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The role of the Post Office 1914-1918

The Post Office in 1914

In 1914, the Post Office employed over 250,000 people. Which made it the largest single employer in Britain.

The Post Office was at this time a government department: the General Post Office (GPO). The GPO handled a yearly total of 5.9 billion items of post. It was also responsible for the nation’s telegraph/telephone systems, savings bank and all branch post offices.

The Outbreak of War

GPO leaders played an active part in the recruitment of soldiers. Every male employee was sent a letter urging him to enlist.

‘Your country needs you’ was displayed on many Post Office vans and men began to sign up to the Post Offices' very own battalion the ‘Post Office Rifles’.

The timeline gives you more detail into the recruitment campaign of the Post Office.

The Army Postal Service

The Army Postal Service (APS) was separate to the GPO. It had become part of the Royal Engineers in 1913 bringing it under the control of the Armed Forces. It was commonly known as the Royal Engineers Postal Section (REPS).

In 1914, the plan was to provide a military mail service. Ten officers and 290 men of other rank went with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to establish postal communications. An advanced base Post Office was set up at Le Havre on 17 August 1914, thirteen days after the outbreak of war.

The volumes of mail handled by the APS were huge during the First World War. In 1917, the number of mailbags travelling across the channel to the armies in France was over 19,000 per day. It is estimated that between March 1916 and August 1917, 8.5 million bags of mail were handled in France. This was a daily average of 15,420.

The Post Office Rifles

Separate to the work of the APS was an infantry force comprised entirely of Post Office employees. This was known as the Post Office Rifles (POR). Over 12,000 men joined the colours with this regiment and 1,800 of these died, with 4,500 wounded.

The men of the POR are commonly held to have fought with distinction throughout the war. POR suffered heavy casualties at the Somme and Passchendaele. 145 men were awarded for gallantry and one man, Sgt Alfred Knight, received the Victoria Cross. (Go to image of Alfred Knight in uniform or image of Alfred Knight and the Mayor of Birmingham at a Civic reception, 1917 or read Alfred Knight's story)

By March 1915 voluntary enlistment had risen to 35,000 postal employees. With the introduction of conscription in January 1916, this figure increased to 54,000. By the end of the war the Post Office had released 73,000 men to fight in all aspects of the Armed Forces.

Go to Gallery to see larger image of Alfred Knight and Mayor of Birmingham at a Civic Reception, 1917

Censorship

The Post Office assisted the War Office with an operation put in place to censor the majority of mails and telegrams between Britain and abroad. By 1918, the War Office employed 4,861 staff who examined nearly 100 tonnes of mail per week.

The everyday effect of this operation for those who lived in Britain was often inconvenience. Letters were often delayed, returned or interfered with and stamped ‘passed by censor’.

However, through censorship, valuable information about the enemy was obtained. This therefore hindered the enemy war efforts to some extent.

Go to Gallery to see larger image of female censors

Post Office contribution to the war effort

Parcels to Prisoners of War and armies overseas
Over 5 million parcels were sent to Britain for German Prisoners of War (POWs). 20 million parcels were sent to British POWs under German control. All of these were handled by the civil Post Office in Britain.

The Post Office was also responsible for mail distribution to the British and Colonial armies fighting elsewhere in the world. This proved difficult. The use of ships to carry this mail was becoming ever more difficult with the increase of German submarine attacks.

A total of 134 ships were attacked or lost through enemy action. The most notorious of these enemy attacks was the sinking of S.S. Lusitania on 7 May 1915. By the end of the war over 18 million letters had been lost in this way.

Regents Park depot
From the end of 1914, mail bound for the Western Front was sorted at the London home depot. This covered 5 acres of Regents Park and was mostly staffed by the 2,500 women who worked there. Between 1914 and 1918, 2 billion letters and 114 million parcels had been sorted and dispatched.There were also regional distribution centres in the main post offices in Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow.

By the end of the war, due to the increased threat of Zeppelin air raids to London. Post Office engineers had established an efficient air raid warning system. That successfully connected a secondary telephone service between home defence posts (anti-aircraft gun, searchlight and observation) to Headquarter Offices.

Go to Gallery to see larger image of women sorting broken parcels

Telegraphs
Civil Post Office engineers were also responsible for maintaining the underwater telegraphic cables. They focused their attention on designing telephone and electrical equipment for use in the trenches. This equipment played a hugely important role in wartime communications on the front, at sea and at home.

Post Office and recruitment

The Post Office took responsibility for sending out recruitment and later conscription papers. They were also responsible for ensuring that wives of the men who went to fight received a separation allowance. During the year 1915-1916 £80 million had been paid. They also encouraged the nation to increase its purchase of war bonds.

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