SHOW MENUVideos – British Pathé Documentary Footage
A range of video material on topics related to the British Post Office or British mails, available in the newsreel archives of British Pathé. The links will open the video in a new window or tab.
Most links are to the copy on the British Pathé site (these are not embeddable), a few are to additional videos found on YouTube.
CONTENTS
Stamps Public Information Films Postal Newsreels Postal Operations Industrial Disputes Military Mail
Black and white
Colour
With sound
No soundStamps
PMG introduces Silver Jubilee stamp and shows processes of manufacture [1935, 1:36] (link)
Music Hall comedian George Robey discusses his love of stamp collecting [1937, 3:07] (link)
England Winners World Cup stamps sell out [1966, 1:01] (link)
New issue of Christmas stamps on sale at Trafalgar Square [1967, 0:43] (link)
Royal Mail reveal new British Bridges postage stamp designs [1968, 0:37] (link)
Public Information Films
Christmas Rush Begins - Post early and often and help GPO [1923, 1:23] (link)
Post Much Earlier This Christmas (due to war conditions) [1940, 2:21] (link)
Leave a Forwarding Address When You Move [1941, 1:32] (link)
Mail Letters and Packages Early for Christmas [1941, 1:21] (link)
Post Early for Christmas [1942, 0:31] (link)
Proper Procedure For Addressing Envelopes [1942, 1:25] (link)
War Bond Savings [1943, 1:25] (link)
Post Haste - Post Early for Christmas [1945, 1:25] (link)
Post Early for Christmas (animated) [1947, 0:57] (link)
Buy Stamps In Books [1948, 0:59] (link)
Use the Correctly Priced Stamp [1948, 1:02] (link)
Female Telephone Operators Recruiting Film [1948, 0:58] (link)
Encouraging People to Clearly and Correctly Address Letters [1948, 0:59] (link)
Postman Nightmare - Post Early for Christmas [1948, 1:00] (link)
Address and Pack Parcels Correctly [1948, 1:02] (link)
Address Letters Correctly (animated) [1949, 0:57] (link)
Wrap Parcels Correctly [1949, 0:52] (link)
Save Through the Post Office Savings Bank [1949, 0:58] (link)
Put the Correct Postage Stamps On! [1950, 0:56] (link)
Better Save Than Sorry (Post Office Savings Bank) [1950, 1:02] (link)
Post Early for Christmas (animated) [1950, 0:58] (link)
Postal Newsreels
Sir Herbert Samuel MP inspects Post Office Rifles [c.1915, 0:55] (link)
GPO handling 110,000 parcels daily (Mount Pleasant) [1922, 1:30] (link)
Telegram typed on teleprinter in London and printed out in Edinburgh [1932, 1:46] (link)
GPO first aeroplane 'Royal Mail' service, to Ottawa Conference [1932, 0:49] (link)
GPO demo to schoolboys: how telegrams sent, mail collected by train [1932, 2:38] (link)
Prince of Wales and PMG visit GPO exhibit at Ideal Home Exhibition [1932, 0:53] (link)
PO Training School Dollis Hill: engineers performing tests on telephones [1932, 3:05] (link)
Ramsay MacDonald opens GPO Telephone Research Station London [1933, 2:19] (link)
PMG shows off new cheaper system for telephones [1933, 1:59] (link)
Reducing air mail fees from 20 to 2 speeds up Empire Mail [1934, 1:08] (link)
Aeroplane taking airmail on new link to Australia [1934, 1:29] (link)
PMG presents the first air mail pennant to Sir Eric Geddes [1934, 1:33] (link)
Miss E.W.Cain becomes first voice of the Talking Clock [1935, 1:09] (link)
PMG launches the first mobile post office, London [1936, 1:18] (link)
Post Early for Christmas: mail sets off on journey to Tristan Da Cunha [1936, 0:53] (link)
Church in Margate used as post office whilst real one is being refurbished [1937, 0:31] (link)
Trainees at Bristol post office school see how kiosks and overhead cables erected [1937, 2:14] (link)
Christmas parcel rush Paddington Station [1937, 1:08] (link)
Post Early 1937 Lord Mayor encourages Londoners to post Christmas mail early [1937, 1:00] (link)
Air Minister inaugurates new airmail service to Australia and New Zealand [1938, 1:11] (link)
Centenary celebrations of Railway Post Offices [1938, 1:31] (link)
Language of Stamps: using stamp position to send messages [1940, 2:05] (link)
Primary school children in school 'post office', Gateshead [1944, 1:33] (link)
Workers at Mount Pleasant try to repack parcels which have come apart [1946, 1:00] (link)
Operation of the GPO underground railway [1948, 1:34] (link)
Postal system's new helicopter delivers mail to countryside [1948, 0:30] (link)
Mail delivered from Cornish mainland to Scilly Isles by boat [1948, 1:32] (link)
Elderly rural postwoman Ethel Carter has just received an MBE [1948, 1:02] (link)
Post Office inside a pub in Rotherhithe, Surrey [1949, 1:11] (link)
17th century Italian paintings adorn post office in Henley, Oxon [1950, 0:41] (link)
Reverend Parkhouse and wife run a sub-post office from the vicarage in Elsted, Surrey [1953, 1:15] (link)
Reverend Wilfred Howarth 'driven by hardship' to work as a postman [1953, 2:37] (link)
Tests in a soundproof room at the Post Office Engineering Research Station [1953, 1:07] (link)
New inventions of PO Research Department: letter sorting machine and speech synthesiser [1956, 2:06] (link)
Exhibit at Bruce Castle Museum charts the history of the Postman [1956, 2:19] (link)
Postman serves communities around Loch Lomond using his boat [1956, 3:41] (link)
Dartmoor Postman delivers mail on horseback [1957, 2:35] (link)
PMG explains the recent rise in postal charges [1957, 1:09] (link)
Artworks commissioned by GPO for posters and telegrams [1959, 3:02] (link)
'ELSIE' sorting machine at Borough, London, and bad addressing [1960, 2:01] (link)
Telegraph Pole Planter machine, Bletchley, Bucks [1965, 2:13] (link)
Harold Wilson and Tony Benn at opening of Post Office Tower [1965, 1:53] (link)
Engineers at work in tunnel under the Post Office Tower [1967, 1:04] (link)
PMG launches Postal Fortnight and visits Norwich sorting office [1967, 1:29] (link)
GPO Training Bletchley: workers show off new equipment [1968, 1:23] (link)
Broken parcels at 'Heartbreak Corner', Mount Pleasant [1970, 0:37] (link)
Rowland Hill commemoration: London to Edinburgh stagecoach [1979, 0:58] (link)
Postal Operations
How mail is transported and sorted on a train [1930, 2:36] (link)
Young people employed at Slough post office over Christmas [1942, 1:25] (link)
Footage of bombed sorting office at Mount Pleasant, London [1943, 3:11] (link)
Handling Christmas parcels that have come undone [1946, 4:28] (link)
Royal Mail goes by helicopter, Mudford, Somerset [1948, 2:40] (link)
New Automatic Letter Sorter in Norwich using postcodes [1959, 1:00] (link)
Europe's most highly mechanised parcel sorting office opened, Leeds [1959, 1:51] (link)
Push-button parcel sorting (additional Leeds footage) [1959, 2:09] (link)
New sorting office, Southampton (opening, operation of machinery) [1966, 4:18] (link)
Council House Post Office - Manning Heath, Horsham, Sussex [1967, 0:41] (link)
New computer system in action at National Giro Bank in Liverpool [1968, 7:03] (link)
GPO Telegraph building automatic telegraph exchange [1968, 1:20] (link)
PMG visits GPO to see how Christmas mail is sorted [1968, 4:09] (link)
Inflatable plastic "igloo" to speed flow of Christmas mail [1970, 1:30] (link)
Damaged Christmas parcels in a postal sorting office [1970, 3:19] (link)
Post Office switchboard with telephone girls at work [1971, 4:35] (link)
Last day of preparation before decimalisation [1971, 1:03] (link)
Industrial Disputes
"Work to Rule": big pile-up of mail "grave concern" [1962, 0:49] (link)
"Work To Rule", second week: 2½m letters held up in London [1962, 1:08] (link)
"Work to Rule": surprise peace-move offer and People's League [1962, 1:07] (link)
One-day strike expected: emergency mail plans prepared [1964, 1:20] (link)
Mail piles up in London as union meets government [1964, 1:06] (link)
Postal workers strike over loss in overtime pay, rally in Hyde Park [1969, 01:22] (link)
Lord Hall speaks after dismissal as PO Chairman, workers walk out in protest [1970, 01:55] (link)
Strike threatens to cut postal and telephone services [1971, 2:40] (link)
British Post Office goes on strike, scenes of unopened mail etc [1971, 1:31] (link)
Scenes before and during strike, switchboard operators at work etc [1971, 3:23] (link)
Mount Pleasant during GPO strike, unopened mail sacks [1971, 6:22] (link)
Post Office workers at mass meeting during the strike [1971, 5:56] (link)
Britons improvise ways to beat the postal strike ("pirate posts") [1971, 1:35] (link)
Lord Lichfield's "pirate post" ("Rickshaw") in operation [1971, 1:19] (link)
Postal workers go back after 47-day national strike [1971, 1:06] (link)
Military Mail
Footage of BEF Army Post Office and advice on sending mail [1939, 2:20] (link)
Men of the Signal Corps work to repair damage to telephone wires [1940, 0:44] (link)
A British Army Field Post Office at work [1940, 3:56] (link)
Mail arriving and soldiers reading mail from home in the desert [1941, 2:08] (link)
Airgraph Letters: new system delivers mail from soldiers in Middle East faster [1941, 1:11] (link)
American Army Post Office distributes mail to GIs in Northern Ireland [1942, 0:54] (link)
How Christmas cards and Airgraphs find their way home from Italy [1943, 1:23] (link)
Mail being sorted at Army Post Office in Nottingham [1944, 3:49] (link)
