Post Office: Registered Files: DF Series

This series comprises Post Office headquarters files which, as a time saving wartime measure, were recorded under a Decimal Filing system, instead of the previously used"Minuted" system. Like the minuted series, the files cover a diverse range of subjects and registry staff continued to add files to the series after it had nominally been closed in 1949: consequently, records date up to 1967. Subjects covered in the papers include inland and overseas telecommunications during and after wartime, the issue of stamps, and Post Office administrative records, such as those covering the introduction of the Decimal Filing system.

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

The current series arrangement for both DF and Minuted files reflects that adopted by the Post Office registry. Separate series reflect the four different minute series which were in use until 1921: Packet Services, England & Wales, Ireland, and Scotland (POST 29 - POST 32). The amalgamation of the minute series into one general series in 1921 is likewise followed in the current arrangement of the papers (POST 33). A separate series contains the papers filed under the Decimal Filing system in wartime (POST 102). Following the decentralisation of the registry in 1955, the previous minuted papers series was closed and a new series set up for the listing of both the centralised registry's files and the decentralised registries' files from 1955 (POST 122). In addition, there are two series which reflect later creations of series to accomodate papers which had, for various reasons, not been assimilated into the main series (TCB 2 and POST 121)

The Decimal Filing system was a simple system based on numbers being allocated to particular subjects or headings, with decimal extensions of these numbers being allocated to subheadings: eg 10 = Postal Packets, 100 = Letters (Ordinary). No record volumes were created for the Decimal Filing series; papers were filed in batches according to the common serial number allocated for a particular subject.

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The system of "minuting" papers submitted to the Postmaster General by the Secretary to the Post Office for a decision (ie numbering the papers, and separately copying a note of the paper as a "minute" into volumes indexed by subject) was introduced in 1793. It remained in use by the Post Office Headquarters registry until 1973.

Until 1921, several different major minute series were in use: that concerned with the Packet Service (POST 29), and those concerned with England and Wales (POST 30), Ireland (POST 31) and Scotland (POST 32). From 1790 until 1841, parallel "Report" series were in use by the Secretary (POST 39 & 40).

In 1921, the several different minute series were replaced by a single all-embracing series (POST 33). This was suspended in 1941 as a wartime measure when a Decimal Filing system came into use (POST 102), but was resurrected in 1949. In 1955 the registration of Headquarters files began to be decentralised under several local registries serving particular departments, although the "minuting" of cases considered worthy of preservation, and the assimilation of later cases with earlier existing minuted bundles, continued until 1973.