IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0813 POST 78 Series
Held at: British Postal Museum and Archive: The Royal Mail Archive
Title: Post Office: Supplies Department
Date(s): 1874-1985
Level of description: Series
Extent: 62 volumes, 286 files
Name of creator(s):
No further information available
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Prior to the setting up of the Office of Controller of Telegraph Stores in 1877, the purchase of postal and postal telegraph stores was the responsibility of the Chief Clerk of the Post Office and the Engineer-in-Chief. In 1901 a committee of enquiry into the organisation and working of the Department of Telegraph Stores suggested that consideration should be given to the amalgamation of the postal and telegraph stores departments, and this took place in 1902. At this same time an independent Factories Department was formed. A further change took place in 1941 with the setting up of a separate Contracts Department. The Stores Department later became known as the Post Office Supplies Department. This department provided both postal and telecommunication stores until the separation of the businesses into the Post Office, dealing purely with postal matters, and British Telecom dealing with the telecommunication business in the 1980s.
This class contains specimens of the engineering rate book and vocabulary of engineering stores; a number of descriptive booklets on the work of the department together with various committee, annual and other reports.
The Supplies Department was based at Mount Pleasant, London, with other premises situated in Studd Street London N1, Wembley, Bridgewater Somerset, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and with a number of satellite units supplying the most frequently requisitioned items to their local areas. A separate clothing store existed at Hook in Hampshire. The London operations and work from the Bridgewater depot was relocated to new purpose built premises at Swindon in 1975. This new office and warehouse complex was designed to use modern storage and handling methods including high level storage racking, conveyors, fork lift and pallet trucks. It handles all the requirements for stores from offices in England, and it also handles requests for general publicity items, the distribution of telephone directories, (carried out under a contract on behalf of British Telecom), and requests for uniforms from offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Other items for offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland are supplied from the Edinburgh site.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
This POST class mainly comprises correspondence, committee and other reports, statistics, staff manuals, and training information for new staff, relating to the organisation, development and operation of the Post Office Supplies Department.
It also includes a collection of material on posting boxes, including information relating to the design, development, positioning, installation, painting and repainting, locks and keys, and indicator and notice plates for pillar boxes.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
The material is arranged in chronological order within series.
Conditions governing access:
Public Record
Conditions governing reproduction:
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Finding aids:
Please contact the Archive for further information.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Please contact the Archive for further information.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Related material:
As the work of the Supplies Department is closely related with that of the Engineering, Factories and Contracts departments further information may be found in classes POST 76, 77 and 79 and also in the minuted paper series POST 30- 42 and Post 122.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Entry checked by Barbara Ball
Date(s) of descriptions: Entry checked June 2011