Postal Mechanisation
Collecting, sorting, cancelling and delivering the mail have traditionally been very labour intensive activities. From very early on the Post Office sought a way of mechanising these processes.
Developments began with the mechanised cancelling of mail, but mechanisation of sorting began in earnest in the 1930s.
The first successful British sorting machine was developed in the mid 1950s. In 1975 a new second generation of coding desk was introduced. The machine applied a code to the envelope which could be read by another machine to sort it according to its postcode.
Remember to Use Your Postcode
(below) Modern postcodes were first trialled in Norwich in 1959, and then introduced in Croydon in 1966. Coding the entire country was done in stages, and finished in 1974. Postcoding increased the need for further postal mechanisation.
Date: 1968
Catalogue Reference: POST 110/2586
- Illustration
Remember to Use Your Postcode
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