Appointments
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The Royal Mail Archive’s appointment records are a useful source of information for family historians. Appointment Books in POST 58 provide a register of all employees from 1831 to 1956. Arranged by year of appointment and then by surname, they give date of appointment, grade and place of work.
Before
1831 Treasury
Letters (POST 1) sometimes refer to individual appointments. These are usually indexed according to year and surname.
For a more in-depth look at our Appointment records, see the case studies in the Visiting section.
Here are four examples of appointment records in our collection:
Appointment records of W Lum, 1793, finding number: POST 58/2
These appointment records are both for W Lum, a Foreign-Letter Carrier. They are early examples of appointment records.
The first is an index of appointments and the second an employment record entry.
They show that Lum was appointed by the Post Office on 4 March 1793 and that he was pensioned by the Post Office on 5 July 1814.
The appointment record shows 'Names,
Professions & Places of the Abode of Sureities'. Sureities were
people who acted as references to confirm the good character of the
Letter Carrier.
We can see that for W Lum, William Haines, Tallow Chandler of Commerical Road and J Davies of N6 Greenfield St., Whitechapell, acted as his sureities.
Large image of appointment index entry for W Lum (288.8 KB)
Large image of appointment entry for W Lum (683.4 KB)
Page from Appointment Index M-Z, 1905-1907, finding number: POST 58/102
This is a typical example of how appointments to the Post Office were recorded after 1831. These indexes are available to view on microfilm in the Search Room.
Indexed by name, the records show when Post Office employees first started at the Post Office. They tell us the name of the person who joined the Post Office, their grade, place of work and date of appointment.
Sometimes a minute number is given in the index, making it possible to trace an appointment minute in a volume in POST 35 or POST 38.
For a more in-depth look at our Appointment records, see our Case Study for Moses Nobbs, Mail Coach Guard.
Large image (751.9 KB)
Request for promotion to 'Court Postmaster', 1906, finding number: POST 30/2749A
This page is from a file entitled Court Postmaster Established: Historical paper 1869-1945. It shows King Edward VII's request for his Court Telegraphist, Mr J M Hiley to be promoted to 'Court Postmaster'.
Although the Court Telegraphist dealt with the post at the Royal residences, it was not until 1906 that their postal duties were recognised and they became known as 'Court Postmaster', a position still in existence today.
The file contains information on the history of Court Telegraphists and Court
Postmasters. It also contains employment records, including details of
appointments, reviews of salary and allowances, conditions of
employments and so on.
Large image (454.7 KB)
Appointment papers for Sir Stephen Tallents, 1933, finding number: POST 121/431
This is an extract from the appointment papers for Sir Stephen Tallents. The Royal Mail Archive holds files containing appointment papers for various important individuals in the Post Office.
As you can see, Tallents was appointed to the Post Office in 1933 as Public Relations Officer. It also gives his date of birth (20 October 1884), his pay on appointment (£1,500) and details of his previous job (Secretary at Empire Marketing Board).
Sir Stephen Tallents made a great contribution to the Post Office as Public Relations Officer. Find out more about his work in Visual and Media Records.
The file also includes letters of recommendation and details of his career from 1909 to 1943.
Large image (609.8 KB)
