General Post Office (United Kingdom)

This article is about the British General Post Office. For other meanings see General Post Office (disambiguation). For a specific history of the British postal system, see: Royal Mail.

The British General Post Office (GPO) was officially established in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of both the state postal system and telecommunications carrier. In 1969 it was converted from a government department to a nationalised industry. It was finally abolished in 1981. For the more recent history of the postal system in the United Kingdom, see the article: Royal Mail.

Originally, the GPO was a monopoly covering the despatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver, which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented. The postal service was known as the Royal Mail because it was built on the distribution system for royal and government documents. In 1661 the office of Postmaster General was created to oversee the GPO. In later centuries the GPO acquired monopoly control of telecommunications and attempted to control the broadcasting industry.

Early postal services

The GPO created a network of post offices where senders could submit items. All post was transferred from the post office of origination to distribution points called sorting stations, and from there the post was then sent on for delivery to the receiver of the post. Initially it was the recipient of the post who paid the fee, and he had the right to refuse to accept the item if he did not wish to pay. The charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the GPO had to keep a separate account for each item. In 1840 the Penny Post was introduced, which incorporated the two key innovations of a uniform postal rate, which cut administrative costs and encouraged use of the system, and adhesive pre-paid stamps.

Headquarters

In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, the GPO was based in a succession of locations in the City of London. A new GPO headquarters was built on the eastern side of St Martins-le-Grand in the City of London between 1825 and 1829 to designs by Sir Robert Smirke. It was in the Grecian style with ionic porticoes, and was 400 feet long and 80 feet deep. In the 1870s a new building was added on the western side of the street to house the Telegraph department, and the General Post Office North was constructed immediately to the north of the Telegraph building in the 1890s as the GPO continued to expand. Smirke's building was closed in 1910 and demolished soon afterwards and the current headquarters of BT, a post World War II building, is on the site of the old Telegraph Office.

In the mid 19th century there were four branch offices in London: one in the City at Lombard Street; two in the West End at Charing Cross and Cavendish Street near Oxford Street; and one south of the Thames in Borough High Street. ^*

New communication systems

When new forms of communication came into existence in the 19th and early 20th centuries the GPO claimed monopoly rights on the basis that like the postal service they involved delivery from a sender and to a receiver. The theory was used to expand state control of the mail service into every form of electronic communication possible on the basis that every sender used some form of distribution service. These distribution services were considered in law as forms of electronic post offices. This applied to telegraph and telephone switching stations.

In the mid 19th century several private telegraph companies were established in the UK. The Telegraph Act of 1868 granted the Postmaster General the right to acquire inland telegraph companies in the United Kingdom and the Telegraph Act of 1869 conferred on the Postmaster-General a monopoly in telegraphic communication in the UK. Overseas telegraphs did not fall within the monopoly. The private telegraph companies were bought out. The new combined telegraph service had 1,058 telegraph offices in towns and cities and 1,874 offices at railway stations. 6,830,812 telegrams were transmitted in 1869 producing revenue of £550,000.

The same principles were applied to telephone, wireless telegraph and wireless telephone services. This latter expansion then incorporated wireless broadcasting which was non-specific in terms of delivery from sender to receiver. At first the GPO referred to all broadcasting transmitters as senders, while individual receivers retained that name. Like the mail, everything was licensed by the General Post Office under the terms of its Royal Charter.

Control of broadcasting

This theory ran into trouble when wireless telephone broadcasting was invented, because the senders were not addressing any specific recipient. However, this theory was accepted and made into law and it resulted in an extension of GPO monopoly over all forms of electronic communication.

In 1922 all electrical manufacturers were forced by the GPO to create a single licensed British Broadcasting Company (BBC). In 1927, the original BBC was dissolved when a Royal Charter was given to a new GPO licensed British Broadcasting Corporation.

From the start the GPO had trouble with competitive pirate radio broadcasters who found ways to deliver electronic messages to British receivers without first obtaining a GPO license. These competitors were well aware of the fact that the GPO would never grant them such a license. To police these unlicensed stations the GPO evolved its own force of detectives and "detector vans".

Before World War II the GPO faced broadcasting competition from the continent of Europe with stations such as Radio Normandy and Radio Luxembourg aiming their signals at British receivers. After WWII competition was renewed by Radio Luxembourg which was joined in the 1960s by radio stations located on board ships and marine structures, most famously Radio Caroline and Radio London. Unlicensed transmitters also began to appear on land within the British Isles.

The radio regulation functions were transferred to the Radio Authority and later Ofcom.

GPO dissolved

In 1969 the General Post Office was converted from a government department with a Royal Charter to a nationalised industry. Responsibility for telecommunications was given to a separate division, Post Office Telecommunications. It was finally abolished in 1981 when the British Telecommunications Act split the Post Office Corporation into two nationalised entities. Mail delivery was eventually assigned to a new Post Office entity which eventually settled on using the name Royal Mail and electronic communications were assigned to British Telecom and other entities.

External links

Postal system of the United Kingdom | Pirate radio