Family Fun Day

On Saturday 31 March our Museum Store in Loughton, Essex will host a day of activities especially for families. This free event will include short tours of our collections of vintage postal vehicles and post boxes, film screenings, craft sessions, and the chance to handle some original objects and try on postmen’s uniforms.

Postal vehicles at our Museum Store

Our collection of vehicles and post boxes includes the London Ornate pillar box, which has a compass on top in case you get lost whilst posting your letter, and the Inspector’s Bicycle, which has the letters GPO (General Post Office) in the chain wheel. Take a tour with our curators to learn even more about our holdings.

Artist Michelle Reader will be on hand throughout the day to help you make mini sculptures using recycled materials like cardboard, old CDs, plastic objects and buttons. Be inspired by our vehicles and see what you can create.

Try on a postman's hat at our Family Fun Day

We will also screen films made by the GPO Film Unit, who documented the General Post Office’s work in the 1930s and 1940s. Of particular interest is A Job In A Million which followed John Truman, as he joined the Post Office as a trainee messenger boy.

The Family Fun Day runs from 10am-4pm on 31 March at the BPMA Museum Store, Loughton. The event is free and there is no need to book. Visit our website for full details and travel directions.

The Family Fun Day is part of the 2012 Loughton Festival. The Festival is raising money for Haven House Children’s Hospice. A collection will take place during the event, with all proceeds to this worthy cause.

The Post Office in Chesham

by Emma Harper, Cataloguer (Collections)

As part of our commitment to providing access to Britain’s postal heritage, BPMA occasionally loans objects from its collection to other museums in order to help support displays relating to the social history of the Post Office across the country, and ensure as many people as possible are able to enjoy and learn from them.

Postal van postcard (2009-0081/671).

Chesham Museum currently has an exhibition about ‘The Post Office in Chesham’ which uses photographs and objects to examine the history of Chesham post office and its place within the community. Followers of our blog may remember that the Wilkinson collection, which was catalogued in 2009, is a collection of postal ephemera, primarily model letter boxes and vehicles collected by one Ian Wilkinson, resident of Chesham. The exhibition at Chesham Museum features a section on Ian Wilkinson as ‘Chesham’s little known collector of Post Office memorabilia’ and BPMA has leant a few objects from the Wilkinson collection to help tell this story.

Chesham model letter box (2009-0081/035).

Amongst these is a model letter box with the Chesham coat of arms on the front which is thought to be one of the first items collected by Ian Wilkinson. Also on loan is a postcard in the shape of a postal van (pictured above) and one of my favourite items from the Wilkinson collection, a ceramic letter rack in the shape of an envelope addressed to Ian Wilkinson at his Chesham address in ‘Germaines Close’ [now Germains] not far from Chesham Museum. The letter rack was made around 1985 either by, or for, Ian Wilkinson and is typical of the quirky individual nature of the collection. BPMA has also leant some handstamps from our collection relating to places within Chesham such as Ashley Green and Great Hivings to illustrate the wider history of Chesham post office.

If any of you wish to see these objects and many more from Chesham’s own collection, the exhibition continues until Wednesday 19 October and can be visited on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 11am until 3pm. Please see Chesham Museum’s website for further details.

Museum Store Tours

Ever wanted to see behind the scenes of a museum, and get up close to some fascinating objects? Then book now to join one of our free Museum Store tours.

Postal vehicles at the Museum Store

These tours take place once a month, with extra evening tours added during the summer months. During each tour our curators will be your guide on a journey through several hundred years of postal history. Highlights include a fleet of postal service vehicles illustrating the long history of moving the mail, and over 50 pillar boxes of different types, from one of the first boxes trialled in the UK to modern designs and prototypes.

Pillar boxes at the Museum Store

Also of interest is the Museum Store itself, a working storage facility for our collection, not often experienced by members of the public.

Visit our website to find out more about our Museum Store tours, including dates and booking details.

Ministers visit the BPMA

Last Thursday we welcomed a group from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to the BPMA. The group was led by Baroness Wilcox, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Edward Davey, Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs.

Baroness Wilcox and Edward Davey with our Queen Victoria Channel Islands Pillar Box

The group toured the Royal Mail Archive and were shown some key items from our collection.

The group view items in our archive repository

The visit coincided with discussion of the Postal Services Bill, which resumes with debate in the House of Lords this week.

Virtual Advent Calendar – 16th December

In the lead-up to Christmas we are showcasing some of the festive items in our collection across our social networks. Behind the door of our virtual advent calendar today is…

Post early (c. 1950)

Artwork for a poster.

Subject: ‘Post early for Christmas’ campaign.

Artist: West One Studios.

See larger images of all the items in our Virtual Advent Calendar on Flickr.

Virtual Advent Calendar – 12th December

In the lead-up to Christmas we are showcasing some of the festive items in our collection across our social networks. Behind the door of our virtual advent calendar today is…

Illustrated Songsheet: I’m sending a letter to Santa Claus (c. 1939)

Illustrated songsheet, front cover depicts a young boy, standing in falling snow, reaching upwards to post a letter addressed to Santa Claus. Photograph of Gracie Fields is superimposed on cover.

Composer: Lanny Rogers and Spencer Williams

Purchased through the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

See larger images of all the items in our Virtual Advent Calendar on Flickr.

Virtual Advent Calendar – 7th December

In the lead-up to Christmas we are showcasing some of the festive items in our collection across our social networks. Behind the door of our virtual advent calendar today is…

‘We post our letters of good cheer/ Now that Christmas draws so near’ Christmas Card (Early 20th Century)

Image shows two young children posting letters in a letter box with snow on dome.

Inside is an image of children on a sledge with the Christmas Greeting ‘WISHING YOU LOTS OF FUN AND A RIGHT HAPPY CHRISTMAS.’

Handwritten dedication inside. Red cord binds card together

See larger images of all the items in our Virtual Advent Calendar on Flickr.

Virtual Advent Calendar – 4th December

In the lead-up to Christmas we are showcasing some of the festive items in our collection across our social networks. Behind the door of our virtual advent calendar today is…

Pillar box Christmas Card (1860-1890)

A single sheet novelty Christmas card in the shape of a pillar box.

See larger images of all the items in our Virtual Advent Calendar on Flickr.

Virtual Advent Calendar – 3rd December

In the lead-up to Christmas we are showcasing some of the festive items in our collection across our social networks. Behind the door of our virtual advent calendar today is…

Christmas Card: Good Wishes (c. 1860)

Printed Christmas Card with an image depicting a small child trying to reach the aperture of a first national standard pillar box.  Beneath the picture: ‘I tarn’t [sic] reach – Christmas Eve’.

Inside two seasonal verses four lines each ‘With all good wishes’.

See a larger version of this and all the other items in our Virtual Advent Calendar on Flickr.

Visit by the Loughton Beaver Scouts to Museum Store

by Chris Taft, Curator

On 27 September 2010 we welcomed 22 children to the Museum Store from the Loughton Beaver Scout group. Beaver Scouts are the youngest of the British Scout Association’s groups made up of both boys and girls aged from 6 to 8. The Loughton group, based close to our store in Debden, meet regularly and have in the past visited our Store. This year they wished to visit once again, meeting in the early evening after the children finish school.

Drawing of the Queen Victoria London Ornate (Science and Art) Pillar Box

Julian Stray and I met the group of 20 children all eager and very excited to have a look round the Store. Some had been previously and were very keen to share with their friends what they had remembered seeing in the past and what their favourite objects were.

Drawing of the Queen Victoria 'Suttie' Scottish Pillar Box

Their visit began with a closer look at some of the common objects associated with the post office, we began by discussing the bicycle and the pillar box, things that are very familiar to all the children and something that they have all used. We looked initially at typical examples of these from the collection and discussed some of the main features.

We then went on to look at some more unusual examples of letter boxes including some of the very rare examples within the museum collection. The children really enjoyed discussing some of the earlier designs and suggesting why things like vertical posting apertures might have been introduced and the difficulties of sighting the aperture on the top of the box, exposed to the wind and the rain!

Drawing of the Queen Victoria Fluted Pillar Box

After a brief break for juice and biscuits we looked together at some of the more unusual cycles in the collection. Having discussed the very familiar bicycle the children were fascinated to consider a five-wheeled variant, known as the Hen and Chick this type of machine was introduced in the 1880s to help with the parcels post and we also looked at a tricycle that at around 100 years old undertook a similar role. Whenever we have welcomed younger visitors to the Store they have always been fascinated by the age of some of the objects in our care.

Drawing of the Hen and Chicks pentacycle

For their final activity we handed each a blank postcard and asked them to look closely at one of the objects we had been discussing and draw it on their card. The drawings that were created were wonderful and showed just what attention to detail some of the children had. These activities really give groups the chance to consider everyday objects more closely and to look at things in a new light. Once addressed the postcards had special stamps marking the centenary of the Scouts Association affixed and were posted into one of the letter boxes from the BPMA’s handling collection. From there they were then passed to the Special Handstamp Centre in London for a special BPMA cancellation to be applied before being sent home.