General Post Office

The General Post Office (GPO) was officially established in England in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of state postal system and telecommunications carrier. Similar General Post Offices were established across the British Empire. In 1969 the GPO was abolished and the assets transferred to The Post Office, changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation. In 1980 the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to the splitting off of British Telecommunications into a totally separate publicly owned corporation the following year as a result of the British Telecommunications Act 1981. For the more recent history of the postal system in the United Kingdom, see the article Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd.

Originally, the GPO was a monopoly covering the despatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver, which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented. The postal service was known as the Royal Mail because it was built on the distribution system for royal and government documents. In 1661 the office of Postmaster General was created to oversee the GPO.

An Post

An Post (Irish pronunciation: [ən̪ˠ pˠɔsˠt̪ˠ]; English literal translation: "The Post") is the state-owned provider of postal services in Republic of Ireland. An Post provides a "universal postal service" to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union. Services provided include, letter post, parcel service, deposit accounts, Swiftpost, an all-Ireland next-day delivery service, and EMS, the international express-mail service.

Background

An Post, the Irish postal administration, came into being in 1984 when, under the terms of the Postal & Telecommunications Services Act of 1983, the postal services of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs (P&T) were divided between An Post and Telecom Éireann, the telecommunications operator now called Eircom. At its inception, during the early years of the Irish Free State, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs was the country's largest department of state, and its employees (most of them postmen) constituted the largest sector of the civil service. Prior to this the postal service in Ireland had been under the control of the General Post Office that was established in 1660.

General Post Office, Washington, D.C.

The General Post Office, also known as the Tariff Commission Building, is a building in Washington, D.C. that is currently used as the Hotel Monaco.

History

Robert Mills designed the General Post Office, completed in 1842. Thomas U. Walter oversaw the General Post Office's expansion from in 1855 to 1866. The General Post Office moved out in 1897. The General Land Office was a tenant from 1897 to 1917. The National Selective Service Board was a tenant in 1919. The Tariff Commission was a tenant from 1932 to 1988. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.

In 2002, Michael Stanton Architecture in partnership with the Kimpton Group was selected by the General Services Administration to convert the building into a 184-room hotel, known as the Washington Monaco Hotel. The Washington Monaco Hotel was honored with the Washington DC Mayor's Award for Historic Preservation, the Business Week / Architectural Record Award, the GSA Heritage Award for Adaptive Use, and the GSA Heritage Award for Conservation and Restoration.

Post office

A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms (such as passport applications), processing government services and fees (such as road tax), and banking services (such as savings accounts and money orders). The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster.

Prior to the advent of postal and ZIP codes, postal systems would route items to a specific post office for receipt or delivery. In 19th-century America, this often led to smaller communities being renamed after their post offices, particularly after the Post Office Department ceased to permit duplicate station names within a state.

Name

The term "post office" or "post-office" has been in use since the 1650s, shortly after the legalisation of private mail service in England in 1635. In early Modern England, post riders – mounted couriers – were placed ("posted") every few hours along post roads at "posting houses" or "post houses" between major cities ("post towns"). These stables or inns permitted important correspondence to travel without delay. In early America, post offices were also known as "stations". This term and "post house" fell from use as horse and coach service was replaced by railways, aircraft, and automobiles.

Post Office (disambiguation)

A post office is a facility that is part of a postal network.

Post Office may also refer to several national postal services, including:

It may also refer to:

See also

Post Office (novel)

Post Office is the first novel written by Charles Bukowski, published in 1971 when he was 50 years old.

Plot

Down-and-out barfly Henry Chinaski becomes a substitute mail carrier; he quits for a while and lives on his winnings at the track, then becomes a mail clerk. Chinaski drifts from place to place, surviving through booze and women, with his biting sense of humor and a cynical view of the world.

Writing and publication

An autobiographical account of Bukowski's years working as a carrier and sorter for the United States Postal Service, the novel is "dedicated to nobody". Post Office introduces Bukowski's autobiographical anti-hero, Henry Chinaski. It covers the period of Bukowski's life from about 1952 to his resignation from the United States Postal Service three years later, to his return in 1958 and then to his final resignation in 1969. During this time, Chinaski/Bukowski worked as a mail carrier for a number of years. After a brief hiatus, in which he supported himself by gambling at horse races, he returned to the post office to work as a sorter.