The Post Office and the Royal Mail The Public/Private Face of Britain in Decline

In the UK, people are very familiar with Postman Pat and his cat - the friendly postman who knows you and where you live, and you know him.  Sadly, in most areas of the UK, he exists no more.

The Royal Mail has a remarkably long history, stretching back more than 500 years. Its story also mirrors the development of the British state itself, moving from a royal communications network to a public institution, then to a state-owned corporation, and finally into private and then foreign ownership.

Royal Mail can trace its roots back to the time of King Henry VIII and the 1500s. In 1516, it was created so that royal and government correspondence could be carried rapidly across the country. Later, in 1635, Charles I opened the service to the public.

By Victorian times, the postal service had become expensive and complicated, while the demands of the Industrial Revolution made reform increasingly necessary. And so Royal Mail was transformed into a mass communication system.

In 1969, it changed from what was essentially a government department into a statutory public corporation, before being reborn in 2013 as a privately owned commercial enterprise.

Finally, in 2025, it was bought by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, bringing Royal Mail into foreign ownership and transforming it into what it is today. The dreams depicted in the chart for its inception now broken.

I have personally experienced this decimation, prompting this blog.

But is Royal Mail simply another declining British institution?

Or is it an echo of something much bigger, of what is happening at the very heart of Britain?