The Post-Office being a branch of the public service, instituted by statute, is, of course, under the control of the Government of the country in every respect. The principal Acts of Parliament which now regulate the Post-Office are those of 1 Vict. c. 32-36, entitled "An Act to repeal the several laws relating to the Post-Office;" "An Act for the management of the Post-Office;" "An Act for consolidating the laws relative to offences against the Post-Office;" one to which we have previously referred, 2 Vict. c. 98, "An Act to provide for the conveyance of mails by railway;" 3 & 4 Vict. c. 96, "An Act for the regulation of the duties of Postage." Besides these more important Acts, there are others of later date relating to the Money-order Office, colonial posts, and, more recently, one relating to the Post-Office Savings' Banks.

According to the latest returns,[139] there are 11,316 post-offices in the United Kingdom, of which 808 are head-offices, and 10,508 sub-offices. To these must be added a great number of road letter-boxes, making a total of 14,776 public receptacles for letters, or more by 10,000 than the total number before penny postage. The total number of letters passing through the Post-Office during the year 1863 was 642,000,000, or, in the proportion of letters to population, no less than 22 to each person in the three kingdoms. As contrasted with the last year of dear postage, the number of letters show an eightfold increase. The distance over which the mails travel with this enormous amount of correspondence, in the United Kingdom alone, is nearly 160,000 miles per day. Of the mails conveyed by railway, a distance of 50,000 miles is accomplished every working-day; 72,000 miles per diem are traversed on foot; and the rest are carried by mail-coaches, mail-carts, and steamboats.

The gross revenue of the Post-Office for the year 1863 was, in round numbers, 3,800,000l., being more by nearly a quarter of a million sterling than the proceeds for the year 1862. Of this enormous total, England contributed upwards of 3,000,000l., the remainder having been raised from Ireland and Scotland. To this sum should be added a further item of 130,000l. for the impressed stamp on newspapers sent through the post, the charges for which are collected by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The actual expenditure of the Department, including the expenses of mail-packets (great part of which appertain to the Admiralty), amounted, in round numbers, to 3,000,000l. The amount of all the items belonging exclusively to Post-Office charges is, however, less than two and a quarter millions. The net revenue of the Post-Office for 1863 may, therefore, be stated at 1,790,000l.; or, counting the whole of the packet expenses—which mode of reckoning, however, would lead to erroneous notions of the financial success of penny postage—to a clear revenue of 900,000l.

At the end of 1862, the staff of officers employed in the British Post-Office numbered 25,380. Of this number 25,285 were engaged in the British Isles, 73 in foreign countries (as agents collecting the British share of foreign postage), and 22 in the colonies.[140] Of the employÉs at home, between 3,000 and 4,000 are attached to the London Office alone, while the remainder, including more than 11,000 postmasters, belong to the establishments in the various towns and villages of the United Kingdom. The entire staff is under the immediate control of the Postmaster-General, assisted by the General Secretary of the Post-Office in London. The service of the three kingdoms, notwithstanding this direct control, is managed in the respective capitals, at each of which there is a chief office, with a secretarial and other departmental staffs.[141]

The Postmaster-General, the highest controlling authority at the Post-Office representing the Executive, is now always a peer of the realm, a member of the Privy Council, and generally, though not necessarily, a Cabinet Minister. Of course he changes with the Government. As we have seen in the origin of the office, he holds his appointment by patent granted under the Great Seal. The Postmaster-General has in his gift all the postmasterships in England and Wales where the salary is not less than 120l. per annum (all under that sum being in the gift of the Treasury Lords), and to those in Ireland and Scotland where the salary is 100l. and upwards. Besides this amount of patronage, now dispensed to officers already in the service, he has the power of nomination to all vacancies in the General Post-Offices of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.[142] The following noblemen have occupied the position of Postmaster-General during the last forty years, or since the joint Postmaster-Generalship was abolished in 1823,[143] viz. Earl of Chichester (1823), Lord Frederick Montague (1826), Duke of Manchester (1827), Duke of Richmond (1830), appointed Postmaster-General of Great Britain and Ireland the year after; Marquis of Conyngham (July, 1834), Lord Maryborough (December, 1834), Marquis of Conyngham again (May, 1835), Earl of Lichfield (June, 1835), Viscount Lowther (September, 1841), Earl St. Germains (June, 1846), Marquis of Clanricarde (July, 1846). Still more recently, we find the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Canning, Duke of Argyll (twice), Lord Colchester, the Earl of Elgin, and Lord Stanley of Alderley.

The Secretary of the Post-Office holds the highest fixed appointment in the establishment, and may be regarded, therefore, as the responsible adviser of the Postmaster-General. The principal secretaries during the century have been Francis Freeling, Esq. (1797), created a baronet in 1828; Lieut.-Colonel William Leader Maberly (1836); Rowland Hill, Esq. (1856), knighted in 1860; and, as at present, John Tilley, Esq. (1864).[144]

The chief office in London is divided into six principal departments, each under the charge of a chief officer. These heads of departments are severally responsible to the Postmaster-General for the efficiency and discipline of their respective branches. Something like the same arrangement, though on a much smaller scale, is preserved in the less-important chief offices of Edinburgh and Dublin. The branches in question consist of—(1) The Secretary's Office; (2) The Solicitor's Office; (3) The Mail Office; (4) The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office; (5) The Money-order Office; and (6) The Circulation Office.

1. The Secretary's Office exercises a general surveillance over all the other departments of the Post-Office, including, of course, all provincial offices. It is the medium of communication with the Lords of the Treasury, and also with the public. All important matters originating in other branches, or in country offices, pass through this office to the Postmaster-General, returning through the same channel. In 1763, the secretaries of the Post-Office had one clerk and two supernumerary clerks assigned to them. Now, the three secretaries are assisted in their duties by one chief clerk, one principal clerk for foreign and colonial business, sixteen senior clerks, and thirty-eight clerks in other two classes. There is also a force of nineteen supplementary clerks, five official paper-keepers, and nineteen messengers.[145]

2. The Solicitor's Office, as its name implies, deals with the law business of the Post-Office. It gives employment to a solicitor, an assistant-solicitor, and four clerks.

3. The Mail Office has to do with all matters connected with the transmission of mails, whether the conveyance be by railroad, water, or stage-coach. Attached to this office are the travelling post-offices of the country, which are under its exclusive management. The Mail Office arranges with the different railway companies for the conveyance of the mails, in the contracts for which are included provision for the employment of post-offices fitted up in railway-carriages; it also looks to the proper performance of each post-office contract embracing mail-conveyance. The staff of the Mail Office comprises an inspector-general of mails, a deputy inspector-general, two principal clerks, and twenty-one clerks in three classes. The connexion between the Mail Office in London and its important adjuncts, the travelling post-offices, is kept up by a staff of five inspectors of mails (three employed in England, one in Scotland, and one in Ireland), a supervisor of mail-bag apparatus, and several subordinate officers. The travelling offices employ a force of 54 clerks in three classes, and 139 sorters in four classes.

4. The Receiver and Accountant-General's Office takes account of the money of each department, remittances being received here from all the other branches and each provincial town in England. General accounts of revenue and expenditure are also kept, this office being charged with the examination of the postage and revenue accounts of each postmaster. All salaries, pensions, and items of current expenditure are also paid through this office. In 1763, the duties of these offices, then distinct, were performed by a receiver, an accountant, and four clerks. Now, the appointments comprise the receiver and accountant-general, a chief examiner, a chief cashier, a principal book-keeper, with forty-seven clerks in three classes, and nine messengers.

5. The Money-order Office, occupying a separate building in Aldersgate Street, takes charge of the whole of the money-order business of the country, in addition to doing an enormous amount of work as a money-order office for the metropolis. Of course, everything relating to this particular branch of post-office business, and also some part of the savings' bank accounts, pass through this channel. Each provincial postmaster sends a daily account of his transactions to this office. Attached to the Money-order Office, we find a controller, a chief clerk, an examiner, a book-keeper, 112 clerks in three classes, and 27 messengers.

6. The Circulation Office in London manages the ordinary post-office work of the metropolis. In it, or from it, all the letters, newspapers, and book-packets posted at, or arriving in, London, are sorted, despatched, and delivered. Not only so; but in this office nearly all the continental, and most part of the other foreign mails for the whole of the British Islands, are received, sorted, and despatched. Under ordinary circumstances, moreover, British letters for a great number of places are sent in transit through London, where it is requisite they should be rearranged and forwarded. This daily Herculean labour is performed by the clerks, sorters, and letter-carriers attached to the department. The ten district-offices in London, engaged with the same kind of work on a small scale, are subordinate to the Circulation Office at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The Registered Letter Branch, employing no less than fifty clerks, and the Returned Letter Branch, with the Office for Blind Letters, are parts of the Circulation Department. The major branch of the Circulation Office comprises the controller, a vice-controller, 15 deputy-controllers, and 251 clerks in three classes. The minor establishment, as it is called, employs no fewer than 2,398 persons. In this force are included 42 inspectors of letter-carriers in three classes; the rest, being composed of sorters, stampers, letter-carriers, and messengers.

To these six principal departments may now be added that for the management of the new Post-Office Savings' Banks. Like the Money-order Office, it occupies a separate building, in St. Paul's Churchyard. The Savings' Bank Department keeps a personal account with every depositor. It acknowledges the receipt of every single deposit, and upon the requisite notice being furnished to the office, it sends out warrants authorizing postmasters to pay withdrawals. Each year the savings' bank-book of each depositor is sent here for examination, and at the same time the interest accruing is calculated and allowed. The correspondence with postmasters and the public on any subject connected with the banks in question is managed entirely by this department. The already-existing machinery of the Post-Office has been freely called into operation, and the business of the new banks has increased the work of almost all the other branches, especially those of the Receiver and Accountant-General's and the Money-order Offices. Through the former all the investments are received, and all remittances to postmasters for the repayment of deposits are made; while the surplus revenue goes from that office direct to that of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Again, and as another instance of our meaning, the Money-order Office is required to undertake the examination of the general savings' bank account of each provincial postmaster. The staff of the Savings' Bank Office in London is not yet complete, nor will it be until the complete effect of the new on the old savings' bank system be seen.[146] At present, it comprises a controller, an assistant-controller, a principal clerk, ten first-class clerks (four of upper and six of lower section), fifteen second-class clerks, with a number of third-class clerks, and six messengers.

The branches of minor importance and the miscellaneous officers of the London Establishment, consist of a Medical Department, comprising one medical officer, one assistant medical officer, and one messenger. There are, besides, distinct medical officers attached to each of the London districts. The amount required for this service for 1863-4, including medicine (given gratuitously to all officers who are not in receipt of 150l. salary), is 1,715l. A House-keeper's Department, including a housekeeper and sixteen female servants, requiring a yearly payment of 763l. Six engineers, ten constables, and six firemen are also constantly employed and paid by the Post-Office. When we add to this gigantic organization no less than 516 letter-receivers in London, who receive from 4l. to 90l. a-year for partial service, the reader will have a tolerably correct idea of the establishment required to compass the amount of London postal business in the twenty-fourth year of penny postage.[147]

The Surveyor's Department is the connecting medium between the metropolitan offices and the post-offices in provincial towns. The postmasters of the latter are under the immediate supervision of the surveyor of the district in which the towns are situate, and it is to this superior officer that they are primarily responsible for the efficient working and discipline of their respective staff of officers. Among the many responsible duties of the surveyors, may be mentioned[148] those of visiting periodically each office in their district, to remedy, where they can, all defects in the working of the postal system; to remove, when possible, all just grounds of complaint on the part of the public; "to give to the correspondence of their district increased celerity, regularity, and security" when opportunity offers, and to arrange for contracts with these objects. The Act of Queen Anne provided for the appointment of one surveyor to the Post-Office, whose duties it should be to make proper surveys of post-roads. Little more than a hundred years ago, one of these functionaries was sufficient to compass the duty of surveyor in England. There are now thirteen surveyors in the United Kingdom,[149] nine of whom are located in England, two in Ireland, and two in Scotland. These principal officers are assisted in their duties by thirty-two "surveyors' clerks," arranged in two classes, and thirteen stationary clerks. To this staff must also be added thirty-three "clerks in charge," in two classes, who are under the direction of the surveyors, and whose principal duty consists in supplying temporarily the position of postmaster, in case of vacancies occurring through deaths, removals, &c.

There are, in all, 542 head provincial establishments in England and Wales, 141 in Ireland, and 115 in Scotland. They vary exceedingly, no two being exactly alike, but are settled in each town pretty much in proportion to the demands of the place, its size, trade, &c. Sometimes, however, the position of a town—the centre of a district, for instance—gives it more importance in an official sense than it would otherwise acquire from other and ordinary circumstances. The number of sub-offices attached to each town also varies greatly, according to the position of the head-office.[150] Next to the three chief offices, the largest establishments are those of Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, and Bristol. Among the most important offices of the second class, we may enumerate Aberdeen, Bath, Belfast, Cork, Exeter, Leeds, Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Norwich, Sheffield, Southampton, and York.[151] With respect to the rest, classification would be difficult; the postmasters receiving salaries ranging from 20l. to 400l. per annum, and varying from those where the whole of the duty of the office is performed by the postmaster himself, to others where he is assisted by a large staff of clerks and other auxiliaries.[152]

Each head-postmaster is directly responsible for the full efficiency and proper management of his office. Under the approval of the district surveyor, the sanction of the Postmaster-General, and the favourable report of the Civil Service Commissioners, the postmaster is allowed to appoint nearly the whole of his own officers, he being responsible to the authorities for their proper discipline and good conduct. Formerly, and up to as late as eight years ago, each postmaster rendered an account of his transactions to the chief office quarterly. He now furnishes weekly general accounts, and daily accounts of money-order business, besides keeping his book open to the inspection of the superior officers of the Post-Office.[153]