Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
This page is dedicated to the Telegram 'Messengers', many of whom were too young to serve in the armed forces.
For those who did go to war many, once 'demobbed', made the postal service their career.
Telegram messenger delivery boys on BSA Motorcycles c. 1933.
'Someone, somewhere wants a letter from you'.
1963 public information ooster promoting the sending of letters.
Four members of the Army Postal Service, Western Front c. 1914-1918.
Post Office employees staffed the Army Post Office which was responsible for army mails in all theatres of war.
Sorting the WW1 mail from home.
Portrait of a Post Office Rifleman c. 1917.
12,000 men joined the Post Office's own battallion - The Post Office Riffles - during WW1.
Front page of the November 1917 Post Office Circular siting Serjeant A J Knight being the only member of The Post Office Riffles to be awared the Victoria Cross.
Serjeant A K Knight V.C.
British postal communications helped shape the modern world. The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) cares for visual, written and physical records of over 400 years of postal history from employment records to stamp artwork and postal vehicles etc.
Birmingham Head Post Office - Distribution Division c. 1938.
Postmen sorting short letters into a 48 box frame whilst being supervised by a manager.
King George V Dock c. 1935.
Postman unloading mail onto cargo netting on the dock with Dockers preparing to load the mail onto the P&O liner 'Kaiser-1-Hind'.
On 2 November 1934, the 'new' Mount Pleasant was officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). In this pic the Duchess can be seen trying her hand at sorting to a drop bag fitting (DBF). Over one thousand staff and visitors looked on as the Duchess also tried her hand at operating a new stamp-cancelling machine. The ceremony was complete when the Duke operated switches that set in motion the sorting machinery on the ground floor.
Mount Pleasant Parcel Office, London, WC1, displaying undeliverable items in the Returned Parcel Section c. 1938.
Photo of an Air Raid Precation Spotter on top of the 'Mount' c. 1945.
Local shop doubled as Latimer Sub-Post Office, Bucks c. 1947.
A Travelling Post Office (TPO) being 'whistled' out of the station.
These trains were much the same as 'ordinary' rolling stock until 1986 when a striking red livery was introduced in time for filmimg of 'The Midnight Hours' - a documnetary updating the classic 'Night Mail' made some 50 years earlier.
'The Line' of TPO mail bags. Sorted mail was 'bagged off' to these hessian sacks and despatched to staions along the TPO route. They have become icons of the postal service.
TPO Sorter 'chalking up' the fillets for the Scottish Road.
The Lineside Mail Bag Excahnge Apparatus looms over the rails, waiting for the TPO to snatch the mail pouch from its arms. The pouch was caught in a net suspended 3 feet out from the side of the train and contained pre-sorted mail collected from local post boxes etc.
Postman's delivery cart used on Rural Posts c. 1894.
Contractors provided mail coaches and horse-drawn vans for Royal Mail until the end of the 19th Century.
Official Motor Vehicles (OMV's) at Studd Street Stores Deptment, Islington, London early 1900's.
Pictured is Major Wheeler who championed the purchase of Post Office OMV's.
Streamlined Air Mail car with 'Horatus' at Croydon Airport c. 1935.
The special bodywork, designed by Maurice Lambert, was constructed by Duple Coachworks and mounted on a standard 15 cwt. Morris chassis.
Cover of a booklet promoting the 'new' Mobile Post Office service intoduced in 1937.
Restoration of the second Mobile Post Office, GPO2, was completed in 2006 by S Cartwrights for the BPMA.
An original poster design for the GPO Film Unit documentary 'Night Mail'. It was designed by Pat Kelly in 1939. 'Night Mail' celebrates the work of the TPO's - mail trains speeding through the countryside - collecting, sorting and despatching mail as they went.
Night Mail poem 1936 - by W H Auden.
Illustration of an early Parcel Sorting Van from the end of the 19th Century. This model was scrapped in 1926.
Parcel sorting 'on the move' began on July 1, 1885 with the introduction of the 'Postal Specials'.
Victorian 'Penfold' boxes
Illustrations from a GPO pamphlet of 1939 entitled 'Rules for Working Lineside Mail Apparatus'. Pamphlets, like these, were used to instruct TPO an 'apparatus' officers on how to carry out their duties correctly.
An example of a GPO safety poster from the mid 1970's. It was aimed at the staff of TPO's who clearly liked to aim elastic bands at one another.
Brink back string!!!
A 1950 public information poster by Hans Unger on how to pack your parcels.
A 1956 public information poster by Peter Huveneers to 'Post Early' for Christmas.
A 1967 public information poster by Stevens on how to post 'the right way'.
A public informatiom poster [date unknown] by Alick Knight on the use of Postcodes.
(Please let us know if you can date the poster!)
P.S. As the coding of the whole county was not completed until 1974 the poster is after.
A 1941 Post Office Poster by Lewitt-Him advertising the last posting date for Christmas.
The British Postal Museum & Archive's online retail shop for FINE ART PRINTS of hundreds of its old posters.
Buy FINE ART PRINTS from Post Office history - pillar boxes, parcels, postmen, through war, peace and technological change - at ANY SIZE as ART POSTERS, ART PRINTS or CANVAS PRINTS and use our unique PICTURE FRAMING function - choosing your own frame and mount - to get your PRINT FRAMED.
There is a range of finishes and prices to suit all pockets. And we print only when you order to guarantee the finest art quality.
Browse in comfort and buy with confidence, assured of SECURE PAYMENT, SUPERB QUALITY, SAFE DELIVERY and backed up by our 14-DAY RETURNS policy.
GPO poster 'Shop Early, Post Early' 1951 [artist unknown].
Back to the 'swinging sixties' with the Puch Scooter and the ubiquitous Morris Minor Van (complete with locking bar across the back doors!).
Wartime heroines in postal dress: a postal carrier from 1916 (left), and another from 1940 (right). Featuring historical accuracy and attention to detail these figurines are quality display miniatures. Although the earliest known London postwoman was working in 1862, it was during the two world wars that great numbers of women came to keep the postal service running, delivering letters as thousands of men joined or were called up to fight.
Rural Postman leading his horse-drawn cart
(location and Postman unknown - as seen on the British Postal Museum website: www.postalheritage.org.uk -
Our History Through the Post).
