Mail Trains book

Now available from our shop is the book Mail Trains, telling the fascinating story of the development and history of carrying mail by rail, from the 1800s until today. The book is written by Julian Stray, one of our Assistant Curators.

Central to the prompt delivery of the nation’s mail is its efficient and speedy transit the length and breadth of the country. From 1830, the Post Office relied ever more heavily on the overland rail network to provide what was for decades the ideal form of transport. Railway Post Offices, Sunday Sorting Tenders and District Sorting Carriages were amongst the services introduced.

Railway Post Offices, carriages dedicated to sorting mail in transit, became known as Travelling Post Offices (TPOs). TPOs received mail at the start of their journey and at stations or bag exchange points en route. Mail bags were opened by travelling postal staff and the contents sorted and included in new mail bags made up en route and despatched at the appropriate station. One of the most remarkable aspects of TPOS was the bag exchange apparatus. This enabled mail trains to pass stations of minor importance yet still exchange mail bags without halting.

Travelling Post Office - Irish Mail. Mail bag exchange apparatus picking up mail at 60 mph, 1934. (POST 118/0021)

During the Second World War mail volumes carried by rail increased. Letters were essential for maintaining morale and connecting families separated by wartime. The rail network carried immense quantities of mail; in 1943 British railways carried 25 million mail bags and over 90 million parcels.

The final TPO service ran in 2004 and although the volume of mail carried is considerably diminished, mail trains continue to form an important part of the United Kingdom’s postal service to this day.

Mail Trains is available from our online shop. Order before 10 April 2012 and obtain a 10% discount by entering the code BPMAW3BS1TE when you make your payment.

Visit our website to find out what life was like on the TPO in our Travelling Post Office online exhibition.

Hear Julian Stray’s recent talk on Mail Trains by downloading our free podcast. Download the podcast on our website or subscribe to the podcast via Tunes.

Get 10% off at our new online shop

We have just launched our new and improved online shop.

Visit the shop at www.postalheritage.org.uk/shop before 10 April and get a 10% discount off all your purchases. To obtain the discount enter the code BPMAW3BS1TE when you make your payment.

What we sell

The BPMA shop sells a range of products including greetings cards, postcards, publications, philatelic products, DVDs & CDs, models & keyrings, homewares and stationery. New products on offer include Gift Republic’s “Stamp Collection” mug, notebooks and greetings cards featuring the Machin design, and the publications The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit and Mail Trains.

Gift Republic's "Stamp Collection" Machin greetings card

Events booking

You can also book for our paid events through the shop. Book online now for the upcoming talks Disaster at Sea! and The Penn-Gaskell Collection of Aeronautica.

Built for Service

Despite the importance of the post office in the lives of our communities, it has surprisingly been overlooked by architectural studies: furthermore, historians of the Post Office have by and large concentrated on its administrative history, with only passing reference to its buildings. In an attempt to redress the balance Built for Service: Post Office Architecture (published by the BPMA in 2010) chronicles the history and development of the post office building in Great Britain from the mid-19th century to the 1970s.

Derby Post Office (1870) (architect James Williams)

Southampton Post Office (1894) (architect Sir Henry Tanner)

Hull Post Office (1908) (architect Walter Pott)

Northwich Post Office (1915) (architect Charles Wilkinson)

Maesteg Post Office (c.1935) (architect Henry Seccombe)

Plymouth Post Office (1957) (architect Cyril Pinfold)

Hitchin Post Office (1962) (architect J.O. Stevens)

Although new post office buildings were commissioned by the Post Office, execution of the work was the responsibility of another Government department, the Office of Works and its successors. This duality of purpose, with the tensions that it created up until the First World War, is described in the book, and means that historians are required to research in two major repositories: for plans and contract drawings (where they have survived), the National Archives at Kew; and for the role of the Post Office, the British Postal Museum and Archive, although they are by no means mutually exclusive.

One of the joys of study in the BPMA Archive is of course working with the catalogued material, which reveals how assiduously the Post Office took its responsibilities with regard to the fitting-out of its buildings and the welfare of its staff, but also with the extensive ephemeral material in the Portfolio files. Here may be found a wealth of unique material (such as programmes of opening ceremonies), revealing details about dates of opening of new post offices, and names of architects, as well as correspondence, press cuttings, unpublished research papers and a fine selection of photographs.

Souvenir programme of the Opening of the New Post Office, Clevedon. One of many such items in the BPMA Portfolio collection.

The recent spate of post office closures has begged the question: what happens to redundant post office buildings? Do they still have a presence on the high street, and if so, what has happened to them?. Many Victorian and Edwardian post offices have been statutorily listed as Grade II structures. This generally means that their external appearance is protected, while the interiors can be altered to suit a new purpose. Many inter-war post offices, no longer required by the service, have also survived demolition. The nature of these buildings, featuring a large open space on the ground floor, has meant that it has been relatively easy to convert them into public houses, nightclubs, and chain restaurants. The names of many of the public houses recall the former association – “The Last Post”, “The Old Post Office”, “The Penny Black”, and so on.

“The Penny Black”, Bicester (1914) (architect Henry A. Collins)

“The Last Post”, Loughton (c.1930) (architect Archibald Scott)

“Zizzi”, Surbiton (c.1895)

In many cases, the upper floors of these buildings have been converted into residential use.

Built for Service serves as an introductory guide to the post office building, but it is supplemented by a website. This is an alphabetical illustrated guide, detailing years of opening, names of architects, archive sources for further research, bibliographical references, and current use (if no longer a post office), with links to further information available online.

- Julian Osley

A Postal View of London – GPO Poster Design

GPO Posters have played a significant role in establishing a dynamic relationship between the public service and its customers. For instance, they reminded people to use the postal service more efficiently and ‘Post Early’. Thanks to open-minded PR Officers like Stephen Tallents, GPO Posters also became a mirror of British graphic design particularly from the 1930s onwards. The GPO’s public relations department – the first government ministry PR department ever – saw the educational potential of poster design and combined it with a high standard of modern art. The Post Office offered employment to many artists and graphic designers; many of them helped shape the world of design and art during their careers. These included Tom Eckersley, Frank Newbould. and George Him and Jan Le Witt, better known as the Lewitt-Him partnership.

A Postal Guide to the Maze of London, 1951, Lewitt-Him (PRD0639)

One example of how those campaigns were linked to creative design and the distribution of business information can be illustrated in the numerous posters advertising Post Office directories. This ranged from directories of the businesses and services available in cities throughout Britain to publications such as the ‘Post Office Guide’, ‘Post Offices in the United Kingdom’, ‘London Post Offices and Streets’, and ‘Postal Addresses’. They provided valuable resources for marketing and sales departments and were updated every year. The works of artists like Lewitt-Him, Alick Knight or M H Armengol illustrate how these campaigns succeeded in presenting a functional product with iconic images and ingenious designs.

London Post Offices and Streets, 1958, M H Armengol (PRD0758)

Probably one of the most prominent posters is Lewitt-Him’s ‘A Postal Guide of the Maze of London’ (1951) which depicts a postman about to enter a stylistic maze of houses. The publication provides details of Post Offices, their streets and district numbers, hours of business and a listing of street names – a perfect aid for the postman’s journey into the intricate maze of streets. The partnership of the two Polish-born artists Jan Le Witt (1907-1991) and George Him (1900-1981) was a very successful collaboration in graphic design and they created several posters for the Ministry of Information during the Second World War and murals for the Festival of Britain (1951).

London Post Offices and Streets, 1958, Alick Knight (PRD0939)

Other poster artists may have remained relatively obscure but their creativity had resulted in some fine GPO poster art. Alick Knight, for example, contributed to several Post Office campaigns, including for the Post Office Guide during the 1950s. Several of his posters feature drawings of iconic buildings like the one for the ‘London Post Offices and Streets’ (1958). Although these posters advertising the London Post Office Guides were designed to have an immediate impact and relate to a particular product, their designs give them a surprising agelessness and relevance to anyone living in or coming to London.

A Postal View of London: London Post Offices and Streets, 1953, H W Browning (PRD0698)

The BPMA have produced a new set of postcards featuring the London-themed posters in this blog. It is now available in the BPMA Shop and further Post Office Guide posters can also be found on our print-on-demand website.

London Post Offices and Streets, 1960, Carol Barker (PRD1072)

- Jana Harnett, Marketing & Development Assistant

The distinctive films of Humphrey Jennings

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950), is widely considered to be one of Britain’s greatest documentary filmmakers, with a distinctive style much admired by cinema-goers and critics alike. Born in Suffolk to a painter mother and architect father, he was creative in a number of fields before working in film: after attending the Perse School, he studied English literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where in his spare time he painted, designed sets, and also managed to find time to co-found the literary periodical ‘Experiment’, with William Empson and Jacob Bronowski (later to become well-known figures themselves).

A still from "London can Take It!", Jenning's documentary made in the early days of World War 2.

In 1934, Jennings joined the GPO film unit, where he worked with colleagues such as John Grierson and particularly Alberto Cavalcanti, and developed an experimental style that became instantly recognisable. Having helped to organise the International Surrealist Exhibition in London in 1936 it’s no surprise that the movement influenced his work: he strove to see the extraordinary in the everyday, stating that ‘to the real poet the front of the Bank of England may be as excellent a site for the appearance of poetry as the depths of the sea’. This sensibility was perfect for his work for the General Post Office, and is evidenced in films like ‘Penny Journey’, where the seemingly simple journey of a postcard is followed with a focus on the behind-the-scenes processes that enable its arrival, and, most famously, ‘London can Take It!’, a film that celebrates London’s enduring spirit, resilient even during the Blitz.

GPO Public Relations Department poster - "Visit the Post Office film display - Free" - a projector is projecting an image of a GPO badge. (POST 118/506)

Many of Humphrey Jennings’s films (alongside other GPO classics) feature on the compilation GPO Film Unit DVDS ‘Addressing The Nation’, ‘We Live In Two Worlds’, and ‘If War Should Come’, available from the BPMA shop.

Or if you want to see even more of his work, a brand new compilation released by the BFI features some of his GPO work as well as his other films. ‘The Complete Humphrey Jennings: Volume 1’ is available from the BFI shop.

The Post Office in Pictures

In October our new exhibition, The Post Office in Pictures, will open in Swindon. The exhibition will showcase a selection of inspiring images sourced from our vast collections.

In 1933 Sir Stephen Tallents was appointed Public Relations Officer to the General Post Office (GPO), and so began a major project to promote the range of postal services to the British public. One initiative was the establishment of The Post Office Magazine, intended to give a sense of shared community, camaraderie and endeavour. In order to do this, the GPO employed photographers to create beautiful, informative and often humorous photographs of the Post Office at work.

From strange creatures sent through the post, to the daily deliveries by land, sea
and air to every corner of the country, the photos featured in The Post Office in Pictures offer a fascinating set of windows on Britain from the 1930s to 80s – including some of the more unusual, unexpected and unseen activities of The Post Office and its people.

One of the images to be featured is ‘Basket Delivery’, a striking image from 1938 showing a postman at Greenock Promenade in Scotland. The postman’s basket contained mail from the Canadian Pacific Railways liner, the Duchess of Bedford. Beginning its journey in places such as New Zealand and China, the mail once unloaded was then sorted in the open air ‘sorting office’ of the Princes Pier before being despatched for delivery across the United Kingdom. We love the composition of the image and the beautiful cloudy sky.

A postman pushes a hand cart with a large GPO basket on it along a promenade, Greenock. (POST 118/851)

To accompany the exhibition, the BPMA has produced a fantastic range of greetings cards featuring iconic black and white photographs from our archives, including ‘Basket Delivery’. The cards are now available from our online shop.

The Post Office in Pictures exhibition is open at the Post Modern in Swindon between 6 October and 5 November 2011. Find out more on our website.

Machins feature in new stamp collection

Gift Republic's Machin merchandise on display at the Spring Fair

If you’re excited about the philatelic and postal heritage related events and activities underway for London 2010 Festival of Stamps, then how about noting your thoughts on our year-long festival in your own Machin-covered notebook? Perhaps while relaxing with a ‘first class cuppa’?

Just in time for London 2010 Festival of Stamps, the British Postal Museum & Archive is delighted to announce a new range of gift products inspired by the Machin stamp. The new ‘Stamp Collection’ range has been developed by Gift Republic under license from the BPMA and Royal Mail.

A closer view of the some of the Machin-inspired cards, mugs and notebooks.

Our head of Access & Development attended Spring Fair (the main annual product launch and purchase event for retail buyers) at Birmingham NEC back in February to see the new product range launched and was delighted with both the quality of product and the positive feedback the items were receiving from visitors to the Fair. Gift Republic have attracted leading retailer interest, so these items should be on sale in various high street shops later this year. In the meantime, you can order your own philatelic accessory mug, notebook or card direct from the Gift Republic website.

15% off at our online Shop

Until Monday 15th March we’re offering 15% off all orders over £10 at our Shop. So if you’ve had your eyes on something but not got around to ordering it, do it now and save. 

Night Mail t-shirt

Products recently added to the online shop include greetings cards and postcards featuring our collection of GPO posters, but a range of other items are also available including t-shirts based on the Night Mail poster, a range of publications covering philately, postal history and design, and even an apron and tea towel featuring the Telegram Messengers.

To obtain your discount you must order by telephone or e-mail. Just call us on +44 20 7239 5125 or email us at shop@postalheritage.org.uk with your contact details and the items you wish to purchase quoting the code “March2010″.

Terms and Conditions
This offer is only available when ordering by telephone or e-mail, on or before 15 March 2010.
Discount only available for orders over £10 (excluding postage and packaging)

If philately is the new black, GPO posters are the rock ‘n’ roll!

Royal Mail’s Classic Album Covers stamp issue isn’t the first time that the Post Office has gone ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ – it also happened back in the 1930s when the Post Office began a wide-ranging artist-commissioning programme to drive its public information campaigns. This led to some of the most exciting work produced in what is now known as ‘mid-century modern’ poster design.

The BPMA is fortunate in holding a treasure trove of Twentieth-Century poster design, a small portion of which was the subject of our recent exhibition, Designs on Delivery: GPO Posters 1930-1960. The exhibition included many excellent examples of public information campaign posters produced by the Post Office and we were delighted with the positive response to it. The Guardian online included a slideshow version of highlights from the exhibition and the winter issue of Illustration Magazine featured an article on our poster collection.

Please Pack Parcels Very Carefully by Tom Eckersley

Also smitten were the designers at ‘poptastic’ greetings card producer Umpen Editions who have developed ‘Post Modern’, a new range of cards based on eight posters from our collection. This includes several featured in the exhibition. The ever-popular, if heart-rending (please somebody put him back together!!!) ‘please pack parcels very carefully’ broken dog design by Tom Eckersley is included, making this design now available in greetings card, print-on-demand poster, fridge magnet, and fridge magnet with virtual gift formats.  A cow design from the same campaign is featured, as is Pat Keely’s poster artwork for the GPO film, Night Mail. Lesser known, but equally visually appealing work by artists Harry Stevens and Robert Broomfield are in the range, along with a wartime poster image from artist Hans Schleger (aka Zero). We are delighted with the new cards – everyone in the office has their own personal favourite.

Pat Keely's poster for Night Mail

Poster campaigns, public information films, and documentary photography emerged from the Post Office during the 1930’s under the auspices of its first Public Relations Officer, Sir Stephen Tallents, who joined the department in 1933 towards the end of George V’s reign. Indeed it was the social change, coupled with developments in mass communications techniques and processes which had occurred earlier during the King’s reign which enabled production not only of some of philately’s now most loved stamp issues (‘British Empire Exhibition’, ‘Seahorses’ and ‘PUC Pound’ issues for example) but that also laid the basis for a subsequent ‘heyday’ of GPO poster design.

The events and innovations of this extraordinary period in philatelic design history will be the focus of the BPMA’s major exhibition for 2010: Empire Mail: George V and the GPO at London’s Guildhall Art Gallery. The exhibition, part of the London 2010 Festival of Stamps, will look at the passions of King George V, the ‘philatelist king’, alongside an extraordinary period of innovation in the General Post Office which took place during his reign.

The Post Modern card range will be available shortly from the BPMA’s webshop.

Autumn Stampex 2009

The recreated Victorian Post Office at Blists Hill

This year’s Autumn Stampex starts next Wednesday and if you’re going make sure you look out for the BPMA. There will be displays on our re-created Victorian Post Office at Blists Hill, Ironbridge, as well as London 2010: Festival of Stamps. You will also be able to find a stall run by the Friends of the BPMA amongst the dealers. The Friends will be selling some of the products available in our Shop and can give you general information about BPMA activities and events. See you there!