General Post Office

The General Post Office was established in England in 1660 by Charles II. It grew to cover telecommunications as well as the postal system. The GPO was abolished in 1969 and the assets were transferred to The Post Office, changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation.

Related Documents

Collection of Post Office Telegram and Telephone Papers

Post Office Telegraphs
31 boxes of archival material, including Grimshaw Brothers Limited financial records, company stationery, promotional literature, letter books, constitutional records, employee records, client records, technical literature and copies of articles written by H Grimshaw, 1866-1967

Business records of Grimshaw Brothers Limited
Comprises lithograph diagrams (44 leaves) with manuscript diagrams and tipped-in manuscript and copy diagrams added (18 leaves).

Post Office Telegraphs - Diagrams of Telegraph Apparatus and Connections
Papers relating to the management of Grimshaw Brothers property.

Estates Records
Papers and correspondence regarding property management.

Property management
A record produced by the GPO to advertise the telephone service. Included on it are recordings of "A message from the Queen to Her Majesty's Commonwealth Prime Ministers, the voices of the Prime Minister and the President of the U.S.A. relayed via the satellite 'Early Bird' with an excerpt from the voice of the Marchese Marconi".

The Sound of Living: A Record About the Post Office Telephone Service
A small series of technical papers presented to professional bodies on the history and development of Manchester's telegraph system which was also used as an early system for raising the alarm in the event of a fire. The system established in 1910 It became known as the Manchester Fire Alarm System was installed by Post Office. Also included in the series are a small number of booklets providing details of the Telegraph Branch and the Automatic Exchange run by Post Office Telephones from it's headquarters at Telephone House, Salford.

Manchester Telegraph and Automatic Exchange System
A set of 5 radio licences issued to the same person between 1948 and 1952.

Set of Radio Licences
The minutes of a meeting between representatives of the General Post Office Home Counties Region sales and engineering departments, and Planned Music Ltd. The meeting was held to discuss the future developments of Planned Music in the Home Counties Region. Also included is a letter from A. Golpin, Network Controller, Planned Music Ltd, to Mr Payne, Telephone Manager (Engineering) General Post Office, St Aldates, Oxford, dated 10th May 1961 and forwarding the minutes.

Minutes of a meeting between representatives of the General Post Office and Planned Music Ltd
A National Service booklet containing information about the various roles civilians could join as either fulltime members of the armed forces or civilian services. A General Post Office information sheet containing details and costs of using the Manchester Inland Air Mail Service.

Information booklets

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