Martin J. Daunton is Professor of Economic History and Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

The history of the post office involves many of the most significant themes in the social, economic and political history of Britain. Daunton traces the development of the post office as an institution and as a business in the 19th and 20th centuries and places the debates surrounding its history, performances and failings in a longer historical perspective and in the broader context of British national history.

Foreword Asa Briggs
Acknowledgements
Preface
PART I IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION
1 Rowland Hill: From Radical to Administrator
2 Mail Services
3 Financial Services: Profit or Welfare?
PART II CARRYING THE MAIL
4 Rail and Road: The Inland Mail
5 Sea and Air: The Overseas Mail
PART III WORKING FOR THE POST OFFICE
6 Workers and Wages
7 On the Establishment
PART IV OFFICIALS AND POLITICIANS
8 Centre and Region
9 Autonomy and Control
PART V EPILOGUE: THE POSTWAR WORLD
10 Retreat and Reform in the Postwar World
Notes
Index