General Post Office

The British General Post Office (GPO ) was officially established in 1660 by Charles II. It was state in the course of its history Post and Telecommunications Authority. In 1969, the transfer of this authority in the newly established state-owned Post Office Corporation was made. In 1981 there was a division into separate postal and telecommunications companies.

Originally, the General Post Office was a monopoly for the shipment of things from a consignor to a receiver. The definition has been expanded with the introduction of new methods of communication to them. The postal service is known as Royal Mail, because it was built on the distribution system for government and authorities documents. The monitoring of the GPO was for the 1661 introduced Postmaster General. In later centuries, the GPO was given a monopoly over the telecommunications and tried to meet these expectations for broadcasting.

Early postal services

The General Post Office established a network of post offices on which sender broadcasts could give up. This was brought from there to distribution centers ( the so-called sorting stations ). From there they went directly to the receiver. Originally, the program was paid for by the recipient. This had the right to reject the reception, if he did not pay. The charge was dependent on the distance that the article had traveled. Therefore, it was necessary to keep track of every single consignment sent book. In 1840 the Penny Post was introduced. This meant the introduction of the stamp and the reduction of administrative costs of the postal service.

Headquarters

In the 17th, 18th and early 19th century, the Headquarters of the Authority found at different locations within the City of London. A new building was built in 1825-1829 in the eastern part of St Martins -le- Grand to plans by Sir Robert Smirke. The building was built in the Greek style and had ionic porticoes and was about 122 meters long and 24 meters wide. In 1870 a separate wing was added to the telegraph department. These in turn was grown in 1890 the General Post Office North as part of further expansion. The closure of the building followed in 1910 whose imminent demolition. The current headquarters of the BT Group is located on the site of the old Telegraph Office.

In the mid-19th century there were four field offices in London: one in the City of Lombard Street, two in the West End, Charing Cross and in the Cavendish Street near Oxford Street and a fourth south of the Thames in Borough High Street.

New communication systems

With the emergence of new forms of communication in the middle of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the GPO claimed the monopoly rights on the basis of the argument that it is to transport went from a sender to a receiver here. This has been used to extend the monopoly of the postal service to any form of electronic communication, as each transmitter used a kind of distribution service. This distribution services were legally considered as types of electronic post offices. This was true for all telegraph and telephone distribution. Middle of the 19th century, many private telegraph companies were founded in the UK. The Telegraph Act of 1868 gave the Postmaster General the right to take over domestic telegraph companies and the Telegraph Act of 1869 conferred on him the monopoly on telegraphic transmission across the UK. Telegraph overseas were not covered by this law. The private companies were bought. The had now united telegraph service in 1058 telegraph offices in cities and towns and 1874 offices in stations. In 1869 6.830.812 telegrams were sent, and brought a net profit of £ 550,000. The last decisive step was in 1912, the acquisition of the National Telephone Company, existed independently of the General Post Office after only a few small providers.

The same principles were applied in telephony, wireless telegraph services and mobile communications. This later expansion also included all types of wireless broadcasting, the shipping from transmitter to receiver was not specified here. The General Post Office defined all transmission facilities as a transmitter and single receiver as such. Just like at the post office, everything was now licensed by the General Post Office, under the Royal Charter.

The control of broadcasting

The applied theory came with the invention of mobile phones to falter, as the masts just did not respond a specific recipient. Nevertheless, this theory has been accepted and the law. Thus, the monopoly of the General Post Office was expanded to include all types of electronic communication.

The General Post Office in 1922 forced all electronics manufacturers to found the company British Broadcasting Company ( BBC ), which was under GPO license. This first BBC in 1927 discharged as also GPO licensed British Broadcasting Corporation was established by a Royal Charter.

From the beginning, the General Post Office problems with pirate radio stations that were broadcasting without GPO license. This competition was well aware of the fact that the General Post Office never such as would be granted. In pursuit of the pirate radio station, the General Post Office created a group of investigators with Peilwagen.

Before the Second World War, the General Post Office also had to contend with competition from mainland Europe who sent with broadcasters such as Radio Normandy and Radio Luxembourg their signals towards British receiver. After the war, Radio Luxembourg took the contest again. From 1960 radio stations joined who were on ships or structures in the sea. The most famous was Radio Caroline and Wonderful Radio London. It also appeared on radio stations in the British Isles.

The supervision of the radio were the Radio Authority (later Ofcom ) transmitted.

Resolution of the General Post Office

In 1969 the General Post Office was transformed from a government agency with a Royal Charter in the state operating Post Office Corporation. The official responsible for the telecommunications sector was the Post Office Telecommunications transfer, the successor of the GPO Telephones Division was. The British Telecommunications Act 1981 split from the so-called British Telecommunications Corporation and let the Post Office Telecommunications only the responsibility about the letter and parcel service and the operation of post offices. The business of the Post Office Corporation were later transferred to the Royal Mail Group plc, which was founded in 2001. The British Telecommunications Corporation was founded in 1984 to British Telecommunications plc (now BT Group ) and privatized.