The postal history of Malta began in the early modern period, when pre-adhesive mail was delivered to foreign destinations by privately owned ships for a fee. The earliest known letter from Malta, sent during the rule of the Order of St John, is dated 1532. The first formal postal service on the islands was established by the Order in 1708, with the post office being located at the Casa del Commun Tesoro in Valletta. The first postal markings on mail appeared later on in the 18th century.
The postal service was reformed in 1798 during the French occupation of Malta, and the islands were taken over by the British in 1800. In the early 19th century, two separate post offices were established in Malta: the Island Post Office and the Packet Office, with the latter forming part of the British Post Office. Their operations were amalgamated in 1849, and British postage stamps began to be used in Malta in August 1857. Malta's first postage stamp—the Halfpenny Yellow—was issued in 1860 for use on local mail, while letters sent to foreign destinations continued to be franked with British stamps.
In 1885, the Malta Post Office was set up and Halfpenny Yellows and British stamps were no longer valid in Malta. A set of six definitive stamps along with several types of postal stationery were issued. Malta continued to issue stamps and stationery throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. At some points from the 1880s to the 1980s, postage stamps or dual-purpose postage and revenue stamps were also valid for fiscal use, but at times separate revenue stamps were issued. Postage due stamps were issued between 1925 and the 1990s.
In 1995, the private limited company Posta Limited was set up to run the postal service. The public limited company MaltaPost took over in 1998, and was gradually privatized between 2002 and 2008.
Postal history Hospitaller rule and French occupation (1530–1800)
The earliest known information about mail in Malta is from when the islands were under Hospitaller rule. It is believed that prior to the Order's arrival in Malta in 1530, correspondence between Malta and Sicily was carried on private vessels such as speronaras for a fee. The earliest known letter from Malta is dated 14 June 1532; Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam sent it to , the Bishop of Auxerre, who was also the French ambassador in Rome. After the plague epidemic of 1675–1676, mail was disinfected at the Barriera in the capital Valletta. At the time it was feared that paper could carry the disease.
In 1708, Grand Master Ramón Perellós established the Commissary of Posts, which was Malta's first proper postal service. A post office was established within the Casa del Commun Tesoro in Valletta. At this point, fixed tariffs based on weight, the number of sheets and the destination of a letter were introduced. The first postal markings on Maltese mail appeared sometime in the second half of the 18th century. Cassar, Paul (7 October 1962). In the Days of the Order: The First Postal Services in Malta - Part I. Sunday Times of Malta. p.8.
During Hospitaller rule, most correspondence sent to or from Malta was with the Italian states and France. There was also mail sent to and from Greece and Spain, but this was not as frequent.
On 18 June 1798, shortly after the successful French invasion of Malta, Napoleon issued an article which was meant to reorganise Malta's postal system such that postal charges covered the expenses of running the postal service. At this point, a handstamp reading Malte was introduced. The text in this postal marking is set within an irregular shape resembling a loaf, and it is therefore commonly nicknamed as the "Loaf of Bread" handstamp.
Early British rule (1799–1884) After a few months of French occupation, a rebellion broke out and the British, Portuguese and Neapolitans assisted the Maltese rebels. On 7 October 1799 Alexander Ball, the British Civil Commissioner of Malta, issued a notice which set up a mail delivery service in the rebel-held parts of Malta. Some rooms in San Anton Palace were used as a post office, and mail was sent to Sicily every week. After Malta had become a British protectorate in 1800, the Island Post Office was established as a government department handling inland mail and ship letters, and it continued to be housed at the Casa del Commun Tesoro. The Chief Secretariat's Office took responsibility of the Post Office in 1815. Starting from 1819, the Island Post Office used various handstamps reading Malta P Paid, Malta Post Paid or Malta Post Office on mail.
On 3 July 1806, the Packet Office was established in order to create a regular mail service between Britain and Malta. This was part of the British Post Office, and it was a separate entity from the Island Post Office. The Packet Office was initially also housed in the Casa del Commun Tesoro, but in separate rooms from the Island Post Office. Private vessels known as packet boats were contracted to carry mail from Falmouth, Cornwall to Malta via Gibraltar. The first such journey was made by the vessel Cornwallis, which left Falmouth on 19 July 1806 and arrived in Malta on 20 August. The Packet Agent in Malta introduced its own handstamps on mail (reading Malta) in early 1807. The Falmouth–Gibraltar–Malta packet boat service was extended to Corfu in 1819, and further packet boat links were introduced to Messina in 1824 and Genoa in 1826. In the early 19th century, mail to destinations such as Sicily or Mahón, Menorca could also be sent via merchant or naval ships.
Throughout the 19th century, mail was disinfected by slitting letters open and soaking them in vinegar or exposing them to fumes of a mixture of substances. By 1812, this was carried out at the Profumo Office of the Lazzaretto. During the plague epidemic of 1813, the local postal service continued to function and it was the only means of communication between people in areas where movement was restricted. Disinfected mail began to be marked with wax seals starting from around 1816, and later with handstamps from around 1837. Disinfection of mail on a large scale ceased in the 1880s, but it was carried out in rare cases until at least 1936.
In 1842, the Packet Office moved to the Banca Giuratale, and in March 1849 the Island Post Office also moved to this building, which came to be known as the General Post Office. On 1 April 1849, a Postmaster became responsible for both offices, and their operations were combined although they officially remained separate until 1884. On 10 June 1853, an experimental free daily postal service for letters and newspapers was introduced between Valletta, the Three Cities, Gozo and some of the larger towns. Prepayment of postage became compulsory on 1 March 1858, shortly after British postage stamps had been introduced in Malta.
In 1859, it was decided that a Malta postage stamp would be issued for local mail, and the Halfpenny Yellow was subsequently issued on 1 December 1860. At this point, daily delivery was introduced in Valletta, Floriana and Sliema, and letter boxes were introduced in Valletta. The new stamp was only valid locally, and mail addressed to foreign destinations continued to be franked with British stamps. The United Kingdom joined the General Postal Union (later known as the Universal Postal Union, UPU) on 1 July 1875, and since at the time the postal services in Malta were deemed to be part of the British Post Office, the islands were effectively also part of the union. Malta claims to have been the first British colony to join the UPU, although due to its status as a colony it did not gain full membership until independence almost a century later.
Malta Post Office (1885–1995)
In 1879, Governor Arthur Borton made a proposal to transfer control of postal services to the Government of Malta. This occurred on 1 January 1885, when the Island Post Office and the Packet Office were officially merged into a single Post Office. At this point, the Halfpenny Yellows and British stamps were withdrawn and new Malta stamps and postal stationery were issued to replace them. On 17 May 1886, the General Post Office moved from the Banca Giuratale to Palazzo Parisio, also in Valletta. From 14 August 1889, letter carriers were given a numbered handstamp which they would apply to the mail that they were delivering. This created accountability since it made it easy to identify the postman responsible in the case of misdelivered mail. These markings, which are known as postmen's personal handstamps (), remained in use until 1949.
By around 1891, police stations in various villages had begun to sell postage stamps. The postal system was reorganised in 1894, and this included the establishment of postal districts. Circular postmarks for various towns and villages were introduced in 1900, but most were withdrawn in 1921. Some of the larger post offices such as those at Cospicua, Notabile, Sliema and Victoria, Gozo retained their postmarks.
Postal services in Malta were disrupted during World War II, and postal censorship was introduced at this point. Malta was heavily bombarded during the war, and several post offices were destroyed or damaged due to aerial bombardment. The Cospicua post office was hit in June 1940, and its staff and equipment were relocated to a temporary post office in Paola, which was itself bombed on 12 February 1942. It was relocated once again to Żejtun where it remained until 1946. Palazzo Parisio was bombed on 24 April 1942 and the GPO temporarily moved elsewhere in Valletta until returning to its former location on 16 January 1943. During this period, some of the GPO services were transferred to the primary school of Ħamrun.
Demand for postal services increased drastically after the war, and many new post offices were established in towns and villages between the 1950s and the 1980s. The first postage meter was installed in Malta in 1961. Malta became independent in 1964, and the country was accepted into the UPU on 21 May 1965.
The Parcel Post Office moved to a new building in Victory Square in Valletta on 12 November 1963. Palazzo Parisio remained in use by the postal authorities until 4 July 1973, when the GPO moved across the street to Auberge d'Italie and the Central Mail Room, the registered letter branch and the Poste Restante moved to the former Garrison Chapel (a building now housing the Malta Stock Exchange). While it was the GPO, parts of Auberge d'Italie also housed other government departments.
Following the murder of Karin Grech by a letter bomb in 1977, mail addressed to people who were perceived to be at risk of a similar attack was checked for explosives. Once an item was certified as harmless, a marking with the letter X was applied to it before being delivered to the recipient. Such markings are known as "Karin Grech crosses" by philatelists.
Alphanumeric postal codes were introduced in Malta in 1991.
Posta Ltd (1995–1998)
On 1 October 1995, the private limited company Posta Ltd was set up to run the General Post Office. This was done after the British Postal Consultancy Service made a recommendation in 1994 that the postal service should be run commercially. In 1996, the company made losses when sending bulk mail to Germany after the latter increased its tariffs. Posta Ltd had signed a contract with the phantom company Euromail Ltd which did not take into consideration the rate increase, and the latter profited from the former's losses.
In October 1997, the company moved to new premises at 305, Qormi Road in Marsa, and the Parcel Post Office, Central Mail Room and Philatelic Bureau were transferred there from Valletta.
MaltaPost (since 1998)