London postal district: Encyclopedia II - London postal district - History

London postal district - History

London postal district - Origins

The first system, of ten sectors identified by letters, was introduced in 1858; the numbered subdivisions were a war-time measure and date from 1917. The 1917 subdivisions remain important, because they form the first part of the two-part modern postcode (so N1 1AA is an address in the old N1 district), and because they continue to be used by Londoners to refer to their districts.

The London postal districts are organized by sectors, as follows, and then numbered alphabetically within their sectors.

• In central London, WC and EC (West Central and East Central).
• In the rest of London, N, NW, SW, SE, W and E.
• In parts of outer London the districts are subdivisions of 63 other post towns and were introduced at the same time as the other UK postcodes.

London postal district - District sequence

The numbering system appears arbitrary on the map: for example, NW1 is close to central London, but NW2 is a long way out. This is because, within each sector, they were numbered by first assigning the number 1 to the closest district to the centre, and then the rest of the numbers were assigned alphabetically by the name of the district they represented; in the SE and SW districts two alphabetical lists were added.

The London postal districts were created solely to help sort and deliver mail and therefore rarely coincide with the boundaries of London boroughs (and were created before even the older, smaller metropolitan boroughs).

London postal district - Relationship to London boundary

Initially the postal districts covered an area much larger than the London County Council boundaries of 1888 with 44 of the 119 districts outside the County of London boundaries such that places such as Leyton in Essex, Ealing in Middlesex, Totteridge in Hertfordshire, West Heath in Kent and Barnes in Surrey were covered by the London postal area.

In 1965 the creation of Greater London caused London's boundary to expand to include these places officially as well as postally, however the new boundary went far beyond these postal districts to include places that were not in the London postal area. Royal Mail did not follow this change and expand the postal area to match. It now has a policy of only changing postcodes if there is an operational advantage to them and has no plan to change the postcode system to match up with London's boundaries.

Places in London's outer boroughs such as Enfield, Ilford, Beckenham, Richmond and Croydon are therefore covered by parts of twelve adjoining postal areas (EN, IG, RM, DA, BR, TN, CR, SM, KT, TW, HA and UB).

London postal district - Significance

It is common to use postal districts as placenames in London, particularly in the property market: a property may be described as being "in N11". They are a convenient shorthand for social status, such that a 'desirable' postcode may add significantly to the value of property, and property developers have pressed for the boundaries of postal districts to be altered so that new developments will sound as though they are in a richer area. Some groups on the fringes of the London postal districts lobby to be excluded or included in an attempt to decrease their insurance premiums (see SE2) or raise the prestige of their business (see IG1). This is generally futile as the Royal Mail only changes postcodes in order to facilitate the delivery of post.

London postal district - NE and S

There are no London postal districts labelled "NE" or "S". These were in the initial division but were later removed as they were considered unnecessary. NE became part of the E sector in 1866 and S was divided between the SE and SW sectors in 1868. These two codes have since been applied to Newcastle Upon Tyne and Sheffield respectively.

London postal district - Trivia

All Head District Sorting Offices, except London South East, were connected by and had stations on the Post Office Underground Railway.

The BBC soap opera EastEnders is set in the fictional postal district of E20.

Sewardstone in Essex is the only place to be outside the Greater London boundary but within the London postal area.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki