113-668: The British Broadcasting Company Limited ( BBC ) was a short-lived British commercial broadcasting company formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Licensed by the British General Post Office , its original office was located on the second floor of Magnet House, the GEC buildings in London and consisted of a room and a small antechamber. On 14 December 1922, John Reith
226-444: A blunderbuss , each guard carried a secure timepiece by which departure times at each stage of the journey were strictly regulated. In 1830 mail was carried by train for the first time, on the newly-opened Liverpool and Manchester Railway ; over the next decade the railways replaced mail coaches as the principal means of conveyance (the last mail coach departed from London on 6 January 1846). The first Travelling Post Office (TPO)
339-555: A lottery bond called the Premium Bond was introduced. In the mid-1960s the GPO was asked by the government to expand into banking services which resulted in the creation of the National Giro in 1968. When new forms of communication came into existence in the 19th and early 20th centuries the GPO claimed monopoly rights on the basis that like the postal service they involved delivery from
452-545: A proclamation 'for the settling of the Letter-office of England and Scotland', an event which 'may properly be regarded as the origin of the British post-office'. By this decree, Thomas Witherings (who had been appointed 'Postmaster of England for foreign parts' three years earlier) was empowered to provide for the carriage of private letters at fixed rates 'betwixt London and all parts of His Majesty's dominions'. To this end,
565-483: A sender and to a receiver . The theory was used to expand state control of the mail service into every form of electronic communication possible on the basis that every sender used some form of distribution service. These distribution services were considered in law as forms of electronic post offices. This applied to telegraph and telephone switching stations. In 1846, the Electric Telegraph Company ,
678-671: A Saxon church. During the medieval period, the church "changed hands" several times, revenues being received by the Prior of Bermondsey in the 12th century, and then by the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Rome from the early 13th; the turbulent reign of Richard II saw the church being seized by the king, eventually coming under the control of William of Wykeham 's New College, Oxford in 1399. The church has twice suffered arson attacks in recent history,
791-610: A bell to attract custom was adopted by the Post Office and went on to be employed in major cities until the mid-19th century. In 1761 permission was given for the establishment of penny-post arrangements elsewhere in the realm, to function along the same lines as the London office, if they could be made financially viable; by the end of the century there were penny-post systems operating in Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh and Manchester (to be joined by Glasgow and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in
904-541: A concerted effort was made to maintain a regular postal system for the conveyance of royal and government despatches (in times of peace as well as in time of war). To oversee the system, the king appointed Brian Tuke to serve as 'Master of the Postes'. By the 1550s five post roads were in place, connecting London with Dover , Edinburgh , Holyhead (via Chester ), Milford Haven (via Bristol ) and Plymouth . (A sixth post road, to Norwich via Colchester , would be added in
1017-621: A court ruling obliged the London Penny Post to come under the authority of the Postmaster General. Although now part of the GPO, the London Penny Post continued to operate entirely independently of the General (or 'Inland') Post until 1854 (when the two systems were combined). An attempt by Charles Povey to set up a rival halfpenny post in 1709 was halted after several months' operation; however Povey's practice of having letter-carriers ring
1130-532: A fee. The trade in these 'ship letters' was acknowledged (and legitimised) in the Post Office Acts of 1657 and 1660. Attempts were made to levy Post Office fees on these letters and 'ship letter money' was offered to captains for each letter given to a postmaster on arrival in England in order for these charges to be applied; however they were under no legal obligation to comply and the majority of ship letters evaded
1243-430: A hand bell. While postmasters were not obliged to deliver items to places outside the boundary, they could agree to do so on payment of an extra fee. In the 1780s, Britain's General Post network was revolutionised by theatrical impresario John Palmer 's idea of using mail coaches in place of the longstanding use of post horses. After initial resistance from the postal authorities, a trial took place in 1784, by which it
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#17328373654401356-409: A horse and cart or waggon, while the universities, along with certain municipal and other corporations, maintained their own correspondence networks. Many letters went by foot-post rather than on horseback. Footposts or runners were employed by many towns, cities and other communities, and had been for many years. A 16th-century footpost would cover around 30 miles per day, on average. At the time of
1469-543: A known residence of her grandson Robert , father to the future king. For a time thereafter it was leased to a Francis and Joan Bache, but the estate was taken by Isabel's great-grandson, Robert The Bruce , King of Scots, in the 1320s. It was in Writtle in 1302 that Robert had married his second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh ; there is some evidence to suggest he was also born in the village rather than in Turnberry Castle , but
1582-682: A licence issued by the General Post Office in accordance with the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 . On 15 June 1920, Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited , in Chelmsford , Essex, was licensed to conduct an experimental broadcast from the New Street Works factory, featuring Dame Nellie Melba . The signal was received throughout Europe and as far as Newfoundland, Canada. Further transmissions were also made. On 23 November 1920,
1695-417: A mild variety of the British oceanic climate with warm summers at around 23 °C (73 °F) and mild winters with highs of 7 °C (45 °F) but with quite common minor frosts. Precipitation is relatively low by British standards at 591.8 millimetres (23.30 in) during the 1981–2010 average period. Writtle holds a distinguished place in the history of radio broadcasting . In the early 1920s it
1808-477: A more efficient system was put in place (albeit temporarily) to aid communications during his war with Scotland : a number of post houses were established at twenty-mile intervals along the Great North Road , between London and Berwick , to provide the king's messengers with fresh horses for each stage of the journey; in this way they were able to travel up to a hundred miles a day. Under King Henry VIII
1921-563: A partner institution of the University of Essex , the grounds of which once housed a Royal hunting lodge, later the possession of the De Brus and De Bohun families. The suggestion that Writtle is the birthplace of Robert the Bruce , as well as his father Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale , is contested, though its possession and use by both is incontrovertible. From 1996 until 2017 Writtle hosted
2034-543: A regular mail-carrying service in exchange for a fee or subsidy. In the following century, packet services out of Falmouth began to sail to the West Indies, North America and other transatlantic destinations. Packet boats, however, were not the only means of conveying letters overseas: there had always been the option of sending them by merchant ship, and coffee houses had long been accustomed to receiving letters and packages on behalf of ships' captains, who would carry them for
2147-506: A regular public postal service came the need for waterborne mail services (carrying letters to and from Ireland, continental Europe and other destinations) to be placed on a more regular footing. ' Packet boats ', offering a regular scheduled mail service, were already in use for the passage between Holyhead and Dublin; but for letters to and from the Continent the post was entrusted to messengers, who would make their own travel arrangements. This
2260-544: A system for the conveyance of foreign dispatches had been set up, organised by Flemish merchants in the City of London ; but in 1558, after a dispute arose between Italian, Flemish and English merchants on the matter, the Master of the King's Posts was granted oversight of it instead. In 1619, James I appointed a separate Postmaster General 'for foreign parts', granting him (and his appointees)
2373-441: A team of four horses, rather than six as was usual for a stage coach at that time). The long-established practice of 'riding post' was acknowledged through the provision of four seats inside the coach for passengers. The mail bags were carried in a locked box at the back, above which sat a scarlet-coated guard. While the coaches and coachmen were provided by contractors, the guards worked for the Post Office. As well as two pistols and
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#17328373654402486-551: A totally separate publicly owned corporation the following year as a result of the British Telecommunications Act 1981 . In 1986 the Post Office Counters business was made functionally separate from Royal Mail Letters and Royal Mail Parcels (the latter being rebranded as ' Parcelforce '). At the start of the 21st century the Post Office became a public limited company (initially called 'Consignia plc'), which
2599-424: Is a matter of general concernment, and of great advantage, as well for the preservation of trade and commerce as otherwise". To begin with the Post Office was again farmed, nominally to Henry Bishop , but the deal was bankrolled by John Wildman (a gentleman of dubious repute, who kept a tight rein on his investment). Two years later Wildman was imprisoned, implicated in a plot against the King, whereupon Bishop sold
2712-456: Is a village and civil parish 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Chelmsford , Essex , England. It has a traditional village green complete with duck pond and a Norman church, and was once described as "one of the loveliest villages in England, with a ravishing variety of ancient cottages". The village is now home to Writtle University College , one of the UK's oldest and largest land-based colleges and
2825-478: Is thought to mean 'babbling burn or brook'. Named in the Little Domesday Book as a Royal demesne (manor) of 194 households, the village boasts the site of one of King John's hunting lodges (circa 1210), sited within the grounds of the present HE institution Writtle College . The estate and village were later a possession of Isabel de Brus (Bruce), via a 16 October 1241 grant of Henry III and
2938-619: The Federal Communications Commission ) and offering several hours of programming, usually at night. Two of the first stations were WWJ in Detroit (then known as 8MK) and KDKA in Pittsburgh (which has claimed to be the first station specifically licensed for commercial broadcasting; however commercial licences were actually not awarded until September 1921). These pioneering stations continue in daily 24-hour operation today under
3051-532: The General Post Office (GPO) retained exclusive rights given to it by the government to manage and control all means of mass communication with the exception of the printed word. The laws which evolved into the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1947, upon which all modern British communication laws are established, concern: All these activities require a government licence which was originally granted by
3164-738: The Leeward Islands was enjoined. The Irish post at this time operated as part of the GPO under a Deputy Postmaster General based in Dublin; but in 1784 an Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland providing for an independent Post Office in Ireland under its own Postmaster General (an arrangement that remained in place until 1831). The established post roads in Britain ran to and from London. The use of other roads required government permission (for example, it
3277-525: The Post Office Act 1969 , which transferred its assets to the Post Office , so changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation . Responsibility for telecommunications was given to Post Office Telecommunications , the successor of the GPO Telegraph and Telephones department. In 1980, the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to British Telecommunications ' conversion into
3390-718: The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ran ships out of Southampton to the West Indies and South America, the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company (aka the Cunard Line ) covered the North Atlantic route, while the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company provided services on eastward routes to the Mediterranean, India and Australia. From 1840 vessels carrying mail under Admiralty contract had
3503-477: The Spanish Armada every parish was by royal command required to provide a footpost, and every town a horse-post, to help convey news in the event of an imminent invasion. By the early 1600s there were two options for couriers using the post system: they could either ride 'through-post', carrying the correspondence the full distance; or they could use the 'post of the packet', whereby the letters were carried by
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3616-614: The Strowger system for small and medium cities and towns. The telephone systems of Jersey and the Isle of Man , obtained from the NTC were offered for sale to the respective governments of the islands. Both initially refused, but the States of Jersey did eventually take control of their island's telephones in 1923. On 27 July 1896, Guglielmo Marconi gave the first demonstration of wireless telegraphy from
3729-620: The War of the Spanish Succession ). The distribution network was centred on the General Letter Office in London (which was on Threadneedle Street prior to the Great Fire of London , after which it moved first to Bishopsgate and then to Lombard Street in 1678). The incoming post arrived each week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; it was sorted and stamped : London letters went to
3842-452: The sole privilege of carrying foreign correspondence to and from London. (The separate Postmaster General appointments were consolidated in 1637, but the 'foreign' and 'inland' postal services remained separate in terms of administration and accounting until the mid-19th century). It was not until 1635 that a general or public post was properly established, for inland letters as for foreign ones. On 31 July that year, King Charles I issued
3955-426: The 'windows' where members of the public were able to collect them from the office in person (once they had paid the requisite fee), while 'Country letters' were dispatched along the relevant post road. The outgoing post went on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Postage was payable by the recipient (rather than the sender) and depended on the length of the letter and the distance it had travelled; each individual charge
4068-456: The 1100s, and a Deer Park which was in place some time before 1237. The woods (such as Great and Little Stoneymoor Woods) and plains (Mill Green) that lay south of the Writtle parish boundary, resembled the Forest but were not part of it. Longmeads House is a large Victorian building with grounds, and an important feature of the village. It was built by Robert Woodhouse in the 1880s and remained in
4181-459: The 12th century a permanent body of messengers had been formed within the Royal Household of King Henry I , for the conveyance of royal and official correspondence. The messengers delivered their messages in person, each travelling on his own horse and taking time as needed for rest and refreshment (including stopping overnight if the length of journey required it). Under Edward IV , however,
4294-524: The 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver (which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented); it was overseen by a Government minister , the Postmaster General . Over time its remit was extended to Scotland and Ireland, and across parts of the British Empire . The GPO was abolished by
4407-559: The 1830s). In 1801 the cost of posting a letter within the central London area was doubled; thenceforward the London District Post was known as the 'Two-penny Post' until its amalgamation into the General Post 53 years later. During the reign of King William III , the General Post Office created a network of 'receiving-houses', in London and the larger provincial towns, where senders could submit items. A Scottish Post Office
4520-453: The Admiralty took over managing the long-distance routes out of Falmouth, while services to and from Ireland and the continent were increasingly put out to commercial tender. Eventually, in 1837, the Admiralty took over control of the whole operation (and with it the remaining Post Office vessels). Subsequently, contracts for carrying mail began to be awarded to new large-scale shipping lines :
4633-719: The British Isles (the nations of which had been unified under Oliver Cromwell as a result of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ), stating that 'there shall be one General Post-Office, and one office stiled the Postmaster-Generall of England and Comptroller of the Post-Office'. The Act also reasserted the postal monopoly for letter delivery and for post-horses; and it set new rates both for carriage of letters and for 'riding post'. During
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4746-519: The Commonwealth, what had been a weekly post service to and from London was increased to a thrice-weekly service: letters were despatched from the General Letter Office in London every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening, while the inbound post arrived early in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Usually the recipient of the post paid the fee (and had the right to refuse to accept
4859-509: The Crown). At Dover merchant ships were regularly employed to convey letters to and from the continent . A similar system connected Holyhead and Milford to Ireland (and by the end of the 16th century a packet service had been established on the Holyhead to Dublin route). Private citizens could make use of the post-horse network, if they could afford it (in 1583 they had to pay twopence per mile for
4972-600: The GPO (in particular the Hull Telephones Department (now privatised) and the telephone system of Guernsey ). The GPO took over the company on 1 January 1912; transferring 1,565 exchanges and 9,000 employees at a cost of £12,515,264. The GPO installed several automatic telephone exchanges from several vendors in trials at Darlington on 10 October 1914 and Dudley on 9 September 1916 ( rotary system ), Fleetwood (relay exchange from Sweden), Grimsby (Siemens), Hereford (Lorimer) and Leeds (Strowger). The GPO then selected
5085-516: The GPO came to be viewed less as a revenue-raising body and more as a public service . The Post Office Savings Bank was introduced in 1861, when there were few banks outside major towns. By 1863, 2,500 post offices were offering a savings service . Gradually more financial services were offered by post offices, including government stocks and bonds in 1880, insurance and annuities in 1888, and war savings certificates in 1916. In 1909 old age pensions were introduced, payable at post offices. In 1956
5198-422: The General Post Office halted all further transmissions due to complaints of alleged interference with military communications. As the number of wireless receiving sets increased during the early 1920s, the General Post Office came under extreme pressure from hobby listeners to allow the experimental wireless broadcasts to resume. On 14 February 1922, which was two years after ceasing their original transmissions,
5311-469: The General Post Office. The invention of the electrical telegraph came under the control of the Telegraph Act of 1869 which was based upon a law that forbade the encoding of electrical cables with messages without a licence. The messages were viewed as electrical forms of a letter. This invention was followed by the wireless telegraphy which was then placed under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 . In
5424-467: The Marconi Company was issued a licence for experimental transmissions under the call sign 2MT . Peter Eckersley was given charge of providing both the broadcast entertainment and the engineering. The station operated out of a hut in a field at Writtle near Chelmsford. On 11 May 1922, the Marconi Company was issued another licence for experimental broadcasts from a station identified as 2LO which
5537-597: The Metropolitan Vickers Company Ltd. ("Metrovick") commenced test broadcasting from its own station in Manchester , identified as 2ZY . On 23 May a committee of representatives was appointed from the "Big Six" companies – the Marconi Company , Metropolitan-Vickers , Radio Communication Company, British Thomson-Houston , General Electric Company and Western Electric . The Post Office also pressed for
5650-450: The Peace had been ordered to arrange appointment of two to three foot-posts in every parish for the conveyance of letters), though in practice precise details were often left to the local postmaster. On the return journey to London, bags of letters would be picked up from each post-house on the way, and taken to the General Letter Office to be sorted for despatch. With the establishment of
5763-539: The Post Master General obtained a court judgement that telephone conversations were, technically, within the remit of the Telegraph Act. The General Post Office then licensed all existing telephone networks. The effective nationalisation of the UK telecommunications industry occurred in 1912 with the takeover of the National Telephone Company which left only a few municipal undertakings independent of
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#17328373654405876-459: The Post Office.) The expansion of the service beyond the main post-roads was in no small part due to the enterprise of the Deputy post-masters themselves, who were allowed to profit from branch services which they established and operated. In this way, the network of 'by-posts' greatly expanded in the 1670s: in 1673 Blome could write that 'there is scarce any Market-Town of note [which does not have]
5989-486: The Postmaster General. Alongside money orders, postal orders were introduced in 1881, which were cheaper and easier to cash. Postal orders and money orders were vital at this time for transactions between small businesses, as well as individuals, because bank transfer facilities were only available to major businesses and for larger sums of money. In 1840 the Uniform Penny Post was introduced, which incorporated
6102-696: The Postmaster-General's consent: The shares were equally held by six companies: The shareholders gave the BBC the benefit of their respective patents, and only radio sets supplied by BBC companies were permitted to be licensed to receive programmes. The ability of the shareholders to profit from the BBC was limited as part of the agreement with the Postmaster General: The holders of the Cumulative Ordinary Shares are entitled to receive out of
6215-730: The Research Section of the Telegraph Office, which had its origins in innovative areas of work being pursued by staff in the Engineering Department. In the 1920s a dedicated research station was set up by the GPO seven miles away in Dollis Hill ; during the Second World War the world's first electronic computer, ' Colossus ', was designed and constructed there by Tommy Flowers and other GPO engineers. The Telegraph Office
6328-497: The Sandford Mill museum, near Sandon . The Writtle transmission station was also the last independent outside the BBC , suspending transmission in January 1923. Independent radio did not re-emerge in the UK till the 1960s. The Domesday Book of 1086 mentioning a church and priest in Writtle suggests that Christian worship in the village pre-dated the Norman Conquest ; the early-13th-century nave and chancel seem to be extensions of an 11th-century construction, which itself replaced
6441-455: The UK. The responsibility for the 'electric telegraphs' was officially transferred to the GPO in 1870. Overseas telegraphs did not fall within the monopoly. The private telegraph companies that already existed were bought out. The new combined telegraph service had 1,058 telegraph offices in towns and cities and 1,874 offices at railway stations. 6,830,812 telegrams were transmitted in 1869 producing revenue of £550,000. London's Central Office in
6554-408: The US Navy for the duration of the War. After the War, the US Congress forced the US Navy to divest itself of the stations and they turned to the General Electric Company which in 1919 formed a subsidiary called the Radio Corporation of America . With the US Navy on its board, RCA then absorbed the former Marconi stations. In 1926 RCA created the National Broadcasting Company , the first network in
6667-442: The US, the development of the telegraph, wireless telegraph, telephone and wireless telephony proceeded according to the dictates of entrepreneurial commercial interests concerned only with supply and demand for profit. Beginning in August 1920, commercial broadcasting stations programming to the general public had begun broadcasting in the United States, licensed by the Department of Commerce (these duties were transferred in 1934 to
6780-473: The United States. Peaking in the 1930s, there were unsuccessful attempts to bring all radio communications in America back under single monopoly control by using the patent laws. The Western Electric Company Ltd. in the UK was originally formed as a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in the USA where it served as its manufacturing subsidiary to equip the AT&T Bell Telephone system. The British Thomson-Houston Company Ltd.
6893-487: The annual southern V Festival within the grounds of Sir John Comyn's Hylands Park . At the 2001 census, it had a population of 5,632, decreasing to 5,383 at the 2011 Census. The Romans were present in Writtle shortly after the Roman conquest by Claudius , but the presence of a metalled road, numerous archaeological finds and the ease with which the river can be forded in Writtle are still not significant enough evidence to suggest that Writtle, rather than Chelmsford ,
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#17328373654407006-422: The benefit of the conveyance of letters to and fro'; he went on to list, County by County, both the 'Stages' on the post-roads (of which there were over 140) and the Post-towns on the branch roads (which by then numbered over 380 in total), where members of the public were able to leave letters with a Post-Master 'to be sent as directed'. Before long moves were made to incorporate the by-posts (and their income) into
7119-463: The country. The 1850s also saw the widespread introduction of red-painted post boxes where the public could deposit their outgoing mail. Few other organisations (either of state or of commerce) could rival the early Victorian Post Office in the extent of its national coverage. Its counters began to be relied upon for providing other government services (e.g. the issuing of licences of various types); and increasingly (and significantly) in this period,
7232-417: The early 17th century.) Each post-house on the road was staffed by a postmaster , whose main responsibility was to provide the horses; he would also provide a guide to accompany the messenger as far as the next post house (and then see to the return of the horses afterwards). In practice most post-houses were established at roadside inns and the innkeeper served as postmaster (in return for a small salary from
7345-424: The establishment of the Penny Post, the only location where letters could be posted in London was the General Letter Office in Lombard Street .) The receiving-houses were often found in public houses, coffee houses or other retail premises. Deliveries were made six or eight times a day in central London (and a minimum of four times a day in the outskirts). The innovation was a great success, and within two years
7458-401: The extra charges. In 1680 William Dockwra and Robert Murray founded the 'Penny Post', which enabled letters and parcels to be sent cheaply to and from destinations in and around London. A flat fee of a penny was charged for sending letters or parcels up to a pound in weight within an area comprising the City of London, the City of Westminster and the Borough of Southwark ; while two-pence
7571-412: The family until it was acquired by the Seabrooke family in 1930. The estate was acquired by Essex County Council in 1950 and had been the village's community centre until 2020, as it was sold to a development company in 2013 to become residential dwellings. A new community centre named 'The Beryl Platt Centre' has been built in the garden of Longmeads House, which now takes the place of Longmeads House as
7684-417: The first decade of nationalized telegraphy created two levels of service. High-status circuits catering to the state, international trade, sporting life, and imperial business. Low-status circuits directed toward the local and the provincial. These distinct telegraphic orbits were connected to different types of telegraph instruments operated by differently gendered telegraphists. 1909 saw the establishment of
7797-480: The first in 1974, the second in 1991. Writtle Forest was a Royal Forest . The legal area of the forest - the area to which Forest Law applied - corresponded to the large ancient parish of Writtle, but the physical forest, the area of wood and commons was much smaller, and located in the still well wooded high ground in the south of the parish, stretching from College Wood to Edney Common. The Forest included hermitage called Bedemansburg , founded by King Stephen in
7910-412: The guides from one post house to the next in a cotton-lined leather bag (although this method was only available for royal, government or diplomatic correspondence). The guides at this time were provided with a post horn , which they had to sound at regular intervals or when encountering others on the road (other road users were expected to give way to the post riders ). At the start of the 16th century
8023-503: The horse, plus fourpence per stage for the guide), but it was primarily designed for the relaying of state and royal correspondence, or for the conveyance from one place to another of individuals engaged on official state business (who paid a reduced rate). Private correspondence was often sent using common carriers at this time, or with others who regularly journeyed from place to place (such as travelling pedlars ); towns often made use of local licensed carriers, who plied their trade using
8136-556: The inclusion of a representative from the smaller firms manufacturing radio equipment in the UK – Frank Phillips of Burndept. George Campbell was one of the members on the committee. On 18 October 1922 the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. was incorporated under the Companies Acts 1908 to 1917 with a share capital of £60,006, with cumulative ordinary shares valued at £1 each. No further capital could be issued without
8249-478: The inhabitants of the nation. At that time there were 182 Deputy Post-Masters (or 'Deputies') in England [and Wales], most of whom were stationed at the 'Stages' or stops which lay along the six main post-roads; and under them were sub-Post-masters , based at market towns which were not on the main post-roads but to which the service had been extended. (The sub-Post-masters, unlike the Deputies, were not employed by
8362-459: The item if they did not wish to pay); the charge was based on the distance the item had been carried so the Post Office had to keep a separate account for each item. After the Restoration , the Post Office Act 1660 ( 12 Cha. 2 . c. 35) was passed (the previous Cromwellian Act being void), confirming the arrangements in place for the Post Office, and the post of Postmaster General, and emphasizing
8475-526: The latter's accession to the throne as King James II , this income became part of the hereditary revenues of the Crown ; and subsequently, under the growing scrutiny of HM Treasury , the postal service came increasingly to be viewed as a source of government income (as seen in the Post Office (Revenues) Act 1710 , which increased postal charges and levied tax on the income in order to finance Britain's involvement in
8588-566: The lease on to the King's gunpowder manufacturer, Daniel O'Neill ; after the latter's death, his widow the Countess of Chesterfield served out the remainder of the original seven-year term (so becoming the first female Postmaster General). Meanwhile, under the terms of a 1663 Act of Parliament, the 'rents, issues and profits' of the Post Office had been settled by the King on his brother, the Duke of York, to provide for his support and maintenance. Following
8701-517: The mail bags from one post-house to the next; the postmaster at the next post-house would then record the time of arrival, before transferring the bags to a new horse, ridden by a new post-boy, for the next stage of the journey. On the outbound journey from London, the mail for each Stage (and its associated Post-towns) was left at the relevant post-house. Arrangements for its onward delivery varied somewhat from place to place. Witherings had envisaged using 'foot-posts' for this purpose (in 1620 Justices of
8814-492: The main source of its income was from the sale of radio receiving sets and transmitters manufactured by its shareholding member companies as well as from a portion of the government (GPO) licence fee that had to be purchased by BBC listeners. General Post Office The General Post Office ( GPO ) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in
8927-512: The messengers appointed by the said Thomas Witherings', thus establishing a monopoly, which (under the auspices of the Royal Mail ) would remain in place until 2006. Under the Commonwealth the Post Office was farmed to John Manley and John Thurloe , successively. In 1657 an Act of Parliament entitled Postage of England, Scotland and Ireland Settled set up a postal system for the whole of
9040-501: The national network: 'Riding Surveyors' were appointed in 1682, to travel with the post and scrutinise the Deputies' income and activity at each Stage (particularly in relation to by-letters); in later years the Surveyors served as the GPO's inspectorate , tasked with maintaining efficiency and consistency across the network (until they were finally disbanded in the 1930s). It was usual for each postmaster to employ post-boys to ride with
9153-503: The network of post towns served by the General Post, and at the same time did much to reform its workings. In 1772 the Court of the King's Bench ruled that letters ought to be delivered directly to recipients within the boundaries of each post town at no additional cost. Often a messenger with a locked satchel would be employed by the postmaster to deliver and receive items of mail around town; he would alert people to his presence by ringing
9266-548: The new arrangement, the King commanded 'all his postmasters, upon all the roads of England, to have ready in their stables one or two horses [...] to carry such messengers, with their portmantles , as shall be imployed in the said service', and they were forbidden from hiring out these horses to others on days when the mail was due. Furthermore, it was enjoined that (with a few specific exceptions) 'no other messenger or messengers, footpost or footposts, shall take up, carry, receive or deliver any letter or letters whatsoever, other than
9379-400: The ownership and management of CBS . In the United Kingdom, all broadcasts were licensed by the GPO, who were reluctant to license any fully commercial stations and only 'experimental' stations were allowed on air. Beginning in 1920, a number of licences were issued to British and American subsidiary companies in Britain for the purpose of conducting experimental transmissions under terms of
9492-436: The packet ship services. Since the 1780s these had been run on behalf of the Post Office by private contractors, who depended on supplementary income from fee-paying passengers in order to make a profit; but in the 19th-century steamships began to lure the passengers away. At some considerable cost the Post Office resolved to build and operate its own fleet of steam vessels, but the service became increasingly inefficient. In 1823
9605-699: The presence of King George V . The Ox and Bucks left Writtle in April 1915. According to a contemporary newspaper report Writtle was hit by a V-2 rocket on Friday 12 January 1945. The V-2 fell about 200 yards south of the River Wid bridge in a field belonging to Skeggs Farm. The impact crater was 30 feet across by 20 feet deep. 19 properties were extensively damaged and a further 218 slightly damaged including All Saints' Church. No casualties were reported, although two families in Bridge Street were made homeless. Writtle has
9718-475: The privilege of being badged and designated as Royal Mail Ships (RMS). In 1838 the Money Order Office was established, to provide a secure means of transferring money to people in different parts of the country (or world), and to discourage people from sending cash by post. The money order system had first been introduced as a private enterprise by three Post Office clerks in 1792, with the permission of
9831-520: The profits of the Company a fixed Cumulative Dividend at the rate of 7½% per annum on the capital for the time being paid up thereon but are not entitled to any further or other participation in profits. The initial remit of the British Broadcasting Company was to establish a nationwide network of radio transmitters many of which had originally been owned by member companies, from which the BBC
9944-422: The public and economic benefits of a General Post system: "Whereas for the maintenance of mutual correspondencies, and prevention of many inconveniences happening by private posts, several public post-offices have been heretofore erected for carrying and recarrying of letters by post to and from all parts and places within England, Scotland, and Ireland, and several posts beyond the seas, the well-ordering whereof
10057-460: The rest of the realm). Witherings was required to extend the new system to other post roads 'as soon as possibly may be' (beginning with the routes to Oxford and Bristol, and to Colchester, Norwich and Yarmouth); and provision was also made for the establishment of 'bye-posts' to run to and from places not directly served by the post road system (such as Lincoln and Hull). The new system was fully and profitably running by 1636. In order to facilitate
10170-477: The roof of the Telegraph Office in St. Martin's Le Grand. The development of radio links for sending telegraphs led to the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1904 , which granted control of radio waves to the General Post Office, who licensed all senders and receivers. This placed the Post Office in a position of control over radio and television broadcasting as those technologies were developed. By 1900 house-to-house mail delivery
10283-455: The royal proclamation instructed him to establish 'a running post, to run night and day', initially between London and Edinburgh, London and Holyhead and London and Plymouth, 'for the advancement of all His Majesty's subjects in their trade and correspondence'. (A similar system, running between London and Dover, had already been established by Witherings as part of his administration of the foreign posts, and he himself had proposed its extension to
10396-405: The story is possibly conflated with that of his father of the same name. Another well known historic figure who lived in Writtle was Sir John Petre (1549–1613). He sat as a member of parliament for Essex from 1584 to 1587 and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Essex. In 1603 he was raised to the peerage as Baron John Petre , the first baron of Writtle. Baron Petre publicly acknowledged that he
10509-468: The two key innovations of a uniform postal rate, which cut administrative costs and encouraged use of the system, and adhesive pre-paid stamp. Packets (weighing up to 16 ounces (450 g)) could also be sent by post, the cost of postage varying with the weight. The reforms were devised and overseen by Rowland Hill , having been initially proposed in Parliament by Robert Wallace MP . A book post service
10622-466: The world's first public telegraph company, was established in the UK and developed a nationwide communications network. Several other private telegraph companies soon followed. The Telegraph Act 1868 granted the Postmaster General the right to acquire inland telegraph companies in the United Kingdom and the Telegraph Act 1869 conferred on the Postmaster General a monopoly in telegraphic communication in
10735-644: The years before the outbreak of the English Civil War . In August 1914 the 4th Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment arrived in Writtle. The 4th Ox and Bucks Bn was part of the Territorial Force , or volunteer reserve, of the British Army. While in Writtle the men underwent physical and military training. On 14 October 1914 they paraded in the grounds of Hylands House in
10848-586: Was a Roman Catholic and refused to follow the Church of England during the time of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I . He died in October 1613, aged 63, and was succeeded in the barony by his son William, who later married Katherine Somerset . One person from Writtle who did help to bring about the English Reformation was John Bastwick (1593–1654), a religious zealot who opposed Roman Catholic ceremonial in
10961-705: Was a controlled UK subsidiary of the General Electric Company in the USA. The Hotpoint Electric Appliance Company Ltd. was formed by British Thomson-Houston (BTH) in 1921. The only other company later added to the original shareholders of the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. was Burndept Limited. It represented the interests of over twenty small electrical manufacturers in the UK. The British Broadcasting Company did not sell air time for commercials but its licence did allow for it to carry sponsored programming, and eight such sponsored broadcasts were aired in 1925. However,
11074-478: Was calculated in London and entered into a book, which went with the letters on the road, indicating the amounts due from each postmaster for the letters delivered into his care. At first the new postal network was not especially well publicised; but in his 1673 publication Britannia , Richard Blome sought to remedy this by describing in some detail the geographical disposition of the new 'general Post-Office' , which he called an 'exceeding great conveniency' for
11187-413: Was charged for items posted or delivered in the surrounding 'country' area (which included places such as Hackney, Newington, Lambeth and Islington). The Penny Post letter-carriers operated from seven main sorting offices around London, which were supplemented by between four and five hundred 'receiving houses' in all the principal streets in the area, where members of the public could post items. (Prior to
11300-436: Was demonstrated that a mail coach departing from Bristol at 4pm would regularly arrive in London at 9 o'clock the following morning: a day and a half quicker than the post horses. As a result, the conveyance of letters by mail coach, under armed guard, was approved by Act of Parliament. Mail coaches were similar in design to the passenger-carrying stage coaches , but were smaller, lighter and more manoeuvrable (being pulled by
11413-586: Was established in 1695 (although the post-road to Edinburgh continued to be managed from London); in 1710 the Scottish and English establishments were united by statute . By virtue of the same Act of Parliament (the Post Office (Revenues) Act 1710 ), the functions of the 'general letter office and post office' in the City of London were set out, and the establishment of 'chief letter offices' in Edinburgh, Dublin, New York and
11526-487: Was far from reliable, so in the 1630s Thomas Witherings set about establishing a regular Dover-Calais packet service. By the end of the century additional packet services had been established between Harwich (off the Yarmouth post road) and Helvoetsluys , between Dover and Ostend / Nieuport , and between Falmouth and Corunna . The packet services were generally arranged by contract with an agent, who would commit to provide
11639-491: Was hired to become the managing director of the company at that address. The company later moved its offices to the premises of the Marconi Company . The BBC as a commercial broadcasting company did not sell air time but it did carry a number of sponsored programmes paid for by British newspapers. On 31 December 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the non-commercial and crown-chartered British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In Britain prior to 1922,
11752-408: Was introduced in 1837, and these began to be widely used enabling mail to be sorted in transit; TPO operation was greatly aided by the invention in 1852 of a trackside ' mail-bag apparatus ' which enabled bags to be collected and deposited en route . By the 1860s the Post Office had contracts with around thirty different rail companies. The development of marine steam propulsion inevitably affected
11865-417: Was introduced in 1848, and parcel post in 1883; that same year the term 'letter-carrier' was replaced with ' postman ' in the GPO's official nomenclature. By the 1850s the postal system was described as having become 'universal all over the three kingdoms: no village, however insignificant, being without its receiving-house'. In 1855 a network of 920 post offices and 9,578 sub-offices were in place around
11978-518: Was located at Marconi House in the Strand , London. The programme consisted of a boxing commentary by W. Southey of the fight between Kid Lewis and Georges Carpentier . Further tests were also advertised as demonstrations of " Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony " which were " subject to permission from the Postmaster General ". These demonstrations were performed by the "Demonstration Department (of) Marconi's London Wireless Station 2LO". On 16 May 1922,
12091-434: Was only after much lobbying that a 'cross-post' between Bristol and Exeter was authorised, in 1698; previously mail between the two cities had to be sent via London). In 1720 Bath postmaster Ralph Allen , who had a vision for improving the situation, took over responsibility for the cross-posts (i.e. routes connecting one post road to another) and bye-posts (connecting to places off the main post roads). He greatly expanded
12204-435: Was renamed ' Royal Mail Group plc' in 2002. In 2012 the counters business (known as ' Post Office Limited ' since 2002) was taken out of Royal Mail Group, prior to the latter's privatisation in 2013. The privatised holding company (Royal Mail plc) was renamed International Distributions Services plc in 2022. In the medieval period, nobles generally employed messengers to deliver letters and other items on their behalf. In
12317-548: Was slightly damaged by a German bomb in 1917 and in 1940, was set alight during the London Blitz , destroying much of the interior. It reopened in 1943. By the 1950s, the volume of telegraph traffic had declined and the Telegraph Office closed in 1963. In 1984 the new British Telecom Centre was opened on the site. The Post Office commenced its telephone business in 1878, however the vast majority of telephones were initially connected to independently run networks. In December 1880,
12430-653: Was taking place across England (and was close to being in place in Scotland and Ireland). Employing over 250,000 people and with an annual revenue of £32 million, the Post Office in 1914 is said to have been 'the biggest economic enterprise in Britain and the largest single employer of labour in the world'. The GPO ran the nation's telegraph and telephone systems, as well as handling some 5.9 billion items of mail each year, while branch post offices offered an increasing number of financial, municipal and other public services alongside those relating to postage. Writtle Writtle
12543-568: Was the site of the Roman town of Caesaromagus , as suggested by the Essex historian Philip Morant (et al). The place-name 'Writtle' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Writelam . It appears in a charter circa 1136 as Writela . This was originally the name of the River Wid, as attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 692 where the river appears as Writolaburna . This name
12656-615: Was the site of the experimental Marconi station 2MT ("Two Emma Toc"), from where Captain Peter Eckersley made the name of the village famous with his station announcement "this is Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing, Writtle testing". The prefabricated hut from which the broadcast was made (constructed for use during the First World War , but never shipped to the war zone) was later relocated to King's Road primary school in Chelmsford , and has now been re-erected with replica equipment at
12769-664: Was to provide a national broadcasting service. The British Broadcasting Company was formed using a blueprint that the United States Navy and the General Electric Company had attempted to institute in the USA. Early in World War I , all of the ship-to-shore and transatlantic radio stations controlled by a US subsidiary company of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited in Chelmsford, England, were seized and handed to
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