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

But we must leave these personal matters and get back to the buildings. With the acquirement of the telegraphs by the State, and the necessity for devoting an entire building to the London Postal Service, the erection of another big office became imperative. The building known as G.P.O. West was completed in 1873, and for a long time it provided accommodation for the Secretary's, Solicitor's, Engineer-in-chief's, and Central Telegraph Offices, together with a portion of the Receiver and Accountant Generals' Department. In twenty years the need for extension became again pressing, and in 1895 the huge building known as G.P.O. North was opened. G.P.O. West was then given up to the Telegraph Service, and all the administrative offices were transferred to G.P.O. North. But these three immense buildings even in 1894 were by no means large enough to hold all the activities of the Post Office. The Parcel Post, the Money and Postal Order Departments, and the Post Office Savings Bank Department were all housed in other parts of the City of London, and there were overflow premises in streets near St. Martin's le Grand. In this chapter we are only concerned with St. Martin's le Grand, and it is not without regret for the severance of old ties that Londoners witnessed in 1910 the closing of Smirke's fine post office, and the migration of the staff to King Edward's Building, henceforth to be the home of the London Postal Service. Not a hundred years had passed since the move from Lombard Street, and the Post Office had become a small nation of itself. And this body of men and women has for years regarded St Martin's le Grand as the metropolis of their nation, and when they have stood under the big clock which has seen so many mails arrive and depart, they have felt that they were citizens of no mean city.