Postcard packs

Speeding the Mail postcard pack

Postcard pack inspired by our audio CD 'Speeding the Mail'

This selection of images comes from the 1930s and 1940s. They are pictures to accompany some of the voices you can hear on the Speeding the Mail oral history CD. Letter storters, counter clerks, the postie holding a brace of pheasants and rabbits (just another day in the Returned Parcels section at Mount Pleasant sorting office...); all these photographs whisk you back to a bygone age.

GPO posters postcard pack

Postcard pack with colourful GPO poster designs

A selection from the many fantastic images in the poster collection of The Royal Mail Archive. These include designs by Alick Knight and Hans Unger and are examples of the public information posters the General Post Office produced in the 1950s.

Two of these designs also feature on our fridge magnets: Post Early (1956) by Peter Huveneers, and Don’t Risk Delay (1967) by Stephens.

There is also an early call to use the postcode, with a design by Alick Knight based on an image of Norwich cathedral. Norwich was the place chosen to trial a version of the modern postcode system in 1959 (but was in fact the last place to be properly coded, in 1974, following revisions of the trial system).

The set is completed with Hans Unger's 1950 poster full of advice on how to "pack your parcels carefully".

Moving the Mail postcard pack

Postcard pack featuring images from our exhibition 'Moving the Mail: Horses to Horsepower'

Produced to accompany the exhibition Moving the Mail: Horses to Horsepower these images offer a glimpse of the evolution of postal vehicles. The cards show a simple horse and cart, the first motorised vans of the Stores Department, and the stylish steamlined Air Mail car. The final card features a print of the Mobile Post Office, taken from the cover of our reproduction GPO booklet.

First World War postcard pack

Photographs and documents showing the postal service on the front line

These four cards were produced to commemorate the bravery of all the Post Office Rifles during the First World War. Amongst all the soldiers of this conflict, Sergeant Alfred J Knight stands out as the only member of the battalion to win the Victoria Cross: one card shows the Post Office Circular recording his award in 1917 "for most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty".

Another card has a portrait of an unknown rifleman in a spectacular fur jacket, and two more pictures show the business of wartime mail.

TPO ephemera postcard pack

Travelling Post office ephemera - posters, plans and notices

Ephemera means items designed for a short lifespan; but those that survive in an archive can reveal unexpected parts of the past.

These postcards reproduce a variety of original archive documents relating to Travelling Post Office mail train operations. There's the whimsical ("I’m a rubber band, don’t fly me" 1970s saftey bulletin) and the classic (original Night Mail film poster). There is also a design for a Midland Railway Parcel Sorting Van, and a diagram showing the correct way to prepare a mail pouch for high-speed transfer.

TPO photographs postcard pack

Black and white images from the heyday of the Travelling Post Office

This pack of four cards features wonderfully atmospheric shots from the 1940s showing some of the tasks and equipment from the Travelling Post Office mail trains. The high-speed mail exchange apparatus waiting trackside, rows of mailbags ready to be filled, sorting racks being chalked up with the names of Scottish post towns, and a guard blowing his whistle to send the 'Postal Special' on its way: all these images show everyday life on the TPO in beautiful detail.