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Posting mail in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

Edward VII penny postage stamp

Edwardian postage stamp

My mother's written recollections of life in her childhood in the early 1900s described the postmen and telegraph boys of the period, but did not mention the post office or posting letters. I have tried to discover what Edwardian post offices and post boxes were like from museums, old books and pictures. This page illustrates what I have discovered so far. If you can add anything or correct a misunderstanding, do please let me know.

In the early 1900s, which were Edwardian times, the post offices and post boxes would have been much as they were in Victorian times. I have certainly found Edwardian stamps, but not yet an Edwardian post box.

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The Victorian/Edwardian Post Office

Front of life-size reproduction Edwardian Post Office in Milestones Museum, Basingstoke.

Life-size reproduction Edwardian Post Office in Milestones Museum, Basingstoke.



Inside a late Victorian or Edwardian Post Office

Inside a late Victorian or Edwardian Post Office - a picture from an old book in my mother's effects.


A museum model of a post boy collecting a parcel for delivery in Victorian or Edwardian Britain

Model of a post boy collecting a parcel for delivery - photographed in Milton Keynes Museum. (The accuracy of museums' mock-ups cannot be guaranteed, as I have noticed serious errors in mock-ups elsewhere - hence my preference for photographs from the actual period.)


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Victorian post boxes still in use in Edwardian times

There were post boxes on street corners and in other convenient places, so that people did not have to go to the Post Office.


Victorian or Edwardian free-standing pillar box / post box

A Victorian or Edwardian pillar box / post box - photographed in Fagans Museum of Welsh Life.


VR scroll on Victorian post boxes, standing for Victoria Regina

The decorative scroll half-way up the letter box, actually the initials VR entwined, standing for Victoria Regina. 'Regina' is the official title for a Queen.



Posting a letter in a Victorian letter box

Posting a letter in the 1890s - which would have been similar to in the early 1900s. From a magazine in Bath Postal Museum.


Posting a letter in a Victorian or Edwardian post box

Posting a letter in a Victorian or Edwardian post box - detail from a picture in Fagans Museum of Welsh Life.


IVictorian post box of the type let into a wall, produced in England between 1874 and 1879

Victorian post box of the type let into a wall. Note the embossed VR at the top, standing for Victoria Regina. Photographed in Nidderdale Museum.

Two examples of green Victorian post boxes

Interestingly not all Victorian post boxes were red. These photographed in Bath Postal Museum were green.

If you can add anything to this page or provide a photo, I would be pleased to hear from you.

Pat Cryer, webmaster

  
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This website Join me in the 1900s is a contribution to the social history of everyday life in early to mid 20th century Britain, seen through personal recollections and illustrations, with the emphasis on what it was like to live in those times. It is © Pat Cryer.

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