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Product Description
Product Description
The origins of the Post Office go back to the early years of the Tudor monarchy: Brian Tuke, a former King's Bailiff in Sandwich, was acknowledged as the first 'Master of the Posts' by Cardinal Wolsey in 1512, and went on to build up a network of 'postmasters' across England for Henry VIII. Over the following five hundred years the Royal Mail expanded to an unimaginable degree to become the largest employer in the country, and the face of the British state for most people in their everyday lives. But it also faced the demands of an increasingly commercial marketplace. With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the possibility of privatising the Royal Mail has prompted passionate arguments - and has added immeasurably to the difficulties of running it.
In charting the whole of this extraordinary story, Duncan Campbell-Smith recounts a series of remarkable tales, including how postal engineers built the first programmable computer for the wartime code-breakers of Bletchley Park and how the Royal Mail managed to successfully continue delivering post to the front lines during two world wars, but also how they failed to avert the Great Train Robbery of 1963. He brings to life many of the dominant personalities in the Royal Mail's history - from Rowland Hill, who imposed a uniform penny post and set the great Victorian expansion on its way, to Tony Benn who championed the modernisation of the service in the 1960s and Tom Jackson who led the postal workers' biggest union through fifteen frequently stormy years up to 1982.
This is the first complete history of the Royal Mail up to the present day, based on its comprehensive archives, and including the first detailed account of the past half-century of Britain's postal history, made possible by privileged access to confidential records. Today's debate over the future of the Royal Mail is shown to be just the ;atest chapter in a centuries-old conflict between its roles raising revenue and serving the public. Will its employees remain, like Brian Tuke's postmasters, servants of the Crown? This book could hardly appear at a more timely moment.
About the Author
Duncan Campbell-Smith is a former Financial Times and Economist journalist whose career has also included working in the City and as a management consultant with McKinsey. He holds Visiting Senior Research Fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research and at the Centre for Contemporary British History at King's College, London. His previous books include Follow the Money: The Audit Commission, Public Money and the Management of Public Services, 1983-2008 (Penguin 2008).
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Purchased for my husband who worked for over 47 years for the Royal Mail, and he loved it. In his lifetime the changes have been extensive. Where once the postie had a job for life and was seen as a friendly face,who everyone knew, there is now the casual part time worker and the ever increasing pressure for more to be done in a shorter period of time. This is a wonderful book to dip into with good illustrations and photographs. He is enjoying it immensely and for him a nostalgic trip down memory lane. An enjoyable book not only because of his personal experiences but how the Royal Mail's development and progress illustrates the changes in our own lives. A beautiful book and well worth buying.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
'Masters of the Post' reveals itself a genuinely high quality product from Penguin imprint Allen Lane. Physically, the book's spine, the photographs, the print quality, the maps and more .. ooze considerably better than expected production values in this ever more 'quantity .. not quality' age. A passion for their books I must admit. So to the actual content...
And it is here where the book must lose a star rating. For it is, inescapably over 800+ densely written pages long and does suffer a little from a certain 'wordiness' in it's entirety.
Yet, though the chapters are all very carefully and chronologically sign-posted for easy reference ... while serious types who might want to 'go postal' will no doubt revel in the detail ..
.. For casual / interested readers who desire to know what is, in effect, five centuries of British postal history from Henry VIII onwards will ultimately find that ...
... The propensity of this book towards exhaustively detailing the seemingly interminable 20th /21st Century union machinations / negotiations .. does somehow skewer the whole historical perspective in favour of a pretty serious modern 'political' agenda regarding: the sad decline and 'interesting' future of the Post Office..
Again, the 'authorised' tone might scare a few people off for that reason.
However, purchased this book for very precise reasons ...
When I was young, I was ever so passionate about stamps .. (but as the author candidly admits .. and does provide a smart summary of how it all began .. it is beyond the brief of this book and you should really search elsewhere).
For the last 20 years of my life, I have always wondered how they truly got the post to those brave souls who fought in The Great War and WWII. The details I found to be highly revealing.
There's also some Victorian scandal and gossip.. and until I read a certain twelve pages of this book, I had no idea that Stanley Gibbons was (to be polite) a complete rogue..
Then there is 'The Great Train Robbery'... and many other notable events too.
Thus, as mentioned, sometimes this is a little hard going, but overall 'Masters of the Post' remains a solid and often very interesting tome and actually enjoying this somewhat more than I imagined..
And it is here where the book must lose a star rating. For it is, inescapably over 800+ densely written pages long and does suffer a little from a certain 'wordiness' in it's entirety.
Yet, though the chapters are all very carefully and chronologically sign-posted for easy reference ... while serious types who might want to 'go postal' will no doubt revel in the detail ..
.. For casual / interested readers who desire to know what is, in effect, five centuries of British postal history from Henry VIII onwards will ultimately find that ...
... The propensity of this book towards exhaustively detailing the seemingly interminable 20th /21st Century union machinations / negotiations .. does somehow skewer the whole historical perspective in favour of a pretty serious modern 'political' agenda regarding: the sad decline and 'interesting' future of the Post Office..
Again, the 'authorised' tone might scare a few people off for that reason.
However, purchased this book for very precise reasons ...
When I was young, I was ever so passionate about stamps .. (but as the author candidly admits .. and does provide a smart summary of how it all began .. it is beyond the brief of this book and you should really search elsewhere).
For the last 20 years of my life, I have always wondered how they truly got the post to those brave souls who fought in The Great War and WWII. The details I found to be highly revealing.
There's also some Victorian scandal and gossip.. and until I read a certain twelve pages of this book, I had no idea that Stanley Gibbons was (to be polite) a complete rogue..
Then there is 'The Great Train Robbery'... and many other notable events too.
Thus, as mentioned, sometimes this is a little hard going, but overall 'Masters of the Post' remains a solid and often very interesting tome and actually enjoying this somewhat more than I imagined..
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A bit disappointed that a history of the British Post Office is lettered with American spelling... organization etc etc.
No wonder mail now goes astray when the proof readers can't distinguish between Bridport and Bideford!
Perhaps they will correct this in a second edtition.
Otherwise an interesting and informative read
No wonder mail now goes astray when the proof readers can't distinguish between Bridport and Bideford!
Perhaps they will correct this in a second edtition.
Otherwise an interesting and informative read
Most Recent Customer Reviews
An excellent book ruined by its binding
The book is excellent. The early part, before 1900 relies on secondary sources, but meets the needs of the non specialist reader. Read more
Published 24 days ago by Geoff
Excellent History of the Royal Mail
This is a superb hardback book that relates the story of the Mail from its earliest days in the 16th Century up to the present time. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Camp
Brilliant
This is a very well written history of the post. If there is a fault it is that it probably goes into too much detail about things which would be uninteresting to "strangers to the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Okeglen
Royal Mail
ROYAL MAIL .......................................SERVING THE PUBLIC SINCE 1660, THIS BOOK IS THE MOST UPTO DATE HISTORY OF THE WORLDS FIRST POSTAL SERVICES AND THIS COVERS... Read more
Published 5 months ago by T. Walker
masters of the post
An extraordinary book, wonderful detail and an amazing amount of facts I previously had no knowledge of. Not only infomative but really takes you back in time. A joy to read.
Published 5 months ago by David J. Barrington
Listmania!
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