Book description
The origins of the Post Office go back to the early years of the
Tudor monarchy: Brian Tuke, a former King's Bailiff in Sandwich, was
acknowledged as the first 'Master of the Posts' by Cardinal Wolsey in
1512, and went on to build up a network of 'postmasters' across
England for Henry VIII. Over the following five hundred years the
Royal Mail expanded to an unimaginable degree to become the largest
employer in the country, and the face of the British state for most
people in their everyday lives. But it also faced the demands of an
increasingly commercial marketplace. With the election of Margaret
Thatcher in 1979, the possibility of privatising the Royal Mail has
prompted passionate arguments - and has added immeasurably to the
difficulties of running it.
In charting the whole of this extraordinary story, Duncan
Campbell-Smith recounts a series of remarkable tales, including how
postal engineers built the first programmable computer for the wartime
code-breakers of Bletchley Park and how the Royal Mail managed to
successfully continue delivering post to the front lines during two
world wars, but also how they failed to avert the Great Train Robbery
of 1963. He brings to life many of the dominant personalities in the
Royal Mail's history - from Rowland Hill, who imposed a uniform penny
post and set the great Victorian expansion on its way, to Tony Benn
who championed the modernisation of the service in the 1960s and Tom
Jackson who led the postal workers' biggest union through fifteen
frequently stormy years up to 1982.
This is the first complete history of the Royal Mail up to the
present day, based on its comprehensive archives, and including the
first detailed account of the past half-century of Britain's postal
history, made possible by privileged access to confidential records.
Today's debate over the future of the Royal Mail is shown to be just
the ;atest chapter in a centuries-old conflict between its roles
raising revenue and serving the public. Will its employees remain,
like Brian Tuke's postmasters, servants of the Crown? This book could
hardly appear at a more timely moment.
Duncan Campbell-Smith is a former
Financial Times
and
Economist
journalist whose career has also included working in the City and as a
management consultant with McKinsey. He holds Visiting Senior Research
Fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research and at the Centre
for Contemporary British History at King's College, London. His previous
books include
Follow the Money: The Audit Commission, Public Money
and the Management of Public Services, 1983-2008
(Penguin 2008).
