The General Post Office (GPO) the headquarters for all postal services from the colonial era to date. It is the headquarters of the Ghana Postal Service. The colonial architecture has been maintained unlike others which have been demolished for modern edifices. The road on the side of the structure used to be called Horse Road and opposite it were the offices of Staveley importers and distributors of the British vehicle Commer
It was a thing of joy to write a letter and receive replies to such correspondences.
Gradually
though letter-writing is fading out and most of our youth today are likely to
know that some years past the post office played an important role in the lives
of the Gold Coasters and later in post independent Ghana until the advent of
social media.
Post offices
played crucial roles in communications and its workers were held in high
esteem.
Places
without post offices had alternatives called postal agencies.
Many
individuals and corporate bodies still rent postal boxes for which an annual
fee is payable to the Ghana Postal Service today.
Going to the
post office to buy a postage stamp for the purpose of dispatching letters was a
pastime, as well as a necessity.
In schools
pupils began collecting postage stamps which depicted important landmarks of
the Gold Coast, historical personalities, the flora and fauna. Postage stamp
collection, known as philately, used to be a pastime of many Gold Coasters in
the educated class.
The late
Kwame Nkrumah’s images used to be common on many postage stamps after
independence.
Post offices
were not existing for letters only although that was arguably the most crucial
roles of these structures.
Many persons
in those days were introduced to savings through the post offices’ savings
department. Interested persons could open accounts at such places under certain
conditions.
Account
holders held passbooks in which deposits and withdrawals were made accordingly.
Another
important role of post offices was their use for sending monies around the
country.
Postmasters,
the officials in charge of post offices, were important personalities.
I wonder
whether we shall have postmasters in the country. In Britain the Royal Mail
which relied on earlier on horse carriage and later railway system is not
pronounced or active as it used to be.
The
telephone booths with their striking red colours are having their roles changed
as the importance of post offices even in the origin of the system fades.
An
international organization to which the Gold Coast was a member, International
Postal Union was the hub of the harmonization and standardization of postal
issues around the world. Our postal issues conformed to international standards
even during our colonial period.
Direct mails
were exchanged with the United Kingdom, United States, the Gambia, Sierra
Leone, Nigeria, Togoland and the French Ivory Coast in the Gold Coast days.
Mails destined
for other West African countries and other parts of the world had to be
forwarded through Great Britain according to the Gold Coast Handbook, 1928.
There was
also a direct dispatch and receipt of parcels between the colony and Great
Britain and the British West African colonies.
Such parcels
from and to other countries were received and sent through Great Britain.
Postal rates
were categorized according to their weights and destinations such as whether
they were for inland and to the United Kingdom and British Possessions and
Egypt for which the rate was I penny for I oz of a fraction of it.
There was
provision for postcards, book packets, samples and printed papers.
Correspondences
could also be registered to ensure security.
For
registered mails addressees were notified through a slip with which they
received the letters. Important documents usually went through such channel.
The registration
fee for the United Kingdom, all British Possessions and foreign countries went
for three pence.
Registered
letter envelopes with stand enclosed for the registration fee were supplied at
standard rates.
There was a
thrice weekly overland mail service between all coastal towns from Accra to
Axim according to 1928 records as there were daily week-day services by railway
between (a) Accra and Kumasi (b) Sekondi and Kumasi (c) Tarkwa and Prestea and
(d) Huni Valley and Kade, which collect and deliver at the stations en route.
Letters may
be posted at the traveling post offices on these trains on payment of certain
fees in addition to the ordinary postage.
There was an
opening on the side of the some coaches where letters could be dropped for
onward delivery to the destinations marked on them.
A weekly
service was maintained between Kumasi, Tamale and Kintampo by motor van, except
during the wet season, when carriers were employed on sections of the routes.
Ho in the
Mandated Territories of Togoland, was served by a weekly service. In parts of
the Northern Territories the service was maintained by the Political Service, but
all important places have a service at least once per week.
In the next installment I shall consider telegrams. The receipt of telegrams in those days was scary as they usually conveyed messages about death.
BY A.R. Gomda
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