The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

A very interesting but little-known branch of Post Office work is that connected with the army and navy. In time of peace the army at home and abroad is served by the Post Office in the same way as the ordinary public. Correspondence posted in this country for the regiments stationed abroad is sent to and delivered through the agency of the civilian post offices of the colonies and dependencies. During great campaigns, however, it becomes necessary to organise special services to meet the needs of the larger bodies of troops engaged. The first occasion in modern times in which certain postal servants donned fighting kit and subjected themselves to military discipline in order to conduct the postal service in the field was in 1882, upon the outbreak of the Egyptian War. The men-sorters and telegraphists were enrolled from the 24th Middlesex Volunteers, a regiment composed entirely of Post Office servants, and by royal warrant they were constituted the Post Office Corps. The corps consisted of two officers and one hundred men specially transferred from the regiment to the Army Reserve for service abroad, and of these a detachment forty-four strong served with the expeditionary force in Egypt and conducted the entire postal service of the campaign. The second reserve corps, consisting of telegraphists, and organised on similar lines to the Post Office Corps, was created within the regiment in 1884, under the name of the Royal Engineer Telegraph Reserve, to supplement the staff of the regular Royal Engineer telegraphists during the war. A detachment from this corps and one from the Post Office Corps served in the Sudan campaign of 1884-85.