Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0813 POST 58 Series
Held at	: British Postal Museum and Archive: The Royal Mail Archive   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://catalogue.postalmuseum.org/ ›
Full title	: Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment
Date(s)	: 1737-1972
Level of description	: Series
Extent	: 25 files and 260 volumes
Name of creator(s)	: No further information available

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The appointments procedure in The Post Office during this period was very complicated. Employees could either be Established, which meant they had privileges and rights, such as superannuation, or they were non-Established, which meant that they were probably part-time, and had no benefits or job security. Established employees were also civil servants and therefore were affected by any changes in the system, such as the gradual efforts to replace patronage with examinations and grading. Sub-postmasters and packet captains were not officially employed by The Post Office but were sub-contracted. Sub-postmasters tended to work in another line of business such as greengrocing and run a sub-post office as a side-line. Up until the end of the nineteenth century appointments were made by a system of patronage. Staff were appointed by being nominated to posts. Although they were supposed to then take a test of competency, this was often just a formality. The broad sweeping changes in the Civil Service with the introduction of competitive examinations meant that this practice was abandoned at the end of the nineteenth century.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

This series contains records relating to the nomination and appointment of staff, both Established and non-Established. It consists mainly of volumes, in which vacancies, nominations, and appointments were recorded. It also contains records relating to bonds paid, and papers relating to the appointment of specific individuals.

Prior to 1831 appointment records were not kept uniformly over the country and separate series were created. In 1831 centralised employment records were created by copying the relevant minute numbers and brief details relating to appointment, transfer, dismissal, resignation, retirement, or death.

Some records were transferred from POST 14.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The material is arranged in date 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:

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Entry checked by Barbara Ball

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Entry checked June 2011