Postal Orders of Great Britain - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

was the first country in the world to issue postal order

Postal Order

In the United Kingdom , a Postal Order is used for sending money through the mail. In the United States, this is known as a Postal money order...

s on 1 January 1881. They were the brainchild of the President of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, John Skirrow Wright

John Skirrow Wright

John Skirrow Wright was one of the prominent pioneers and social improvers of the 19th century in Birmingham, England. He was involved in many aspects of Birmingham's mid-Victorian life that were for the benefit of its citizens including the General Hospital, the Chamber of Commerce, The School of...

which was to enable poorer people to buy goods and services by post, as they were unlikely to have bank accounts. The rich had bank accounts and could write cheques. A delegation of the Birmingham Chamber went to the annual meeting of Chambers of Commerce in London and John Skirrow Wright presented the idea, complete with all the details on how it would work including all the Postal Order values proposed. At first London bankers were against the idea, thinking it would affect their businesses, and the idea was rejected. However, eventually the bankers realised that the people who would use postal orders were not their customers and therefore no threat to their business. Consequently, at the Annual Meeting a year later John Skirrow Wright presented the idea again and this time it was accepted and the Postal Order system was started exactly as Skirrow Wright and Birmingham Chamber had proposed.

In 1881, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom

included Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

but in 1922, three-quarters of the island became independent as the Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

and began its own independent issues of postal orders. Since 1922, British postal orders have been issued in the four parts of the UK (England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

). In the 1880s and 1890s, the issue of British postal orders spread to most parts of what was then the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. As time went on, the issue of British postal orders declined in most parts of the British Empire, later the British Commonwealth. There are still a number of countries that are issuing British postal orders.

Postal orders as legal tender currency

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

and World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the government declared British postal orders legal tender as cash to save paper and labour.

Decline in postal order use

Since 1945, the use of postal orders has been declining, as postal orders were a popular form of payment for lottery tickets, in events such as the football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

pools and for payment for bets on horse racing

Horse racing

Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

. The postal orders that were issued from a football pools machine have a perfin

Perfin

In philately, a perfin is a stamp that has had initials or a name perforated across it to discourage theft. The name is a contraction of perforated initials or perforated insignia...

ned series of numbers and letters. Occasionally, these turn up from time to time. These are sought after by postal order collectors.

Promotional postal orders

Some companies have issued postal orders with the permission of the Royal Mail

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

as part of their promotions. Such companies include Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...

and Cinzano

Cinzano

Cinzano is an Italian brand of vermouth, a brand owned since 1999 by Gruppo Campari. It comes in four versions:*Cinzano Rosso, which is amber-coloured;*Cinzano Bianco, which is white and drier than Rosso, yet still considered a sweet vermouth;...

. These postal orders are classified in a sub-group of their own. They are called Promotional Postal Orders (or PPO for short). They were all issued throughout Great Britain, with one notable exception, the Fife Council PPO's, only issued in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, Scotland, which were used to pay for shopping at the stores that were part of the scheme. The Fife Council PPO's were introduced in 1996 and were discontinued on 31 March, 2001.

In late 2002, the Royal Mail decided to introduce a series of gift postal orders. These have been retained. Since then, the Royal Mail has introduced a series of postal orders which can be used for purchases at Argos

Argos (retailer)

Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...

stores, however these have since been withdrawn.

Postal orders in literature

The 1946 play The Winslow Boy
The Winslow Boy
thumb|1st edition cover The Winslow Boy is an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne.-Performance History:...

by Terence Rattigan

Terence Rattigan

Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...

, and the two subsequent films based on it, features the story of a schoolboy trying to clear his name over the theft of a five shilling postal order. The story was loosely based on the real life George Archer-Shee

George Archer-Shee

George Archer-Shee became a British cause célèbre in 1910 when the issue of whether he stole a five shilling postal order ended up being decided in the High Court....

case.

Resurgence and revamp

Postal orders are now becoming increasingly popular as a form of payment, thanks to the auction websites such as eBay

EBay

eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

, and it is much safer for the seller than paying by cheque

Cheque

A cheque is a document/instrument See the negotiable cow—itself a fictional story—for discussions of cheques written on unusual surfaces. that orders a payment of money from a bank account...

, as postal orders cannot bounce. The vendor does not have to wait for clearance, which happens with cheques.

In April 2006, the postal order system underwent a revamp, enabling individual post offices to print postal orders on demand in any value from 50p through to 250 pounds, instead of the previous 50p to 20 pounds fixed range. As a result, single postal orders can now be purchased for odd denominations such as 66p or 99p, rather than having to make up odd amounts through a combination of pre-printed denominations and affixed stamps

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

. This has made British postal orders similar to the money order

Money order

A money order is a payment order for a pre-specified amount of money. Because it is required that the funds be prepaid for the amount shown on it, it is a more trusted method of payment than a cheque.-History of money orders:...

s issued by post offices in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and many other countries.

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