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Catalogue description Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment
This record is held by The Postal Museum
| Reference: | POST 58 |
|---|---|
| Title: | Post Office: Staff nomination and appointment |
| Description: |
Prior to 1831 appointment records were not kept uniformly over the country and separate series were created. In 1831 centralised employment records were created by copying the relevant minute numbers and brief details relating to appointment, transfer, dismissal, resignation, retirement, or death. This series contains records relating to the nomination and appointment of staff, both Established and non-Established. It consists mainly of volumes, in which vacancies, nominations, and appointments were recorded. It also contains records relating to bonds paid, and papers relating to the appointment of specific individuals. Some records were transferred from POST 14. Please see The Postal Museum's online catalogue for descriptions of individual records within this series. |
| Note: | Catalogue entries below series level were removed from Discovery, The National Archives' online catalogue, in November 2016 because fuller descriptions were available in The Postal Museum's online catalogue. |
| Date: | 1737-1972 |
| Arrangement: |
Chronological order in subseries Pieces are 1 volume unless otherwise stated |
| Held by: | The Postal Museum, not available at The National Archives |
| Legal status: | Public Record(s) |
| Language: | English |
| Physical description: | 275 files and volumes |
| Access conditions: | Subject to 30 year closure |
| Administrative / biographical background: |
The appointments procedure in The Post Office during this period was very complicated. Employees could either be Established, which meant they had privileges and rights, such as superannuation, or they were non-Established, which meant that they were probably part-time, and had no benefits or job security. Established employees were also civil servants and therefore were affected by any changes in the system, such as the gradual efforts to replace patronage with examinations and grading. Sub-postmasters and packet captains were not officially employed by The Post Office but were sub-contracted. Sub-postmasters tended to work in another line of business such as greengrocing and run a sub-post office as a side-line. Up until the end of the nineteenth century appointments were made by a system of patronage. Staff were appointed by being nominated to posts. Although they were supposed to then take a test of competency, this was often just a formality. The broad sweeping changes in the Civil Service with the introduction of competitive examinations meant that this practice was abandoned at the end of the nineteenth century. |
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