This series contains records of activities of the Department arising specifically from the War. Included is correspondence to the Department of Defence and Department of the Army relating to war preparations, and also papers dealing with wartime matters of concern to the Postmaster General's Department such as censorship, radio services, manpower, emergency telephone and telegraph arrangements, military post offices, prisoner of war mail, radio communication for civil defence, and air raid precautions.

The majority of the files relate to the supply, testing and installation of equipment and facilities for the armed forces.

A few later post-war files relate to the restoration of telegraph services with various countries and matters such as mails for Occupation forces in Japan.

Most files contain papers that were classified at the time as Secret or Confidential. The "W" or "war" system of registering correspondence files was established at the outbreak of hostilities with Germany in 1939. An official memorandum of 13 January 1943 signed by L.B. Fanning, Acting Director-General of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, substantiates this. It was written in reply to an enquiry by the Chairman of the Committee on Collection and Preservation of Historical Records, Prime Minister's Department, and is found on file W131 of this series. The memorandum states: At the outbreak of hostilities ... arrangements were at once made to segregate all papers pertaining to war matters from the main correspondence records of this Department and a special sub-section of the Records Section was established to deal with these papers.

Papers on most files date from World War II, with a few being top-numbered from CRS B3030, Correspondence files, annual single number series, 1901-1952, and a few having been created in the post-war period; for example, file W225 contains papers dating from 1915. Top numbering from the "G" correspondence series continued during the war period; for example, file W.225 has 1940 papers from the "G" series (e.g. G40/7376 and G40/11243), with the first paper marked "W.225" being dated 28 February 1941. Similar evidence of on-going top-numbering is observable on other files (e.g. W.226/1). The exact date range of the series is uncertain. Many papers marked with "W" numbers within oval departmental stamps were presumably annotated in this way at a later date.

In a random survey of several files, it was noted that the earliest papers with definite evidence of contemporary file notations were dated 14 April 1939 (see files W.6 and W.18); on those papers the "W" number had been typed as part of the original document. It is unlikely that the series was commenced much earlier than that date.

Entries in the extant registration booklets for the series (CRS B2948) date from 19 October 1934, but it is considered that entries pre-dating the date range quoted for the correspondence files were made retrospectively when individual files were raised and earlier papers from the "G" series were top numbered into them.

The closing date range of the series is quoted as 6 June 1950, the latest date of an entry noted on inwards correspondence card (CRS B2949, for file W.18), although some later papers have been added to files (e.g. 1950 papers on file W.289). The files were given a "W" prefix, denoting that they held information associated with the wartime activities of the Department, followed by a primary subject number.

Subsequent files for a particular subject were allocated secondary numbers in sequence as they were raised; for example W120 was the file number for "Army Signalling Equipment Priorities", and other files were raised up to W120/1932, for 1932 other files relating to army signalling, as they were required.

Control records for the series consist of an Authorised list of subject classifications (CRS B2947), cards (CRS B2949) and registration booklets (CRS B2948).

The files do not have folded protective covers, but consist of bundles of papers pinned to a backing sheet, most with a movement/title sheet attached to the top of the bundle. This front sheet consists of a printed Postmaster-General's Department form with the file title written in ink across the top section and the file number written in the top right hand corner within an oval purple stamp marked "Central PMG's Dep't" and "W". Most files are several centimetres in thickness.

Commonwealth Records Series B2947 is an intellectual construct comprising records currently physically held as series MP721/1. Individual record items should be requested under the number MP721/1 according to the series number shown in the RecordSearch item entry or in paper finding aids.

Subsequent series unregistered

Classified correspondence files, multiple number "500" series, 1948-

Summary heading

Previous accession system transfers

MP721/1