General Post Office, London
The General Post Office in St. Martin's Le Grand was the main post office for London between 1829 and 1910, the headquarters of the General Post Office of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and England's first purpose-built post office.
Originally known as the General Letter Office, the headquarters of the General Post Office had been based in the City of London since the first half of the 17th century. For 150 years, it was in Lombard Street, before a new purpose-built headquarters, designed by Robert Smirke, was opened on the eastern side of St. Martin's Le Grand in 1829. As well as functioning as a post office and sorting office, the building contained the main offices and facilities for the Postmaster General of the United Kingdom and other senior administrative officials.
While externally attractive, Smirke's General Post Office suffered over the years from internal shortcomings due to ever-increasing demands on available space. In the later part of the 19th century the GPO expanded into other buildings on St Martin's Le Grand, and further afield. After a new building was opened in nearby King Edward Street, Smirke's General Post Office was demolished in 1912.
The headquarters staff had already moved, in 1874, into new premises just across the road from Smirke's building. Twenty years later they moved into another new building on St Martin's Le Grand, which continued to serve as Post Office Headquarters until 1984.
Before the Great Fire of London
Before the establishment of the General Post Office, post houses were set up in the City of London and elsewhere to provide horses for the conveyance of individuals or messages on behalf of the royal court. In 1526 a warrant was issued to the Court of Aldermen requiring a number of horses to be kept on hand if required for the King's Post; they in turn arranged with the innkeeper of the Windmill in Old Jewry to ensure that four horses would be kept available for those wishing to ride post, along with four more to be provided by the local hackney men. By the mid-17th century, there were separate post houses in London at the start of each of the post roads, including one in Bishopsgate for the route to Edinburgh, one at Charing Cross for the road to Plymouth and one in Southwark for the Dover road; these were invariably attached to licensed premises. At this time the general administration of the Inland post and the Foreign post seems to have been carried out either from the houses of their chief officers, or else from one or other of the City's post houses.By 1653, though, a General Letter Office had been established 'at the Old Post House at the lower end of Threadneedle Street, by the Stocks'. This was a substantial building, which provided accommodation as well as office space for a number of Post Office officials. It was, however, destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666; following which the business of the Post Office was carried on from a series of temporary offices in various locations.
General Post Office, Lombard Street
In 1678, the General Post Office found a more permanent home in a mansion in Lombard Street, belonging to Sir Robert Vyner;.The Post Office on Lombard Street was built around a central courtyard, which was open to the public and accessed through an imposing gateway. Directly opposite the entrance stood the sorting office, with the letter carriers' office located in the basement below. To the left was the foreign letter office, while to the right was the Board Room, which was connected to the official residence of the Postmasters General. Elsewhere in the building, accommodations were provided for clerks and other staff members, who were required to live on-site to ensure their availability whenever the post arrived, whether by day or night.
By 1687, the Post Office had expanded to the south and west as far as Sherborne Lane, where an additional entrance was constructed. The General Post Office remained in Lombard Street for a century and a half, during which time it continued to expand into neighbouring properties; however the increased employment of mail coaches towards the end of the 18th century caused difficulties as there was very little space for them to pull up and they were forced to queue in the narrow street.
With the post office having this outgrown its premises in Lombard Street a site was sought for a new building. The City of London and Westminster Streets and Post Office Act 1815 authorised commissioners to identify a suitable location, and to pay compensation to the owners of properties on the site. A parcel of land on the east side of St. Martin's Le Grand was chosen; however the clearance and preparation of the densely occupied site took several years, and it was only in May 1824 that the stones of the new building began to be laid.
General Post Office, St Martin's Le Grand
Smirke's new General Post Office opened on 23 September 1829. It was the UK's second purpose-built post office; Dublin's GPO predates it. The new Post Office was 'one of the largest public edifices now existing in the City of London' in 1829.Design and operation
The Post Office was built in the Grecian style with Ionic porticoes along the main front, and was long and wide and high. Above a basement storey of granite it was brick-built, but encased on all sides in Portland stone. The building's main façade had a central hexastyle Greek Ionic portico with a pediment, and two tetrastyle porticoes without pediments at each end. Above the main entrance was a large chiming clock with an external and internal dial, which governed timekeeping within the building.Mail coaches and mail carts
The General Post Office was built in the era of the mail coach, with a driveway leading around the back of the building to a courtyard on the north side where the coaches would assemble. Each night, from all around the country, London-bound mail coaches would set off at different times, so as to arrive at St Martin's Le Grand between 5 and 6 o'clock in the morning; the mail was then unloaded and sorted, ready for delivery at 8am. Then in the evening, the coaches were loaded with sacks of mail destined for the provinces. The daily departure of the mail coaches regularly attracted crowds of spectators. At 8pm, Monday-Saturday, all the coaches would set off in different directions from St Martin's Le Grand; each would follow its own set route, progressively dropping off mail bags at every post town on the way to its final destination. Mail for destinations overseas was mostly taken to Falmouth or Dover to be loaded on to packet boats.In between the arrival and departure of the mail coaches, red-painted mail carts would come and go all through the day, collecting and delivering mail within the London postal area. Working alongside the mail carts were riding-boys, who would carry sacks of mail on horseback.. The carts and riding-boys would collect mail from, and deliver it to, 'receiving houses' all round London. By 1850, the London District Office was carrying out ten collections and deliveries a day, six days a week, in the central London area and between three and five collections in the suburbs. There were no deliveries or collections of any kind on Sundays.
The Grand Public Hall
Behind the central portico of the Post Office was a Grand Public Hall, forming a public thoroughfare from St Martin's-le-Grand to Foster Lane; it measured by and had aisles on either side separated from the centre by rows of ionic columns. Members of the public could post letters and other items from inside the hall through boxes in the wall, from where they would fall into hoppers and be loaded into trolleys to be taken to the sorting offices beyond. There were also windows and offices where payments could be made. Each day, shortly before 6pm, there would always be a last-minute rush of people with letters and newspapers to post; the windows above the slots were then opened to facilitate delivery, but were always closed on the sixth stroke of the clock. Charles Dickens described the daily 6 o'clock rush in a descriptive and detailed article on the workings of the Post Office in 1850.The Grand Public Hall divided the building in two: personnel to the south dealt mainly with the London post, while those to the north dealt mainly with the national post. A tunnel and conveyor system beneath the Grand Public Hall linked the two halves of the building.
The principal offices
In 1829, the three 'great divisions' of the General Post Office were:- The Inland Office, which was responsible for conveying letters between London and other post towns.
- The Foreign Office, responsible for the passage of letters to and from other overseas destinations.
- The London District Office for sending letters within the London area.
The Inland Office
Image:GPO - The Inland letter office ILN 1844.jpg|thumb|right|The Inland Letter Office at the General Post Office in 1844
The Inland Letter Office, centrally placed within the northern half of the building, was a sizeable chamber measuring by. It was here that letters for and from the provinces were received, stamped, counted and sorted. The room was a hive of activity at the start of the day, when coaches arrived from around the country laden with letters for London; and at the end of the day, when the letters from London were sorted and stamped before being bagged, and loaded on coaches for delivery to provincial post offices all round the country.
Alongside the Inland Letter Office to the west was the Letter-carriers' Office.
On the east side of the Inland Letter Office was a large vestibule, where the incoming and outgoing letter bags were received from and despatched to the mail coaches. Before leaving the building they were placed in the custody of the Mail-Guards, who were armed and accompanied the bags on the coaches to ensure safe delivery. The Mail-Guards had rooms, including an armoury, in the basement of the building.
Other rooms in the northern half of the building included the Dead Letter Office, the Missing Letter Office and the Blind Office. The Superintending President of the Inland Office had his office at the northernmost end of the building, overlooking the yard. Connected with the Inland department was the Ship Letter Office, which transported mail by sea to certain destinations using privately owned ships. Likewise the West India Office and the North American Office, which were adjacent to the Inland Letter Office and managed the transport of mail to and from parts of the British Empire.