Thanks to the huge growth of mail volumes in Victorian Britain, the Post Office was fast becoming a mass employer. In the cities, postmen, sorters and telegraphists worked in ever greater numbers and began forming associations and unions to look after their interests. These were the early days of British unionism and opposition from the establishment was formidable. Post Office employees were banned from assembling in public and, throughout the 1870s, isolated rallies were broken up, while pockets of agitators were sacked. However, in the 1880s the labour movement gathered momentum and postal workers in London began to denounce their pay and conditions more loudly.

They had good reason to. A Commission of Inquiry heard evidence in 1896 of the extraordinary conditions some postmen endured. The work was heavy, their walks were long, and the hours were longer. Some had been known to walk 26 miles in a single day. Others worked split duties beginning at 6am and ending at 10pm, meaning they rarely saw their families. Some of the city offices were cold and damp in winter, where the staff had few amenities and only the most rudimentary toilet arrangements. Of course these were the worst-case scenarios, but there were other, more widely shared grievances such as low pay, stifling uniforms, minimal leave and a severe disciplinary code that included the awarding of the contentious and often divisive "good conduct stripes".

This episode provides vivid examples of the difficult conditions some postal workers faced in this period. It goes on to tell the story of the first major strike of postal workers in 1890, following a rally at Hyde Park in June where postmen marched under the banner "Wages Not Stripes". The Posmaster General, Henry Cecil Raikes, refused to recognise the Postmen's Union, formed the previous year, and suspended several employees for agitation. Things came to a head on 9 July 1890 when, as rumours of a strike circulated, 100 postal workers were pre-emptively sacked in the middle of the night. Postmen from several London offices marched to the General Post Office at St Martin's-le-Grand hoping to call out as many as possible in protest. Unfortunately for them they were unable to generate enough support and, soon, Raikes "restored discipline", at once sacking 450 men and ending the strike.

The Postmen's Union was defeated in 1890 but their message was heard, and in the following two years public meetings were permitted, pay increases were secured and an Inquiry was launched into workplace conditions. When, twenty years later, the staff associations joined to form the Union of Post Office Workers (predecessor to today's Communication Workers' Union), it was the strikers of 1890 who were commemorated.

Further Reading

For further reading related to this episode of The People's Post, see Alan Clinton, Post Office Workers: A Trade Union and Social History (1984). A near-contemporary account of the 1890 strike can be found in H.G. Swift, A History of Postal Agitation: From Fifty Years ago to the Present Day (1900). For an exhaustive contemporary account of the working conditions of postal workers in the 1890s, see The Inter-Departmental Committee on Post Office Establishments: a verbatim report of the evidence given before Lord Tweedmouth and Committee by the representatives of the Postmen's Federation (1896). The BPMA also holds contemporary postmens newspapers in the Royal Mail Archive such as POST 115/367, The Post: The Organ of the Fawcett Association, Vol. 1. Nos 1-33, 1890. Peter Sutton's blog Split duties in the 1890s gives further information on this topic.

Illustrations

Jubilee 1890

Types of postmen 1840 to 1890

The Tweedmouth Committee

Postman with Good Conduct Stripes