General Post Office

This article is about the UK postal system before 1970. For its subsequent history and current operation, see Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. For other uses, see General Post Office (disambiguation).

General Post Office
Royal Arms of HM Government

Victorian 'Post Office' pillar box in Oxton, Merseyside.
Agency overview
Formed31 July 1635 (1635-07-31) (public service)
29 December 1660 (1660-12-29) (Post Office Act 1660)
Dissolved1 October 1969 (1969-10-01)
Superseding agency
Jurisdiction
  • 1635–1657  England & Scotland
  • 1657–1784  England, Scotland & Ireland
  • 1784–1831  England & Scotland
  • 1831-1969  United Kingdom
HeadquartersGeneral Post Office,
St Martin's le Grand,
London EC2
Agency executives
Parent agencyHM Government

The General Post Office (GPO)[1] was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969.[2] 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 (which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented); 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 (the latter being rebranded as 'Parcelforce'). At the start of the 21st century the Post Office became a public limited company (initially called 'Consignia plc'), which was renamed 'Royal Mail Group plc' in 2002. In 2012 the counters business (known as 'Post Office Limited' since 2002) was taken out of Royal Mail Group, prior to the latter's privatisation in 2013.[3] The privatised holding company (Royal Mail plc) was renamed International Distributions Services plc in 2022.[4]

  1. ^ "Summary of Post Office history". The British Postal Museum & Archive. Archived from the original on 17 May 2011.
  2. ^ Marshall, Allan (2003). Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 9780521521277.
  3. ^ "About us". Royal Mail. Retrieved 22 October 2024.
  4. ^ "NM04 notice for Royal Mail plc". 3 October 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022.