Post Office records released on Ancestry.co.uk
Ancestry.co.uk have released a new collection of employment records from the British Post Office, the âBritish Postal Service Appointment Books, 1737-1969â. If you had an ancestor who worked for the post office, this can reveal some information about their working life.
I knew my great-grandfather, Frank Vickery Bradford, worked for the post office in Kingston upon Thames, so when the collection was released, I searched for him. Luckily he has an unusual middle initial so finding him was quite easy. I found that he first started as an Assistant Postman in 1915, when he would have been 17 years old. This was about the time he signed up in the RAF for the First World War. Then in 1917 he switched to being a âS C & Tâ which I found out was a Sorting Clerk and Telegraphist. He remained in this position until his death in 1960.
Interestingly, having remembered from a census return that my great-grandfather's brother, Arthur, was also working for the post office as a young man, I searched for him and found that he also started as an Assistan Postman aged 17 in 1912, but then went on to become a full postman in 1914.
