Dressed to Deliver at The Postal Museum
Dressed to Deliver: an exhibition on the changing uniform of the postal worker and what it tells us about our changing world.
Guest edited by Deborah Nash
These are unhappy times for the nation’s postal service. Revelations over the vindictive treatment of sub-postmasters by the Post Office, and OfCom’s £5,600,000 fine imposed on Royal Mail last year for its failure to meet first- and second-class delivery targets, present a picture of institutional blindness and inefficiency.
At its zenith, Royal Mail was delivering 4 million letters a day and the sound of them dropping onto the door mat was part and parcel of everyday life. Today, its operations are under scrutiny and the service may be reduced to five or even three days a week – in some areas this is already the case. The esteem with which the organisation was once held as a democratising force for the good allowing, at its inception, correspondence to circulate around the country between city, town and village and rich and poor, at the cost of a one-penny postage stamp, has greatly and perhaps irrevocably declined. Sadly, the postie’s uniform no longer guarantees a trustworthy and reliable service.
So it was with surprise that I found myself bursting into laughter at Dressed to Deliver at London’s Postal Museum, a bright cheerful exhibition exploring the evolution of the postie’s uniform from the 1780s to the present day.
Image: Smartness Satisfies Poster 1959. Image: © Royal Mail Group curtesy of The Postal Museum. Image above: 19th century Mail Coach Guard and Current Royal Mail Uniform. Image: © The Postal Museum.
The cause of my merriment was a letter dated 1978 from Mr Tilling of the Scottish Postal Board to the Postal Headquarters in London on the subject of the Queen Elizabeth II gilt buttons on the new uniforms of Scottish postal workers. “These buttons will not be worn in Scotland,” Mr Tilling writes firmly. “Do let me know what you would like me to do next (apart from expire).” The controversy swirling around a simple sartorial fastener was in the fact that Elizabeth II was not the second Elizabeth to be queen in Scotland. She was the first. Her Tudor namesake, Elizabeth I, ruled over England and Wales but not Scotland, and it was Mary Queen of Scot’s son, James, who became the first monarch of all three countries following the death of the Tudor queen. When a pillar box appeared in Scotland bearing the Elizabeth II cypher it was promptly blown up.
The matter was resolved by issuing buttons inscribed with GPO (General Post Office) to Scottish posties, but the conflict would not have arisen had the Scottish Postal Board been consulted. It is a feature of this exhibition that it was often postal workers themselves who pushed for changes in their uniform.
Image: Postwomen one of whom is wearing 'Camerons' (trousers named after Jean Cameron), 1941. Image: © Royal Mail Group, courtesy of The Postal Museum.
Take, for example, the intrepid 20-year-old postie, Jean Cameron. Footage from the 1940s shows Cameron’s daily 15-mile route to deliver mail in Glen Clova, in the Highlands. There she is, cycling along icy roads, cheerfully crossing the River South Esk, on what looks like a zip wire, and there she is again, clambering over snow-clad hills and across fields to reach isolated farmsteads. Heroic and athletic are the words that come to mind. In 1941, she wrote to the Post Office demanding the right to wear trousers. The Second World War had seen an uptake in female postal workers and the inclusion of trousers in their uniform initiated by Jean Cameron’s request proved an instant hit, with 500 pairs ordered in the first two months. The blue serge trousers with red piping down the sides were named ‘Camerons’ after the postie.
From my own childhood, I remember Mrs Gibbs, who delivered letters on a bicycle, dressed in grey trousers and white blouse, cycling between villages, browned by the sun, robust and loquacious, a pleasing presence in our day.
Image: 'All weather' uniforms, a PR image which accompanied new uniforms in 1984. Image: © Royal Mail Group courtesy of The Postal Museum.
Increasingly, garments for postal workers began to reflect the multiplicity of roles available to its employees - from delivery to drivers and indoor workers – and their needs and identities. In 1960, Sant Singh Shattar became the first postman to wear a turban on duty. Only a few years previously, an application from a fellow Sikh had been rejected on the grounds he would have a turban instead of the standard post office cap and ID badge. Sant Singh Shattar also faced this barrier, but his cause was taken up by the Commonwealth Relations Office and his case re-examined. As the uniform had changed in the intervening years, the ID badge appearing on the jacket instead of the cap, Sant Singh Shattar’s application was finally accepted. Saris and maternity dresses for postal workers followed in the 1990s.
Image: Sari Material 1990s. Image: © The Postal Museum.
“Nothing is more constant than change,” stated a former head of the Royal Mail in a radio interview recently. Dressed to Deliver certainly proves the point in the startling range of its displays, from a mail guard’s frock coat dating c.1875-1882, to a unisex ‘Resistance’ polo shirt, tech-fit base layers, gilet, walking shorts and trainers dated 2022. In between these two post-box-red uniforms lies well over a century’s worth of sartorial innovation. At the outset, in the late 18th century, mail guards travelled by coach and were armed to protect the post from highwaymen. Their scarlet frock coat teamed with a gold-braided top hat, armed with time piece and blunderbuss at the ready reminds you of a Redcoat, the instantly recognisable (and easily dyed) 19th century attire of British soldiers, similar to those worn by the royal regiments today.
By 1840, mail coaches were being replaced by trains, and colours shifted from scarlet to dark blue for letter carriers, as red fabrics were difficult to keep clean. Meanwhile, the reverse colour journey was played out in pillar boxes: the first were green but hard to spot in rural locations and were subsequently painted an eye-catching red.
Image: A Postman of the City of London artist Samuel Hancock 1911. The painting shows a blue uniform and double peaked shako hat with red piping. On his left breast, he is wearing four good conduct stripes, and on his collar. He has his number EC447. Image: © The Postal Museum.
Most memorable on my visit were the school children rowdily trying on frock coats and tossing top hats about, with a community engagement wall dedicated to their designs, imagining the postie’s uniform in the future. One featured an outfit Batman would be proud to wear. Sussex-based postie, Phil Labelle, would surely approve. He has a collection of uniforms amassed during his thirty years of service, and in a video interview, he describes his rebellious move towards a skirt during one hot summer in the early 2000s.
Image: 'Resistance' Women's Gilet, featuring multiple pockets and reflective details for visibility, from a new range of mix & match uniform pieces, 2021. Image: © The Postal Museum.
Although sometimes difficult to navigate chronologically, with a confusing colour scheme for the different decades, Dressed to Deliver demonstrates the ongoing modernisation of a uniform which, arguably, has kept up with the times rather better than the systems in place at Royal Mail and the Post Office.
Dressed to Deliver is on show at The Postal Museum until September 2024.
Guest edited by Deborah Nash
These are unhappy times for the nation’s postal service. Revelations over the vindictive treatment of sub-postmasters by the Post Office, and OfCom’s £5,600,000 fine imposed on Royal Mail last year for its failure to meet first- and second-class delivery targets, present a picture of institutional blindness and inefficiency.
At its zenith, Royal Mail was delivering 4 million letters a day and the sound of them dropping onto the door mat was part and parcel of everyday life. Today, its operations are under scrutiny and the service may be reduced to five or even three days a week – in some areas this is already the case. The esteem with which the organisation was once held as a democratising force for the good allowing, at its inception, correspondence to circulate around the country between city, town and village and rich and poor, at the cost of a one-penny postage stamp, has greatly and perhaps irrevocably declined. Sadly, the postie’s uniform no longer guarantees a trustworthy and reliable service.
So it was with surprise that I found myself bursting into laughter at Dressed to Deliver at London’s Postal Museum, a bright cheerful exhibition exploring the evolution of the postie’s uniform from the 1780s to the present day.
Image: Smartness Satisfies Poster 1959. Image: © Royal Mail Group curtesy of The Postal Museum. Image above: 19th century Mail Coach Guard and Current Royal Mail Uniform. Image: © The Postal Museum.
The cause of my merriment was a letter dated 1978 from Mr Tilling of the Scottish Postal Board to the Postal Headquarters in London on the subject of the Queen Elizabeth II gilt buttons on the new uniforms of Scottish postal workers. “These buttons will not be worn in Scotland,” Mr Tilling writes firmly. “Do let me know what you would like me to do next (apart from expire).” The controversy swirling around a simple sartorial fastener was in the fact that Elizabeth II was not the second Elizabeth to be queen in Scotland. She was the first. Her Tudor namesake, Elizabeth I, ruled over England and Wales but not Scotland, and it was Mary Queen of Scot’s son, James, who became the first monarch of all three countries following the death of the Tudor queen. When a pillar box appeared in Scotland bearing the Elizabeth II cypher it was promptly blown up.
The matter was resolved by issuing buttons inscribed with GPO (General Post Office) to Scottish posties, but the conflict would not have arisen had the Scottish Postal Board been consulted. It is a feature of this exhibition that it was often postal workers themselves who pushed for changes in their uniform.
Image: Postwomen one of whom is wearing 'Camerons' (trousers named after Jean Cameron), 1941. Image: © Royal Mail Group, courtesy of The Postal Museum.
Take, for example, the intrepid 20-year-old postie, Jean Cameron. Footage from the 1940s shows Cameron’s daily 15-mile route to deliver mail in Glen Clova, in the Highlands. There she is, cycling along icy roads, cheerfully crossing the River South Esk, on what looks like a zip wire, and there she is again, clambering over snow-clad hills and across fields to reach isolated farmsteads. Heroic and athletic are the words that come to mind. In 1941, she wrote to the Post Office demanding the right to wear trousers. The Second World War had seen an uptake in female postal workers and the inclusion of trousers in their uniform initiated by Jean Cameron’s request proved an instant hit, with 500 pairs ordered in the first two months. The blue serge trousers with red piping down the sides were named ‘Camerons’ after the postie.
From my own childhood, I remember Mrs Gibbs, who delivered letters on a bicycle, dressed in grey trousers and white blouse, cycling between villages, browned by the sun, robust and loquacious, a pleasing presence in our day.
Image: 'All weather' uniforms, a PR image which accompanied new uniforms in 1984. Image: © Royal Mail Group courtesy of The Postal Museum.
Increasingly, garments for postal workers began to reflect the multiplicity of roles available to its employees - from delivery to drivers and indoor workers – and their needs and identities. In 1960, Sant Singh Shattar became the first postman to wear a turban on duty. Only a few years previously, an application from a fellow Sikh had been rejected on the grounds he would have a turban instead of the standard post office cap and ID badge. Sant Singh Shattar also faced this barrier, but his cause was taken up by the Commonwealth Relations Office and his case re-examined. As the uniform had changed in the intervening years, the ID badge appearing on the jacket instead of the cap, Sant Singh Shattar’s application was finally accepted. Saris and maternity dresses for postal workers followed in the 1990s.
Image: Sari Material 1990s. Image: © The Postal Museum.
“Nothing is more constant than change,” stated a former head of the Royal Mail in a radio interview recently. Dressed to Deliver certainly proves the point in the startling range of its displays, from a mail guard’s frock coat dating c.1875-1882, to a unisex ‘Resistance’ polo shirt, tech-fit base layers, gilet, walking shorts and trainers dated 2022. In between these two post-box-red uniforms lies well over a century’s worth of sartorial innovation. At the outset, in the late 18th century, mail guards travelled by coach and were armed to protect the post from highwaymen. Their scarlet frock coat teamed with a gold-braided top hat, armed with time piece and blunderbuss at the ready reminds you of a Redcoat, the instantly recognisable (and easily dyed) 19th century attire of British soldiers, similar to those worn by the royal regiments today.
By 1840, mail coaches were being replaced by trains, and colours shifted from scarlet to dark blue for letter carriers, as red fabrics were difficult to keep clean. Meanwhile, the reverse colour journey was played out in pillar boxes: the first were green but hard to spot in rural locations and were subsequently painted an eye-catching red.
Image: A Postman of the City of London artist Samuel Hancock 1911. The painting shows a blue uniform and double peaked shako hat with red piping. On his left breast, he is wearing four good conduct stripes, and on his collar. He has his number EC447. Image: © The Postal Museum.
Most memorable on my visit were the school children rowdily trying on frock coats and tossing top hats about, with a community engagement wall dedicated to their designs, imagining the postie’s uniform in the future. One featured an outfit Batman would be proud to wear. Sussex-based postie, Phil Labelle, would surely approve. He has a collection of uniforms amassed during his thirty years of service, and in a video interview, he describes his rebellious move towards a skirt during one hot summer in the early 2000s.
Image: 'Resistance' Women's Gilet, featuring multiple pockets and reflective details for visibility, from a new range of mix & match uniform pieces, 2021. Image: © The Postal Museum.
Although sometimes difficult to navigate chronologically, with a confusing colour scheme for the different decades, Dressed to Deliver demonstrates the ongoing modernisation of a uniform which, arguably, has kept up with the times rather better than the systems in place at Royal Mail and the Post Office.
Dressed to Deliver is on show at The Postal Museum until September 2024.