Ancestry.com. UK, Royal Mail Pension and Gratuity Records, 1860-1970 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2024.
Original data: Pension and Gratuity Records 1860-1970. London, England: The Royal Mail Archive at The Postal Museum.
If you can’t find a record, consider the length of your family member’s service. Pensions were available after ten years of service. If your family member left Royal Mail, they may not have been eligible for pension. The UK, Postal Service Appointment Books, 1737–1969 collection is an excellent starting tool for finding your family member’s service dates.
Collection in context
Pensions have been available for civil servants in the United Kingdom as early as the seventeenth century, but the first pensions were only paid to the more eminent positions as a means to deter corruption. All civil servants began receiving pensions in 1810, including postal workers. Pension records in this collection were subject to the Superannuation Act 1859.
Pensions were granted to civil servants who served for ten years or more upon reaching retirement age or needed to retire for medical reasons. Gratuities were benefits paid prior to retirement.
If a person died while working for Royal Mail, gratuity was paid to their next of kin. Marriage gratuities were paid to women employed by the civil service who were forced to retire upon marriage, a practice that wouldn’t be abolished until 1946 for the Home Civil Service and 1973 for the Foreign Civil Service. The Post Office Act 1969 saw the Post Office become a public corporation, and its staff were no longer considered civil servants.