The Post Office had a monopoly on delivering letters. Parcels, however, were transported by private carriers, and this market came to be dominated by the railways.

Because the railway network was formed of several companies, sending 'through' parcels was fraught with difficulty and confusion. Various schemes for a national Post Office service had been proposed but there was stiff opposition from the powerful railway companies.

Professor Henry Fawcett became Postmaster General in 1880, believing that it was the role of the Post Office to provide as comprehensive a service as possible. Fawcett soon began negotiations with the railway companies on the carriage of parcels. Two years of tough argument later the Post Office (Parcels) Act became law.

Originally called the 'Inland Parcels Post', the service was due to start on 1 August 1883. A vast amount of organisation and re-organisation had to take place before this date. Space had to be provided for the acceptance and sorting of parcels. In some cases this involved whole new buildings!

Anticipating Fawcett's success in parliament, the stamp printers De La Rue submitted designs for special elongated stamps for the parcels post in October 1881. The De La Rue designs shown below were not adopted but the 'Parcel Post' (as Fawcett renamed it in 1884) certainly took off. Some 50 million parcels were being sent each year inside the first decade of the new service.

Illustration

Proposed stamp for the new parcels post