Inland Telegram Rates 1870-1982

Electric telegraph systems were in use commercially from the late 1830s, and expanded considerably in scope after they were nationalised under Post Office control from 1870. For the next century the service continued to be offered, although subject to considerable decline as the telephone system became more widespread.

On 1st October 1981, the various telecommunications aspects of the Post Office were split from the postal aspects with the formation of British Telecom as a completely separate public corporation, and this included the telegram service. In early 1982 a "Telemessage" service was introduced (a message dictated by phone or telex, charged in blocks of 50 words, and sent by first class post, guaranteed to arrive the following day), and from October this completely replaced the inland telegram service.

Fees for telegrams were normally paid by means of postage stamps attached to or embossed on the form on which the telegram was written (except in 1876-81 when special telegraph stamps were used). These were supposed to be pulped as security scrap, but significant numbers of fine used stamps were removed from them for the philatelic market, and occasional complete forms (and some large batches of them) have survived and found their way onto the collector market. Hence a listing of the charges may be useful.

Telegrams were charged according to the number of "chargeable words", which could differ from the number of actual words as there were complicated rules for such things as multi-word names that might or might not be counted as one word, and how many digits in a number constituted a word. Fortunately, as the number of chargeable words was written on the form, it should not be necessary to know the rules to interpret a rate. For the details, see the Post Office Guides.

The table below covers UK inland telegrams only (while postal rates to the Republic of Ireland were the same as UK inland in this period, this did not apply to telegrams). There were quite a number of paid services in connection with telegrams, and the columns below cover the following:

• Ordinary – a standard telegram transmitted to the delivery office and delivered by a telegraph messenger.
• Sunday – extra fee charged when a telegram was handed in on a Sunday.
• Priority – extra fee charged for priority treatment at all stages, using a special envelope.
• Greetings – extra fee for using artistically designed forms of a celebratory nature. There were a wide range of designs, including special types for weddings and Valentines, some described as "deluxe".
• Overnight – reduced fee for a telegram accepted on condition that its transmission and/or delivery could be deferred, usually until the following morning.

Where no rate is shown, that service was not offered in that period (for example, Greetings telegrams were suspended during World War II and not available again until 1950).

There were other fees for services such as reply paid telegrams, business reply telegrams, and telegrams to multiple addresses which are not shown – a line had to be drawn somewhere! Also omitted are a few special rates to offshore islands in the very early years.