This popular and highly used series documents the establishment and history of approximately 3800 post offices across New South Wales. 

A large proportion of the records within this collection date from the mid to the late nineteenth century. The earliest documents on the files generally relate to the establishment of post offices and include petitions from inhabitants of towns requesting a post office in the area, and responses from the General Post Office (GPO) which sought to determine whether the post office was justified. 

The GPO's response usually took the form of a double sided inquiry sheet which asked questions such as the distance to the nearest existing post office, the proximity of the town to an existing mail line, recommendations for the holder of the position of Postmaster, and suggestions as to where the post office would be located. These early pages on the files are generally very informative about the inhabitants and composition of many New South Wales' towns. 

The files generally go on to discuss the terms of appointment of the towns' postmasters and postmistresses, and contain correspondence about their pay and conditions. The records in this series also contain information about post office accommodation matters, as well as financial details about post office operations. The later portions of the files also generally contain statistics about the volume of mail passing through the state's various post offices. These statistics were used to determine the viability of each of the state's post offices.

Details of any other significant events occurring within a particular post office are also generally recorded within these files. Such occurrences include the death or dismissal of a postmaster or mistress or complaints about postal services.

All items from series SP32/1 have been listed on the Archives' item level database. 

Administrative information

Archives file number:     RWS14/1/135