Nowadays, in the information age, when it takes just a few seconds to contact someone on the other side of the world, it is hard to believe that in the Georgian era. The only way to get in touch with someone who was out of town was to visit a post office. Or to call them directly. That’s right, the post office was the centre of communication in those days. It was there that important information was transmitted, and it was not just about letters. News about distant wars and other current events, important and not so important, could be found in the post office.
It was a time when newspapers were a luxury for many people.24 Perhaps that is why post offices, especially in large cities, were always built with a certain pathos and grandeur. Moreover, after construction, the life, work, and history of the building became topics for local newspapers. The Birmingham Post Office was not an exception, but read more about its history at birmingham1.one.
Birmingham post office of the Georgian era
Speaking of the Birmingham Post Office, there are two branches to talk about. They were from different eras, one from the Georgian and the other from the Victorian. The post office building was built around 1784, and it was a simple, nondescript Georgian house, plastered, whitewashed, and that was it.
The door to the office in this house was on the right. It had a small window so that letters could be sent outside working hours. At night, there was an oil lamp, and inside there was only room for six people. To the right of the building was a small utility room, also with a window. Announcements were posted here. This meant that it was here that news of the Battle of Waterloo was once posted. Postmaster John Gotwaltz’s house was entered through a separate door surrounded by an elegant classical porch.
Postal stagecoaches
Postal horses at the Birmingham Post Office were not only used to deliver mail quickly, but could also be hired for carriages. The scheme was quite simple to understand. If someone set out on a journey with their own carriage, harnessing their own horses, then after a long journey, they had to give the horses a rest. This was done by hiring postal horses. In the next town, the story repeated itself until the traveller reached his destination. And then, in the same way, he would return home, until he could take his own horses.
Stagecoaches of that time were four-wheeled vehicles, with or without a coachman. In the society, they were considered an inferior means of transport compared to the postal stagecoach, which was used to deliver mail. Therefore, the postal stagecoach was usually ordered by wealthy people who could not afford their own carriage to come to the city from a long way away.
The first postal stagecoach to bring and take mail from Birmingham started running in 1812. It took passengers to local hotels, rumbling down Georgian New Street past the gates of the post office. At that time, all stagecoaches looked the same, they had big red wheels, the lower part of the body and the carriage doors were in burgundy and the upper part was black. The royal coat of arms was painted on each door, and there was also an inscription on the door that read “Royal Mail”.
Each stagecoach had a driver and an armed guard, both dressed in elegant red uniforms with collars of different colours to distinguish them from each other. The guard was responsible for the locked mail in a box at the back of the stagecoach. Sometimes the guard would hand over his watch to the postmaster for inspection and repair to ensure that the stagecoaches kept time properly.
This is how the post office of the St George’s period worked. In 1842, the post office moved to another building, and the old post office was soon demolished.
Birmingham Post Office of the Victorian era
The main post office was built in 1889-1891. Sir Henry Tanner was in charge of the project. He worked as an architect for the government at Her Majesty’s Works. In 1891, after the completion of this seminal building, he applied for membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Along with his application, he provided a list of the buildings he had designed before. It turned out that Henry Tanner was responsible for post offices in York, Bradford, Halifax, Liverpool, Barrow-in-Furness, Leicester and Birmingham, as well as the main post office buildings in London.
Even before its construction, the local press was quite active in discussing its appearance. Opinions were divided. But the journalists were proud of the interior design. They called the interior of the post office impeccable.
To make everything as convenient as possible for the staff, the new post office management visited offices in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. As a result, they picked up a lot of useful ideas to implement in the Birmingham office. The building was designed to accommodate a staff of about 9,000 people, with postal, money transfer, and telegraph services all under one roof. The first two departments were located in front of the building on the New Street side. At the same time, the mailboxes were placed under the front windows, thus eliminating one of the biggest complaints of the public about the old office.
The counter had its back to New Street. It was planned to sell stamps here. At the same time, a second horseshoe-shaped counter, lining the other three sides, provided a place to handle telegraph transactions, registered letters, and other business. On the floor above the postmaster’s office and the offices of the chief clerk, the local chief accountant and his staff were located.
In the wing that stretched along Hill Street, rooms in the basement were used for telegraph units and to house containers for the pneumatic pipes that fitted the building. The post office itself was located on top. It, like all the other rooms in the administrative department, is lined with white glazed bricks, which contributes to both lighting and cleanliness.
A tram line to help
Four hydraulic cylinders were planned for this branch to operate the hydraulic hoists, which lowered the baskets of parcels to be sent by rail into the underground passage that stretches from the post office to New Street Station. This arrangement greatly facilitated the work of all officials, as currently both parcels and letters had to be sent to the station in horse-drawn carriages.
The public entrance to the post office was on Hill Street. The letter-sorting room extends the whole length of the building, and is about 2,070 feet long and 45 feet wide. The beauty of this room is the continuous light provided by a number of high windows, which also face Hill Street.
The sorting room is two or three feet below the level of the public hall, and a tramway was laid under the latter between the sorting room and the New Street mailbox. This is so that the baskets in which the letters arrive can be removed from time to time for cleaning. The premises were heated with exhaust steam using four large boilers. After the opening of the new post office, the current building, was demolished, along with the telegraph office in Cannon Street.
Sources: