Huddersfield Post Office Archive

This collection contains records produced by Huddersfield Post Office, including administrative records, such as staff records, discipline and maintenance books, as well as photographs.

Created by Huddersfield Post office.

The Post Office as we know it was created by Royal proclamation by Charles I, in 1635 declaring a postal service to be created for his subjects. Then by 1711 the post office act starts the newly unified system of post across the country. By 1803 it is documented that the local village of Lockwood had a post office run solely by James Tillburn who then passed the business on to his grandson in 1846, by this time the Lockwood's sole post office employee was responsible for the deliverance of mail to an area of 3 by 2 miles, including deliverances to Huddersfield. By 1844 the Huddersfield post office employed 6 people and was located in a one room apartment on New Street, owned by William Moore, who amongst his postmaster duties sold life and fire assurance and tea. By 1914 the post office had moved to Northumberland street to the newly completed head post office building, to where it resides now, which was considered to be highly advanced for its time.

Sources: Central archives in Huddersfield.

Charles Sikes was a member of a local Banking family, who set up the Post office savings Bank in 1861. This began in 1850 when Sikes sent an anonymous letter to the Leeds Mercury newspaper calling for working organisations to set up a saving bank. Sikes then drafted another open letter to the chancellor of the exchequer calling for the same scheme in 1859. This intern led to support from the post office establishment, causing Sikes to propose a post office saving bank measure that gained support from the then Chancellor William Gladstone. This Bill was finally implemented in 1861 with the first bank being set up in the same year and Sikes being chosen as the first person to make a deposit, he chose the Huddersfield branch to do so.

Source: http://www.gbps.org.uk/displays/po-savings-bank/index.php

Magazine article found in HPO/8

The Postmasters for the period covered by the records were:

William Moore,1832- 1861,

Tomas Ruddock,1861 - 1873,

C.S, Smith March 1874-1892

R.W. Mason 1892-1903

T.F. Walker 1903-1907

Col. G.W. Treble 1908-1918

Major J. Parker Ekins 1919-1922

H. Tredgold 1922-1925

T. Rofe 1926-1928

H.E. Austen 1928-1938

E. Roddis 1938-1946

C. Crosby 1946-1951

F.J.C. Hoare 1951-1956

H.M.M Morrow 1956- 1960

Source: notes in HPO/8

Arranged into ten groups, group 1-3 in box 1, 4-7 in box 2 and 8-10 in box 3

These records are available to look at by appointment at the Kirklees office of West Yorkshire Archive Service. West Yorkshire Archive Service are now members of the County Archive Research Network (CARN) readers' ticket scheme.

No restrictions other than Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

None destroyed

None expected

Royal Mail archives at British Postal Museum & Archive