500th Anniversary of Royal Mail

Royal Mail reaches it’s 500th birthday

The postal service was created in 1516 when Henry VIII knighted the first Master of the Posts, Sir Brian Tuke, although originally only accessible to the king and the royal court, Charles I opened the postal service to the public in 1635, later becoming a public service with the passage of the Post Office Act in 1660.

The postal service underwent significant reforms in the 1800s, many of which were introduced by Rowland Hill who introduced the first true stamp, the Penny Black, in 1840.

In the 20th Century Royal Mail announced important changes, setting up the postcode system in 1959 and introducing mechanisation of post sorting.In recent years the Royal Mail has been sold into private hands and no doubt we will see more major changes.