London postal district

The London postal district is the area in England of to which mail addressed to the London post town is delivered. The General Post Office under the control of the Postmaster General directed Sir Rowland Hill to devise the area in 1856 and throughout its history it has been subject to reorganisation and division into increasingly smaller postal units, with the early loss of two compass points and a minor retraction in 1866. It was integrated by the Post Office into the national postcode system of the United Kingdom during the early 1970s and corresponds to the E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W and WC postcode areas. The postal district has also been known as the London postal area. The County of London was much smaller, at , but Greater London is much larger at .

History

Origins

thumb|left|Map of the original London postal district in 1857

thumb|The Post Office in St. Martin's Le Grand

By the 1850s, the rapid growth of the metropolitan area meant it became too large to operate efficiently as a single post town. produced a roughly circular area of radius from the central post office at St. Martin's Le Grand in central London. The postal district was divided into two central areas and eight compass points which operated much like separate post towns. Each was named "London" with a suffix (EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, and NW) indicating the area it covered; each had a separate head office.

Abolition of NE and S divisions and retraction of E division

During the 1860s, following an official report by Anthony Trollope, the NE and S divisions were removed from the scheme. In 1866, NE was abolished; large districts transferred to E included Walthamstow, Wanstead and Leytonstone. The eight remaining letter prefixes (excluding all numbers) were not changed. In 1868 the S district was abolished and split between SE and SW.

The NE and S codes were used for the national postcode system, with the NE postcode area covering Newcastle upon Tyne, and the S postcode area covering Sheffield. Places in London's outer boroughs such as Harrow, Barnet, Wembley, Enfield, Ilford, Romford, Bexleyheath, Bromley, Hounslow, Richmond, Croydon, Sutton, Kingston and Uxbridge are therefore covered by parts of twelve adjoining postcode areas (EN, IG, RM, DA, BR, TN, CR, SM, KT, TW, HA and UB) from postal districts of five different counties including Middlesex whose county council was abolished upon the creation of the Greater London Council.

Royal Mail has a seemingly settled policy of changing postcodes only if there is an operational advantage to doing so, unlike the postal services of other countries , and so has no plan to change the postcode system to correlate with the Greater London boundary . In 2003 the then Mayor of London expressed support for revision of postal addresses in Greater London. Similarly, organisations on the fringes of the London postal district have lobbied to be excluded or included in an attempt to decrease their insurance premiums (SE2→DA7) or raise the prestige of their business (IG1-IG6→E19). This is generally futile as Royal Mail changes postcodes only in order to facilitate the delivery of post, and not to illustrate geographical boundaries like the postal services of other countries.

The London postal district includes all of the City of London, Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster. Almost entirely included are Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham and Waltham Forest, except for a few streets. Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Redbridge, and Richmond upon Thames are partly in the postal district. Havering, Hillingdon and Sutton are completely outside the postal district. Sewardstone, in postal district E4 and in the Epping Forest District of Essex is anomalously the only place to be outside Greater London but in the London postal area.

Under early abandoned price differentials it formed the inner area of the London postal region, one now obscure definition of Inner London — the term has however lost economic significance from the consumer viewpoint with the standardisation of Royal Mail pricing. such that a 'desirable' postcode may add significantly to the value of property, and property developers have tried to no avail to have Royal Mail alter the boundaries of postal districts so that new developments will sound as though they are in a richer area, whether in capital, personal income or both.

Parliament, which first established the London postal district, then created the narrower County of London (1889–1965) and replaced it with the much larger Greater London. However, there has been very little change in London postal district boundaries. Being in a London postcode inaccurately gives a broad definition of Inner London.

Presentation

All London postal districts were traditionally prefixed with the post town 'LONDON' and full stops were commonly placed after each character, e.g. LONDON S.W.1.

Use of the full stops ended with the implementation of the national postcode system . In addition, integration of the London postal districts into postcodes means that, as postcodes should be on a separate address line (in line with other postcodes in the national system), the postal district should not now appear after 'LONDON' on the same line, but as the first part of the full postcode.

The presentation of the postal districts on street signs in London is commonplace, although not universal as each borough is individually responsible for street signs . Current regulations date from 1952; they were originally for the County of London, but were extended to Greater London in 1965. The section relating to postal districts reads "The appropriate postal district shall be indicated in the nameplate in signal red".

List of London postal districts

{| class="wikitable sortable vertical-align-top"

|+ List of London postal districts and their postcode districts

! Postcode area

! District

London postal region

The E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W and WC postcode areas (the eight London postal districts) comprise the inner area of the London postal region and correspond to the London post town.

The BR, CM, CR, DA, EN, HA, IG, SL, TN, KT, RM, SM, TW, UB, and WD (the 15 outer London postcode areas) comprise the outer area of the London postal region.

The inner and outer areas together comprised the London postal region.