Postmaster General
 Postmaster General  | |
|---|---|
| Start | 1517 |
Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs. This would subsequently extend to telecommunications and broadcasting.
The office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A replacement public corporation, governed by a chairman, was established under the name of the Post Office (later subsumed by Royal Mail Group). The cabinet position of Postmaster General was replaced by a Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, with reduced powers, until 1974; most regulatory functions have now been delegated to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, although Royal Mail Group was overseen by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy before flotation.
The last holder of the post was John Stonehouse, who faked his own death in 1974.
History
In England, the monarch's letters to his subjects are known to have been carried by relays of couriers as long ago as the 15th century. The earliest mention of Master of the Posts is in the King's Book of Payments where a payment of £100 was authorised for Brian Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512.[1] Belatedly, in 1517, he was officially appointed to the office of Governor of the King's Posts, a precursor to the office of Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, by Henry VIII.[2] In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General.[3]
In 1655 John Thurloe became Postmaster-General, a post he held until he was accused of treason and arrested in May 1660.[4] His spies were able to intercept mail, and he exposed Edward Sexby's 1657 plot to assassinate Cromwell and captured would-be assassin Miles Sindercombe and his group. Ironically, Thurloe's own department was also infiltrated: his secretary Samuel Morland became a Royalist agent and in 1659 alleged that Thurloe, Richard Cromwell and Sir Richard Willis - a Sealed Knot member turned Cromwell agent - were plotting to kill the future King Charles II. About forty years after his death, a false ceiling was found in his rooms at Lincoln's Inn, the space was full of letters seized during his occupation of the office of Postmaster-General. These letters are now at the Bodleian Library.[5]
In 1657 an Act entitled 'Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled' set up a system for the British Isles and 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 confirmed this and the post of Postmaster-General, the previous Cromwellian Act being void.
1660 saw the establishment of the General Letter Office, which would later become the General Post Office (GPO).[3] A similar position evolved in the Kingdom of Scotland prior to the 1707 Act of Union.
The office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969.[3] A new public corporation, governed by a chairman, was established under the name of the Post Office (the part later subsumed by Royal Mail), which also had responsibility for telecommunications and the Girobank). The cabinet position of Postmaster General was initially replaced by a Minister of Posts and Telecommunications with less direct involvement; this department was dissolved in March 1974,[6] with regulatory functions transferring to the Home Office, the Post Office retaining control of television licensing. Since 1992, most regulatory functions formerly conducted by the Postmaster General generally fall within the remit of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, although the present-day Royal Mail Group was overseen by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy until flotation.
Office Holders on Wikispooks
| Name | From | To |
|---|---|---|
| John Stonehouse | 1 July 1968 | 1 October 1969 |
| Roy Mason | 6 April 1968 | 1 July 1968 |
| Tony Benn | 15 October 1964 | 4 July 1966 |
| Harry Crookshank | 7 November 1943 | 4 August 1945 |
| Clement Attlee | 13 March 1931 | 25 August 1931 |
| Neville Chamberlain | 31 October 1922 | 5 February 1923 |
| Edward Stanley | 6 October 1903 | 10 December 1905 |
References
- ↑ Brewer, J.S.; Brewer, John Sherren; Brodie, Robert Henry; Gairdner, James (1864). Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII. London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts. 1454 pp.
- ↑ Walker (1938), p. 37
- ↑ a b c https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/vo000615/text/00615-08.htm
- ↑ http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/thurloe.htm
- ↑ Papworth, Dorothy (1990). "John Thurloe". Wisbech Society Report. 51: 14–16.
- ↑ http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C844
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