Newfoundland. Dept. of Posts and Telegraphs : Newfoundland postal service was unofficial in its early years - mail usually given to the captains of ships bound to or from the British colony. In 1805, the Secretary to the General Post Office of Britain approved the Newfoundland Governor's appointment of a Postmaster for the colony, but cautioned that it would not yet be possible to include the island in the British postal system. He did, however, provide a bag for mail addressed to Newfoundland to be sent to Halifax by regular mail packet, though the mail would have to wait in that city for an opportune vessel for forwarding to Newfoundland. The majority of mail to and from the island continued to be unofficial.
The Newfoundland Post Office would not be incorporated into the Imperial Postal System until 1840. Beginning that year, the Island's Post Office, under the Crown, claimed the exclusive right to transmit correspondence in the colony, and its Postmaster was put on the salary of the General Post Office, London.
In 1848, the home authorities decided to grant autonomy to the several postal administrations of the North American colonies, and this took effect in 1851. The Newfoundland Legislature passed an Act that year providing for the establishment and maintenance of additional post offices and internal mail routes. An 1856 Act brought Newfoundland postal rates and regulations into conformity with other colonies of British North America. Adhesive stamps were first issued by Newfoundland in 1857, two years after becoming a Dominion. There were further reforms in 1865 and another Postal Act that year led to compulsory prepayment for postal services. Newfoundland joined the Universal Postal Union in 1879, and the Imperial Penny Post in 1898, a postal union limited to the British Empire.
The latter half of the Nineteenth Century saw great expansion in external and internal routes, by land and sea. Home delivery of mail began in St. John's in 1863. Regular service to Labrador began in 1875, and the opening of a railway between St. John's and Harbor Grace in 1884 ushered in daily service to the communities of Conception Bay. New communications and transportation technologies would come to play a role in the system as well. In 1901, the Reid Newfoundland Co. transferred the local telegraph system to the Postal Department, under control of the Postmaster General. In 1904, the Anglo American Company's monopoly ended, allowing Government telegraph service, previously outside the city, to extend into St. John's. In 1905, arrangements between the Post Office and private sector companies allowed for expansion of telegraphy service in Newfoundland. Beginning in 1910, some post offices also provided telephone service as well, with 86 telephone stations by 1919. Messages received and broadcast from the private Marconi wireless stations on the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts were transmitted internally by telegraphy, and in the case of business from steamers on the Newfoundland coast, this generated revenue for the Department. Regular air transportation of mail was established between Canada and Newfoundland in 1942.
In 1919, the Post Office Department, previously under the office of the Colonial Secretary, became a separate department, with a Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, and the office of Postmaster General became obsolete. This change was gazetted in 1919, and the Legislature passed the Departmental (Posts and Telegraphs) Act 1920, during the 1920 Assembly. In 1949, Nefoundland became a province of Canada, and postal service there became part of the Canadian postal system. The postage stamps and postal history of Newfoundland / Winthrop S. Boggs, with Postage stamps of Newfoundland / Bertram W. H. Poole, Harry E. Huber. - Lawrence, Mass. : Quarterman Publications, c1975. - 186 65 p. : ill. : 24 cm.
The encyclopedia of British Empire postage stamps. - London : R. Lowe. - v. : ill. (partly col.), facsims., maps, ports. : 23 cm.
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