The Press and the Post Office

Abstract

IN the course of an address to the Post Office Telegraph and Telephone Society given at King George V Hall, St. Martin's le Grand, London, on November 18, by Mr. J. H. Brebner, press officer of the Post Office, it was emphasised that the development of the Press has been closely allied to the progress of the Post Office. The Post Office can claim a great share in the development of newspapers, for from its establishment, six postal officials entitled ‘clerks of the roads' were the first newsagents in Great Britain, and were solely responsible for the distribution of newspapers to all parts of the United Kingdom. These ‘clerks of the roads' derived some £8,000 a year from the sale of newspapers, £6,000 of which was used by the Post Office for the payment of pensions and increases of salaries to Post Office servants who were inadequately paid. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the private telegraph companies maintained a press bureau which supplied the newspapers with general news. The newspapers, however, desired to organise their own press agencies on the ground that they were the better judges of the news the public required. Since the telegraph companies would not give up their press bureau, the newspaper proprietors joined the growing agitation for the nationalisation of the telegraph system. The Electric Telegraphs Bill was passed in 1868, and the State accordingly acquired the telegraphs. A special ‘News Division’ was created at the Central Telegraph Office, London, and was maintained until 1930, when the extended use of the telephone by the Press, and the leased telegraph lines to press agencies and newspapers, rendered this section with its special press wires unnecessary. The Press has taken full advantage of each step in the progress of communications brought about by the Post Office, and the rapid development of the telephone service, since its acquisition by the State in 1912, has enabled the speedier transmission of news not only from all parts of Great Britain, but also to and from all parts of the world.