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Rosemary Collins reports on the latest data releases and genealogy news New museum sheds light on postal history The newly refurbished Postal Museum features unique exhibitions and archives, as well as the chance to ride the Mail Rail
Visitors to London can learn about the history of the postal service and the men and women who worked there in a new £26 million museum.
The Postal Museum, located at Phoenix Place in Clerkenwell, opened on 28 July.
It offers a unique chance to see items such as a horse-drawn mail coach and one of the few remaining sheets of Penny Black postal stamps, as well as a host of letters, postcards and other documents.
The £26 million project, supported through fundraising and support from Heritage Lottery Fund and the Royal Mail, is occupying a Royal Mail building that has been closed since 1998.
“Before the museum opened, we had no way of displaying any of the items in our collection or being able to tell the story that we had,” Chris Taft, head of collections at the museum, told Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine.
He added that the new museum would show how people’s lives have been changed by the postal service and “the importance of communication, the importance of being able to keep in touch and how that has been affected by events around the world”.
The Postal Museum is divided into five interactive zones, tracing the history of the service from its origins under Henry VIII to the present day. The zones are based on themes of the postal service’s past; its growth during the 19th century; staff ’s involvement in both world wars; its connections to art and design; and what the service has meant to the public.
In addition, an entry ticket to the museum also grants entry to a restored section of Mail Rail, the postal service’s underground rail network, which is open to the public for the first time.
Mail Rail, constructed in 1928, was the first driverless electric railway in the world, with 6.5 miles of underground tunnels transporting mail between London’s sorting offices and Liverpool Street and Paddington stations. At its peak, Mail Rail carried more than four million letters a day and employed over 220 staff.
The network closed finally in 2003 and has been maintained by just three staff since then. However, Mail Rail at The Postal Museum will take visitors on a 15-minute ride through a one kilometre section of the tunnels around the original platforms at the Mount Pleasant sorting office station, using a specially made passenger train. On the journey, audio-visual technology and projection mapping will teach visitors about the history of the railway, followed by an exhibition in the original car depot.
For those interested in researching ancestors who worked in the postal service, the museum’s archives will be available to visit for free, with a brand-new purpose-built repository and research facility. Chris Taft promised a “much improved” experience providing “a wealth of material for family research purposes”.
The archives currently fill two and a half miles of shelving. They include staff records, listing the thousands of people who have worked for the postal service in different positions, as well as unique items such as telegrams sent from the Titanic as it sunk and a confiscated first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
The Postal Museum is expecting 185,000 visitors and 10,000 school visits in its first full year.
The museum is open from 10am to 5pm daily. Full price tickets cost £16. For more information, go to postalmuseum.org.
At its peak, Mail Rail carried more than four million letters a day and employed over 220 staff