At London Letters our goal is to create beautiful stationery pieces that encourages you to write more letters. We believe that letters play an important role in modern society, and we're not alone in this view.
In 'In Conversation With' we chat with epistolarians of note to find out why they think letters are special, why they think they still matter today, and what drives their passion to promote them.
This month we were elated to be given behind the scenes access to London's Postal Museum! Based in the famous (if you've ever checked the postmark from a London letter) Mount Pleasant right next to Royal Mail's sorting office, the Postal Museum opened its doors back in 2017 to protect and share British postal history. A big highlight of the museum is the Mail Rail which takes you through London's former postal routes that lay beneath the city, but it also demonstrates the beauty and intricacy of one the world's busiest postal systems.
We wanted to learn more about the museum and how it all works, and we were thrilled to be put in touch with Laura Gibbs, Deputy Curator of the museum and postal enthusiast.
"We have a wooden writing box from the Victorian period, when letter writing was surging following the introduction of the first postal stamp in 1840. During this time, etiquette was of high importance and manuals showed people how to write the perfect letter. These instructions often called for a range of postal stationery, and the purpose of the writing box was to contain everything needed to write “proper” correspondence. The box itself is made of wood and is decorated with velvet linings and carved edges. It contains glass inkwells, as well as a letter opener and pens with matching wooden handles. There are also spaces reserved for stamps and paper. The rules around letter writing, combined with the need for an extensive range of postal stationery, meant it could feel like an elitist past time."
And so, pop the kettle on, select some biscuits of choice and read on to hear all about London's postal history, Laura's personal favourite exhibitions and objects from London's postal past, and how she feels about the future of letter writing.
Tell us a little about yourself and your role at The Postal Museum
I joined The Postal Museum as a Deputy Curator in 2023, after completing a PhD in literature at The University of Sheffield. My role at the museum is primarily focused on developing content, which involves a lot of co-curation and working with communities to shape the stories we tell in the gallery space. Day to day, you can also find me researching for upcoming exhibitions or changes to our permanent gallery, writing museum interpretation or keeping up with collections management tasks such as processing donations or answering enquiries from the public.
How has London's postal service been shaped through history?
London’s postal service has a long and complex history spanning over 500 years. It began to take shape in 1516 when Henry VIII appointed the first Master of the Posts, with the aim of establishing a postal network fit for delivering the King’s mail. Over time, demand grew for a public postal service, which came to fruition in 1635 when Charles I opened the first letter office in London. Developments in technology as well as public demand would continue to shape the postal system over the next 400 years. In 1840, postal reform led to the introduction of the world’s first postage stamp, the Penny Black, while also making letter writing much more affordable, charging the sender by weight, rather than distance. This led to a sharp boom in letter writing, increasing the need for a more efficient and organised postage system. To combat this, in 1857 London was divided into ten postal districts designed to speed up mail sorting and delivery. This was the precursor to the postcode, which would be introduced over a century later and rolled out nationwide between 1966-1974. Between 1927-2003 London was also home to the world’s first underground, driverless postal train, which moved mail beneath the streets of the city to improve delivery speeds. Throughout history, London’s postal service has been shaped and defined by public need, changing technology, and shifts in the way we communicate.
Have you ever come across a letter or story in the museum that has resonated with you personally?
I am currently working on a long-term project which involves uncovering marginalised LGBTQIA+ narratives in The Postal Museum collection. While trawling the archives, it became apparent that although we have some interesting objects connected to these histories, our collection is still lacking in this area. As a queer woman myself, it is the absence of these letters and stories that resonates with me. LGBTQIA+ histories have frequently been left out of museum collections due to a number of reasons and letters were often not preserved for people’s own safety. However, developing our archive and collection is important for the future. LGBTQIA+ communities have always been a part of history and it’s our role as museum practitioners to uncover and preserve these parts of the past. As part of the project, we’ll be working with communities to build on our collections and shape how we tell stories of the past and present.
What have your favourite exhibitions been at the museum (either one you've curated or a permanent one you enjoy again and again)?
Our previous temporary exhibition ‘Voices of Resistance: Slavery and the Post in the Caribbean’ was a particularly important project for the museum. The work developed over the course of five years and included resurfacing of a group of letters in our collection, which were found to be correspondence between plantation owners in the UK and their plantation managers in Jamaica. The exhibition was our first large co-curation project, working with partners in St Thomas, U.S Virgin Islands, and community groups in London to tell the wider story of the exhibition. This felt like a highly influential exhibition for the museum, not only for its new content and relationship building, but because of the processes and new ways of working we are now embedding into future projects.
Everyday, ordinary people write extraordinary letters, what do you think makes an everyday letter historically valuable?
I think that a letter’s historical value is determined by whoever choses to keep it. Letters often only end up in museums and archives because families or friends see their value and have stored them away for generations. A letter’s historical value also depends on the information you’re looking for. They can tell us so much about the past, both through their written contents, and the postal markings that appear on the envelope itself.
When we’re accepting letters into the collection, we’re looking for them to speak to aspects of social history that we can’t. Letters are deeply personal and provide a very human perspective on a specific point in time. They also highlight the voices of a range of people, which allows us to have a better understanding of how history has been experienced by different people.
If historians only had our text messages instead of our letters, what do you think would be lost?
Text messages are an entirely different way of communicating – like letter writing, they have their own rules. Texts are intended to be informal and quick. They may enable us to update people on our lives and share important news, but we don’t craft them in the same way.
One important distinction is that texts are digital, rather than tangible. While this means that texts can be sent and received instantly, in the museum space a letter offers us a greater emotional connection to the person whose handwriting it bears. Bent corners, cockled paper, cancellation marks and a well-chosen stamp can also tell us a lot about an object’s history. You can determine where a letter was sent from and connect the letter to its own historical context by looking at the date it was written. A text can’t be scented, illustrated, or embossed like a letter can. You don’t rely on delivery times, which could take weeks, or even months, depending on how far it had to travel. Although texts are an important form of communication, they can’t tell us as much about the past as letters can.
Is there an object or artefact at the museum that really captures the magic of letter writing?
We have a wooden writing box from the Victorian period, when letter writing was surging following the introduction of the first postal stamp in 1840. During this time, etiquette was of high importance and manuals showed people how to write the perfect letter. These instructions often called for a range of postal stationery, and the purpose of the writing box was to contain everything needed to write “proper” correspondence. The box itself is made of wood and is decorated with velvet linings and carved edges. It contains glass inkwells, as well as a letter opener and pens with matching wooden handles. There are also spaces reserved for stamps and paper. The rules around letter writing, combined with the need for an extensive range of postal stationery, meant it could feel like an elitist past time. Today, however, the box speaks more to the magic and intentionality of letter writing. The ability to turn letter writing into an artform through stationary is part of what keeps people coming back to it, and to write a loved one a letter takes time and care.
If you could preserve one message for future generations about the importance of letter writing, what would that be?
Letter writing is special and unique in its form. A letter can be kept and preserved in a way that texts and digital messages can’t, and we often lose our messages when we change phone or need extra storage space. In a world where things can feel disconnected and fleeting a letter offers something more permanent. Letters also preserve handwriting. We keep photographs as mementos of a person, but handwriting is also a beautiful thing to remember someone by as is unique to each person. It would be a shame to lose that.
A massive thank you to Laura and Tom from the Postal Museum for their combined help in answering these questions and providing the lovely photos. Why not book your visit to the Postal Museum today? To explore what's on and plan your visit, head
here.
This is amazing. Just yesterday I dusted off a very plain old wooden “writing” box I had bought about 4 years ago in a garage sale. I used it for storing odds and sods and believed it was probably 1950s It had a label in it so yesterday I looked it up. Turns out it’s victorian ,1842ish. It’s in need of much TLC but what a coincidence !! I will definitely be using it for my letters from now on. Thank you so much for the interview.