{"id":2382,"date":"2024-02-15T20:55:54","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T20:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/london1.one\/?p=2382"},"modified":"2024-02-15T20:55:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T20:55:57","slug":"history-of-the-post-office-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/eternal\/history-of-the-post-office-in-london-2382","title":{"rendered":"History of the Post Office in London"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mail plays an important role in our lives. However, postal services were almost essential not so long ago. In today’s world, there are many other opportunities to transmit and receive information. Phones and computers replaced letters. In addition, information is spreading much faster today. Still, the post office remains important to modern society (at least for sending parcels). Thus, it\u2019s interesting to learn more about its long-lasting evolution. We can trace the history of the postal system considering London’s one. The capital of Great Britain has always been characterised by rapid development in many spheres. Therefore, the history of the city reveals a lot of secrets and interesting facts related to the post office. Learn more at london1.one<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emergence and development<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we can start from the period when people asked other people who were going to a certain place to deliver a letter or parcel. There are many popular stories about pigeon posts too. Although we don\u2019t know for sure, they say that people used to breed special birds and train them. However, we should start with the proven facts and official laws that were connected with the origin of the post office in London. The first related documented mention dates back to the 16th century. The year 1516 shaped the postal service system throughout Great Britain. It was then that King Henry VII introduced the position of Master of the Posts. Of course, that was a new level of development for the entire country, but such services were mainly used by representatives of the privileged class of society. For a long time, the ordinary residents of London didn\u2019t know about the post office at all. The situation changed in 1635 when King Charles I made postal services available to the public and introduced certain rules and conditions for sending. For example, the recipient was charged for the services provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1660, Charles II officially established the General Post Office. Thus, the system became more clear at that time. In the 18th century, Royal Mail Coaches started to run through the city. In fact, they looked like ordinary carriages, but they had a postal symbol. However, an even more significant event was the launch of a mail coach that ran between London and Bristol in 1784. Over time, the activities of the post office became even more important in London and the whole of Great Britain. In addition, new opportunities enabled the improvement of such services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legendary post boxes on the city streets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can often come across post boxes (which are mostly red) on the streets of London. Although most of them don\u2019t play such an important role as before, they have become one of the symbols of the city. Moreover, such boxes become an integral part of British heritage and are associated with representatives of the royal family. Their main feature is a Royal Cipher. Post boxes began to appear on the streets of London during the reign of Queen Victoria. At that time, they had the inscription VR, which indicated the reign of the queen. At the beginning of the 20th century, the cipher was switched to ER VII (after Edward VII). Thus, the cipher changed with the accession of a new king or queen. For example, GR (for George V), ER VIII (for Edward VIII), GR VI (for George VI), EIIR (for Elizabeth II) and CIIIR (for Charles III). Over the entire period of post boxes\u2019 existence, their design and shape changed several times too. Thus, they become objects of the historical heritage of the city and can tell a lot about its history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mail plays an important role in our lives. However, postal services were almost essential not so long ago. In today’s world, there are many other opportunities to transmit and receive information. Phones and computers replaced letters. In addition, information is spreading much faster today. Still, the post office remains important to modern society (at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":2310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1168],"tags":[1792,1785,1783,1784,1786,1787,1788,1789,1790],"motype":[1158],"moformat":[83],"moimportance":[82,78,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-2382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-charles-ii-officially-established-the-general-post-office","9":"tag-emergence-and-development","10":"tag-history-of-the-post-office-in-london","11":"tag-legendary-post-boxes-on-the-city-streets","12":"tag-mail-plays-an-important-role-in-our-lives-however","13":"tag-postal-services-were-almost-essential-not-so-long-ago","14":"tag-the-capital-of-great-britain-has-always-been-characterised-by-rapid-development-in-many-spheres-therefore","15":"tag-the-history-of-the-city-reveals-a-lot-of-secrets-and-interesting-facts-related-to-the-post-office","16":"tag-we-can-start-from-the-period-when-people-asked-other-people-who-were-going-to-a-certain-place-to-deliver-a-letter-or-parcel","17":"motype-eternal","18":"moformat-vlasna","19":"moimportance-aktualna-bilshe-roku","20":"moimportance-golovna-novina","21":"moimportance-retranslyacziya-v-agregatori"},"modified_by":"Inna Hananova","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2383,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2382\/revisions\/2383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"motype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/motype?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"moformat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moformat?post=2382"},{"taxonomy":"moimportance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/london1.one\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/moimportance?post=2382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}