The Tale of three pillar boxes Written by Pam Preedy. Sometimes big changes to our lives come from solving simple problems. Letters were at the heart of a revolution in communications. In 1840, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp indicating the pre-payment of postage – the Penny Black. He thought this would double the number of letters sent – which it did. At first correspondents had to take their stamped letters to the Post Office or collection point. The next change was to introduce post boxes or pillar boxes.…
Tag: Post Office
Handling the Volume of Mail – 1914-1918
Handling the Volume of Mail – 1914-1918 Written by Pam Preedy. In the first half of the 20th century the Royal Mail and the Post Office counter service, which provided essential services such as dealing with stamps, and paying the old age pensions, were all incorporated and came under the title of the General Post Office. Even before the First World War, the Post Office employed over 250,000 people, handling 5.9 billion items of post. At that time there were up to four deliveries a day. A letter posted in…
Saving Your Pennies in 1942
To encourage people to save during the war time, advert such as these from the Post Office and Trustee Savings Bank (or TSB as we know it today) were published in local newspapers. The 1942 ‘Resolutions Twins’ arrive The adverts encouraged readers to open a savings book account and to deposit as much as they could, alongside the message to ‘spent less’ and ‘save more’ Source: Bromley & District Times, 9th Janaury 1942 (page 7)
Gunner W H King
Son of William Henry and Eliza King, of 17 New England Road, Brighton, King was a Bromley postman and Captain of the Bromley Postal Football Club (which was a successful team) when he signed up to the war. He was serving with the Royal Horse Artillery when he was wounded at the battle of Mons. He died of his wounds on the 12th September 1914 Source:Bromley & District Times, 27th November 1914 (page 7)www.cwgc.org