The Post Office Savings Bank began on 16 September 1861. It aimed to encourage thrift, especially among the poorer classes. The Savings Bank started in England, and was extended to Ireland and Scotland in February the following year.

At the time there were only 638 old savings banks in the whole country and many areas had none at all. Some 2,532 post offices had a new savings bank established at the end of the first year of operation. By the end of the century the Post Office Savings Bank had over eight million accounts containing about £125 million.

Postal orders were designed to provide the poor with the means of transmitting the small amounts of money that the banks would not deal with. In 1874 George Chetwynd, Receiver and Accountant General of the Post Office, suggested that 'circular notes', resembling a bank note, could be exchanged for cash at a post office (for a small fee).

The printers Bradbury Wilkinson produced preliminary designs for the 'post office note' shown here, with a printed stamp and spaces for both the issuing and receiving postmaster. 

After much investigation and opposition a law was passed in July 1880 to enable the new notes and the first went on sale on 1 January 1881. Around 1.5 million orders were printed at the start of the scheme, but demand meant a further million had to be printed before the end of 1881.

Illustration

A prototype postal order