page_title: General Post Office
section_title: Early postal services
hierarchical_section_title: General Post Office / Early postal services
context_page_description: The General Post Office was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. Similar General Post Offices were established across the British Empire. In 1969 the GPO was abolished and the assets transferred to The Post Office, changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation. In 1980, the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to British Telecommunications' conversion into a totally separate publicly owned corporation the following year as a result of the British Telecommunications Act 1981.
  Originally, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the despatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver, which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented. The creation of the GPO, then the General Letter Office, was legislated for by the Parliament of England after The Restoration, which returned the British Isles to monarchy under the House of Stuart.
context_section_description: In 1657 an Act entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a system for the British Isles, which had been unified under Oliver Cromwell as a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdomsand enacted the position of Postmaster General. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post horses. After the Restoration in 1660, a further Act (12 Car II, c.35) confirmed this and the post of Postmaster-General, the previous Cromwellian Act being void.
  
  1660 saw the establishment of the General Letter Office in the restored Kingdom of England, which would later become the General Post Office (GPO). A similar position evolved in the Kingdom of Scotland prior to the 1707 Acts of Union.
  The GPO created a network of post offices where senders could submit items. All post was transferred from the post office of origination to distribution points called sorting stations, and from there the post was then sent on for delivery to the receiver of the post. Initially it was the recipient of the post who paid the fee, and he had the right to refuse to accept the item if he did not wish to pay. The charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the GPO had to keep a separate account for each item. In 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced, which incorporated the two key innovations of a uniform postal rate, which cut administrative costs and encouraged use of the system, and adhesive pre-paid stamp.
caption: Clerks at work at the post office in London circa 1808
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