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: wartime
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…
Homekeeping in Wartime
This article featured in the Bromley & District Times in August 1940, providing advice to housewives to help the with the organisation of the kitchen and larder to cope with any eventuality in this current conflict. The wise housewife will already have laid in her emergency larder. Inspect the Home Larder and Kitchen Front The Kitchen Front will play an ever-increasing part in the present conflict, and the housewife has now an excellent chance to prove her organising ability and foresight in planning her home larder and kitchen front…