was based on distance and the number of sheets of paper used to write the letter. Consequently people often ‘crossed’ their letters – that is, one sheet of paper had two sets of writing, written at right-angles to each other. They would then fold the letter so that it made its own envelope. Fees were often paid by the recipient, rather than sender.
In 1837, Rowland Hill proposed three groundbreaking changes. The first was that postage should be paid by the sender not recipient. The second was that fees should be based on weight, not distance. The third was that a letter weighing up to half an ounce (15g) should cost a standard fee of one penny. Proof of payment was to be shown using labels stuck on to the item, so the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, was sold in May 1840.
The system proved popular, especially as literacy levels were rising. The innovative postal system was an immediate success and went on to serve as a model for similar postal services throughout the British Empire and around the world.
GPO employees
From then, the GPO grew beyond all expectations. It employed tens of thousands of staff in a wide range of jobs from postmen and women, mail sorters and counter staff to savings bank employees and telephone exchange staff.
There were also workers who were involved in transporting mail by coach, train, sea and air. Entry requirements for staff were strict; postmen, for example, had to take exams.
Finding the relevant records in the archive at The Postal Museum is not usually difficult as many are indexed. The archive
holds 2.5 miles of shelving, with records covering England, Scotland and Wales and, up until 1920, Ireland. The most relevant family history sources include appointment books, staff magazines, records of pensions and gratuities, photographs, PO Savings Bank records and oral interview recordings. There are also dismissal records, where the occasional ancestor may be found!
The Post Office Investigation Department (now part of Royal Mail Security) is the oldest recognised criminal investigation authority in the world and can trace its origins back at least as far as 1683. The offences detected include sorters taking bank notes out of letters and clerks misusing money orders. A postman who delivered or collected mail without wearing his uniform, for instance, was subject to instant dismissal. Unions and staff associations grew over the years to support Post Office employees.
Roles for women
Women were employed by the Post Office in significant numbers from 1870. Before that a few worked as sub-postmistresses, or as letter carriers (postwomen) in rural areas. However, in 1870