The Post Office Act 1969 (c.48) is an act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...

that changed the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state mail, postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II of En ...

from a department of state to a public corporation, known as the

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

. It also abolished the office of

Postmaster General of the United Kingdom The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom was a Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain elec ...

. The powers of the Postmaster General were transferred to a new cabinet member, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. The incumbent Postmaster,

John Stonehouse John Thomson Stonehouse (28 July 192514 April 1988) was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician and cabinet minister under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Stonehouse is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death i ...

, became the first Minister of Post and Telecommunications on 1 October 1969. The act created a new public corporation, the Post Office, as the "authority for the conduct of postal and telegraphic business". The corporation was to consist of a chairman and between six and twelve full or part-time members. The chairman was to be appointed by the minister and the other members by the minister following consultation with the chairman. The first Chairman of the Post Office was

Viscount Hall Viscount Hall, of Cynon Valley in the County of Glamorgan, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 28 October 1946 for the Labour politician George Hall. The title became extinct upon the death of his son, the secon ...

. The main powers given to the new body were: *To provide postal services (including cash on delivery services) and telecommunication services *To provide a banking service of the kind commonly known as a giro system and such other services by means of which money may be remitted (whether by means of money orders, postal orders or otherwise) as it thinks fit *To provide data processing services *To perform services for Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, Her Majesty's Government in Northern Ireland or the government of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or for local or national health service authorities in the United Kingdom.

References

United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1969 General Post Office Royal Mail {{UK-statute-stub