Post Office: Overseas Mails Organisation: Conventions and Articles of Agreement

This record series comprises copies (mainly published and submitted to the House of Commons) of conventions and articles of agreement made between the Government and/or The Post Office of the United Kingdom and overseas governments and/or postal administrations, for; the exchange of mails and the regulation of these services. The conventions lay down the offices of exchange, despatch and delivery times, weight and dimension limits and postage rates. POST 46/57 relates to the formation of the Universal Postal Union in 1875, POST 46/62 relates to the establishment of an Imperial Penny Postage, introduced in 1898 and POST 46/63-65 concerns the payments of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company for the conveyance of mail.

Please see The Postal Museum's online catalogue for descriptions of individual records within this series.

The material is arranged alphabetically in order of country

The covering dates on the bindings are often inaccurate and therefore have been altered in the catalogue entries.

For records on Money Orders see POST 27

For air mail agreements see

For records on the operation of the packet boat service see POST 43

For records on Overseas Parcel Post see POST 49

For contracts between the Postmaster General and shipping companiesand individuals for the conveyance of mail overseas see POST 51

Topics

Canals and river transport

Communications

An overseas mail service has been in operation since 1580, before the establishment of the public postal service. A staff of ten Royal Couriers carried letters on affairs of State, or on the business of 'particular merchants' to Dover. At Dover, the postmaster provided horses for returning couriers and vessels for those passing through to Calais, vessels.

In 1619 the office of Postmaster General for Foreign Parts was created. The mail service with foreign countries was not large in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The foreign Post Office, as it was called, had a staff of only four men in 1660. At the time of the Napoleonic wars, the Foreign Office business was barely accounting for 10% of the total net income of the Post Office. Postal connections with other countries were irregular and difficulties were experience in the capturing of letters arriving in ships and in the collection of profits. From the 1690s the government attempted to resolve these problems and extend the service by means of convention with the postal administrations of other countries for the establishment of an overseas service. The Overseas Air Mail service came into operation in 1917, thus after this date the conventions are between The Post Office and overseas postal administration for the transportation of mail by air.