Personal tools
You are here: Home → Exhibitions → Online exhibitions → Last Post: Remembering the First World War → The Post Office joins up

The Post Office joins up

Listen to this page read aloud

Photograph of the Post Office Rifles BPMA POST 56_6            

The Post Office actively encouraged their staff to join the war effort. Over 75,000 men left their jobs to fight in the First World War.  12,000 joined the Post Office’s own battalion - the Post Office Rifles.

The Post Office’s Battalion had officially existed since 1868. It was made up almost entirely of Post Office staff. So many men were keen to enlist that a second battalion had to be created a month after war broke out. Photograph of Sgt Alfred J Knight BPMA OB1997.211/8

The Post Office Rifles fought at Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele and were awarded 145 decorations for gallantry, including a Victoria Cross awarded to Alfred Knight. Overall the regiment earned 27 battle honours.

Over 1,800 members of the Post Office Rifles were killed and around 4,000 wounded.

 

Recruitment poster from the First World War BPMA POST 33-2288