General Post Office
The General Post Office was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver ; it was overseen by a Government minister, the Postmaster General. Over time its remit was extended to Scotland and Ireland, and across parts of the British Empire.
The GPO was abolished by the Post Office Act 1969, which transferred its assets to the Post Office, so changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation. Responsibility for telecommunications was given to Post Office Telecommunications, the successor of the GPO Telegraph and Telephones department. In 1980, the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to British Telecommunications' conversion into a totally separate publicly owned corporation the following year as a result of the British Telecommunications Act 1981. In 1986 the Post Office Counters business was made functionally separate from Royal Mail Letters and Royal Mail Parcels. At the start of the 21st century the Post Office became a public limited company, which was renamed 'Royal Mail Group plc' in 2002. In 2012 the counters business was taken out of Royal Mail Group, prior to the latter's privatisation in 2013. The privatised holding company was renamed International Distributions Services plc in 2022.
Early postal services
In the medieval period, nobles generally employed messengers to deliver letters and other items on their behalf. In the 12th century a permanent body of messengers had been formed within the Royal Household of King Henry I, for the conveyance of royal and official correspondence. The messengers delivered their messages in person, each travelling on his own horse and taking time as needed for rest and refreshment.Under Edward IV, however, a more efficient system was put in place to aid communications during his war with Scotland: a number of post houses were established at twenty-mile intervals along the Great North Road, between London and Berwick, to provide the king's messengers with fresh horses for each stage of the journey; in this way they were able to travel up to a hundred miles a day. The original meaning of the word 'post' comes from this idea of having horses placed or 'posted' at regular intervals along a route for the swift conveyance of letters and messengers.
Under King Henry VIII a concerted effort was made to maintain this means of conveying royal and government despatches. To oversee the required arrangements, the king appointed Brian Tuke to serve as 'Master of the Postes'; in 1533 Tuke reported that a regular service was now in place, both between London and Berwick, and between London and Dover.
The Elizabethan post network
Under Elizabeth I the postal system gained more coherence and a greater sense of permanence.By the 1550s five post roads were in place, connecting London with:
- Dover
- Edinburgh
- Holyhead
- Milford Haven
- Plymouth.
In the 17th century a sixth post road was added, from London to Great Yarmouth, and the Plymouth post road was extended to Falmouth.
Each post-house on the Elizabethan post roads was staffed by a postmaster, whose main responsibility was to provide the horses. The postmaster would also provide a guide to accompany the messenger as far as the next post-house. In practice most post-houses were established at roadside inns and the innkeeper served as postmaster.
Private citizens could make use of the post-horse network, if they could afford it, but it was primarily designed for the relaying of state and royal correspondence, or for the conveyance from one place to another of individuals engaged on official state business, who paid a reduced rate. Private correspondence was often sent using common carriers at this time, or with others who regularly journeyed from place to place ; towns often made use of local licensed carriers, who plied their trade using a horse and cart or waggon, while the universities, along with certain municipal and other corporations, maintained their own correspondence networks.
Many letters went by foot-post rather than on horseback. Footposts or runners were employed by many towns, cities and other communities, and had been for many years. A 16th-century footpost would cover around 30 miles per day, on average. At the time of the Spanish Armada every parish was by royal command required to provide a footpost, and every town a horse-post, to help convey news in the event of an imminent invasion. In Ireland the first horse-posts appear to have been established during the Nine Years' War at the close of the 16th century, for the conveying of military intelligence.
By the early 1600s there were two options for couriers using the post system: they could either ride 'through-post', carrying the correspondence the full distance; or they could use the 'post of the packet', whereby the letters were carried by the guides from one post house to the next in a cotton-lined leather bag. The guides at this time were provided with a post horn, which they had to sound at regular intervals or when encountering others on the road.
Foreign postage
At the start of the 16th century a system for the conveyance of foreign dispatches had been set up, organised by Flemish merchants in the City of London; but in 1558, after a dispute arose between Italian, Flemish and English merchants on the matter, the Master of the King's Posts was granted oversight of it instead. In 1619, James I appointed a separate Postmaster General 'for foreign parts', granting him the sole privilege of carrying foreign correspondence to and from London..The General Post
It was not until 1635 that a general or public post was properly established, for inland letters as for foreign ones. On 31 July that year, King Charles I issued a proclamation 'for the settling of the Letter-office of England and Scotland', an event which 'may properly be regarded as the origin of the British post-office'. By this decree, Thomas Witherings was empowered to provide for the carriage of private letters at fixed rates 'betwixt London and all parts of His Majesty's dominions'. To this end, the royal proclamation instructed him to establish 'a running post, to run night and day', initially between London and Edinburgh, London and Holyhead and London and Plymouth, 'for the advancement of all His Majesty's subjects in their trade and correspondence'.. Witherings was required to extend the new system to other post roads 'as soon as possibly may be' ; and provision was also made for the establishment of 'bye-posts' to run to and from places not directly served by the post road system. The new system was fully and profitably running by 1636.In order to facilitate the new arrangement, the King commanded 'all his postmasters, upon all the roads of England, to have ready in their stables one or two horses to carry such messengers, with their portmantles, as shall be imployed in the said service', and they were forbidden from hiring out these horses to others on days when the mail was due. Furthermore, it was enjoined that 'no other messenger or messengers, footpost or footposts, shall take up, carry, receive or deliver any letter or letters whatsoever, other than the messengers appointed by the said Thomas Witherings', thus establishing a monopoly, which would remain in place until 2006.
Legislation and oversight
Under the Commonwealth the Post Office was farmed to John Manley and John Thurloe, successively. In 1657 an Act of Parliament entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a postal system for the whole of the British Isles, stating that 'there shall be one General Post-Office, and one office stiled the Postmaster-Generall of England and Comptroller of the Post-Office'. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post-horses; and it set new rates both for carriage of letters and for 'riding post'. During the Commonwealth, what had been a weekly post service to and from London was increased to a thrice-weekly service: letters were despatched from the General Letter Office in London every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening, while the inbound post arrived early in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Usually the recipient of the post paid the fee ; the charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the Post Office had to keep a separate account for each item. An executive ordinance of 1654 granted Members of Parliament a 'franking privilege', meaning that their letters would be conveyed free of charge.After the Restoration, the Post Office Act 1660 was passed, confirming the arrangements in place for the Post Office, and the post of Postmaster General, and emphasizing the public and economic benefits of a General Post system:
To begin with the Post Office was again farmed, nominally to Henry Bishop, but the deal was bankrolled by John Wildman. Two years later Wildman was imprisoned, implicated in a plot against the King, whereupon Bishop sold the lease on to the King's gunpowder manufacturer, Daniel O'Neill; after the latter's death, his widow the Countess of Chesterfield served out the remainder of the original seven-year term. Meanwhile, under the terms of a 1663 Act of Parliament, the 'rents, issues and profits' of the Post Office had been settled by the King on his brother, the Duke of York, to provide for his support and maintenance. Following the latter's accession to the throne as King James II, this income became part of the hereditary revenues of the Crown. Subsequently, under the growing scrutiny of HM Treasury, the postal service came increasingly to be viewed as a source of government income.