Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet ministerial position in HM Government. From at least 1609, this government officer held a monopoly power to deliver mails and corresponding duties to build and maintain the various elements of the postal system; the Telegraph Act 1868 extended these to electric telegraphs. These arrangements would subsequently be expanded to cover telecommunications and broadcasting.
The office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A replacement public corporation, governed ultimately by a board and chairman, was established under the name of the Post Office (later subsumed by Royal Mail Group). The cabinet position of Postmaster General was replaced by a Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, with reduced powers, until 1974; most regulatory functions have now been delegated to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.
History In England, the monarch's letters to his subjects are known to have been carried by relays of couriers as long ago as the 15th century. The earliest mention of Master of the Posts is in the King's Book of Payments where a payment of £100 was authorised for Brian Tuke as master of the posts in February 1512. Belatedly, in 1517, he was officially appointed to the office of Governor of the King's Posts, a precursor to the office of Postmaster General of the United Kingdom, by Henry VIII.Walker (1938), p. 37 In 1609 it was decreed that letters could only be carried and delivered by persons authorised by the Postmaster General.
In 1655 John Thurloe became Postmaster-General, a post he held until he was accused of treason and arrested in May 1660. His spies were able to intercept mail, and he exposed Edward Sexby's 1657 plot to assassinate Cromwell and captured would-be assassin Miles Sindercombe and his group. Ironically, Thurloe's own department was also infiltrated: his secretary Samuel Morland became a Royalist agent and in 1659 alleged that Thurloe, Richard Cromwell and Sir Richard Willis – a Sealed Knot member turned Cromwell agent – were plotting to kill the future King Charles II. About forty years after his death, a false ceiling was found in his rooms at Lincoln's Inn, the space was full of letters seized during his occupation of the office of Postmaster-General. These letters are now at the Bodleian Library.
In 1657 an act of the Commonwealth Parliament, entitled 'Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled', set up a system for the British Isles and enacted the position of Postmaster General. The act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post horses. After the Restoration in 1660, a further act, the Post Office Act 1660 (12 Cha. 2. c. 35), confirmed this and the post of Postmaster-General, the previous Cromwellian act being void.
1660 saw the establishment of the General Letter Office, which would later become the General Post Office (GPO). A similar position evolved in the Kingdom of Scotland prior to the 1707 Act of Union.
The (1 Will. 4. c. 8) established the unified office of Postmaster General of the United Kingdom
The office was abolished in 1969 by the Post Office Act 1969. A new public corporation, governed by a chairman, was established under the name of the Post Office (the part later subsumed by Royal Mail), which also had responsibility for telecommunications and the Girobank). The cabinet position of Postmaster General was initially replaced by a Minister of Posts and Telecommunications with less direct involvement; this department was dissolved in March 1974, with regulatory functions transferring to the Home Office, the Post Office retaining control of television licensing. Since 1992, most regulatory functions formerly conducted by the Postmaster General generally fall within the remit of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, although the present-day Royal Mail Group was overseen by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy until flotation.
Masters of the King's Post YearsMaster of the King's Post1517–1545 Brian Tuke1545–1566John Mason1566–1590Thomas Randolph1590–1607John Stanhope, 1st Baron Stanhope1607–1635Charles Stanhope, 2nd Baron Stanhope1637–1642Philip Burlamachi 1642–1649 Edmund Prideaux
Postmaster under the Commonwealth YearsPostmaster under the Commonwealth1649–1653 Edmund Prideaux1653–1655 John Manley1655–1660John Thurloe
Postmasters General of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom The earliest postmasters had responsibility for England and Wales. In 1707, on the Union with Scotland, the responsibility of the office was extended to cover the whole of the new Kingdom of Great Britain as well as Ireland, but with some powers held by a Post Office Manager for Scotland. By the Post Office (Revenues) Act 1710, with effect from 1711, the services were united, but with a Deputy Postmaster for Scotland. From 1784, there were also Postmasters General of Ireland, but under the Postmaster-General Act 1831, the postmasters based at Westminster became responsible for the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Chambers's Encyclopaedia: A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge: Vol. VIII (London: W. & R. Chambers, Ltd., 1901), p. 347 In 1922, the Irish Free State became independent, and in 1923 it established its own arrangements under a Postmaster General of the Irish Free State. In 1924 the title became Minister for Posts and Telegraphs.
YearsPostmaster General1660–1663Henry Bishop1663–1664Daniel O'Neill1664–1667Katherine O'Neill, Countess of Chesterfield1667–1685Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington1686–1689Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester1689–1691John Wildman
Two Postmasters General, 1691–1823 From 1691 to 1823 there were two Postmasters General, to divide the patronage between the Whigs and Tories. Year1st Postmaster General1st Party2nd Postmaster General2nd Party1691 Sir Thomas Frankland Sir Robert Cotton Tory1708 Sir John Evelyn 1715 James Craggs the Elder Charles Cornwallis, 4th Baron Cornwallis Whig1720 Galfridus Walpole Edward Carteret 1725 Edward Harrison 1733 Thomas Coke, 1st Baron Lovel (Earl of Leicester from 1744) 1739 Sir John Eyles, 2nd Baronet 1745 Everard Fawkener 1759 Robert Hampden, 4th Baron Trevor William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough 1762 John Perceval, 2nd Earl of Egmont 1763 Thomas Villiers, 1st Baron Hyde 1765 Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough 1766 Wills Hill, 2nd Viscount Hillsborough Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer 1768 John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich 1771 Henry Carteret(from 1784 Baron Carteret) 1782 The Viscount Barrington 1782 Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of TankervilleFalmouth packet archives . Retrieved 9 June 2008 1783 Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley 1784 Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville1786 Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon 1787 Thomas de Grey, 2nd Baron Walsingham 1789 John Fane, 10th Earl of WestmorlandTory 1790 Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield 1794 George Townshend, 1st Earl of Leicester 1798 William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland 1799 George Leveson-Gower, Baron Gower 1801 Lord Charles Spencer 1804 James Graham, 3rd Duke of Montrose 1806 John Proby, 1st Earl of Carysfort Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire 1807 Thomas Pelham, 2nd Earl of Chichester WhigJohn Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich Tory 1814 Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty 1816 James Cecil, 1st Marquess of Salisbury
A single Postmaster General, 1823–1900 In 1823 the idea of a Whig and a Tory sharing the post was abolished. YearsPostmaster General1823 Thomas Pelham, 2nd Earl of Chichester continuing in office alone 1826–1827Lord Frederick Montagu 1827–1830William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester 1830–1834Charles Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond and Lennox 1834Francis Nathaniel Conyngham, 2nd Marquess Conyngham 1834–1835 William Wellesley-Pole, 1st Baron Maryborough 1835Francis Nathaniel Conyngham, 2nd Marquess Conyngham 1835–1841Thomas William Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield 1841–1845William Lowther, Viscount Lowther 1845–1846Edward Granville Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans 1846–1852Ulick John de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde 1852 Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke 1853–1855Charles John Canning, 2nd Viscount Canning 1855–1858 George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll 1858–1859Charles Edward Abbot, 2nd Baron Colchester 1859–1860James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin 1860–1866Edward John Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley 1866–1868James Graham, 4th Duke of Montrose 1868–1871Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington 1871–1873William Monsell 1873–1874Lyon Playfair 1874–1880Lord John Manners 1880–1884Henry Fawcett 1884–1885George John Shaw-Lefevre 1885–1886Lord John Manners 1886George Grenfell Glyn, 2nd Baron Wolverton 1886–1891Henry Cecil Raikes 1891–1892Sir James Fergusson 1892–1895Arnold Morley 1895–1900Henry Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk
Postmaster General, 1900–1969