Catalogue description Post Office: Overseas mails contracts

The material is arranged in chronological order.

Pieces are one file unless otherwise stated.

An overseas mail service has been in operation since 1580, before the establishment of the public postal service. A staff of ten Royal Couriers carried letters on affairs of State, or on the business of 'particular merchants' to Dover. In 1619 the office of Postmaster General for foreign parts was created. His couriers, who wore distinctive badges, not only carried letters between London and the Continent. A public office was maintained near the Exchange, where writing desks for public use were provided and where details of the Posts were displayed. Mails were despatched twice a week. By 1700 (the Dover packet boats providing services to France and Flanders) additional Packet Stations had been established. That at Harwich (established in 1660) provided a service to the Netherlands and that at Falmouth (established in 1689) provided services to Spain and Portugal. During the next century the Falmouth Station grew in importance, providing new services to the West Indies and serving British fleets in the Mediterranean. 'Packet ships/boats' is a generic term for vessels carrying mails. The contracts use the term 'packet ships' and/or vessels.

The incentive to change from sail to steam power on packets carrying the Irish mail was the need to recapture passenger income. This vital supplement to the packet captains' income from their mail carrying contracts with The Post Office was rapidly being lost to other competing Government-operated vessels and to the new fast privately-operated steamship services coming into use across the Irish Sea during 1818-1819. The Post Office's first experiments with steam power took place early in 1819, with trials of the privately owned steamers Talbot and Ivanhoe. By June 1821 the journey time had halved and The Post Office had built its own steam driven packet boats for the Holyhead station: the Meteor and the Lightening. By the end of the year steam packets were also serving the Dover Station and a revolutionary change in postal communication by sea, had begun Thus after this time the contracts often refer to 'steam vessels' rather than packet boats.

In 1823, following arguments that there would be less smuggling should the packets be under naval control, a measure that would also ensure an effective armed force in and around Channel waters, the Admiralty took control of the Falmouth Station. Management of the packet stations had become so much criticised that the remainder of the packet station were turned over to the Admiralty in 1837, where they remained until 1860 when they were transferred back to The Post Office. Thus, between 1837 and 1860 the contracts are between the Admiralty and shipping companies.