Postal counties of the United Kingdom
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The postal counties of the United Kingdom, now known officially as the former postal counties, were subdivisions of the UK in routine use by the Royal Mail until 1996. The raison d'être of the postal county (as opposed to any other kind of county) was to aid the sorting of mail by enabling differentiation between like-sounding post towns. Since 1996 this has been done by using the outward code (first half) of a postcode instead.

Boundaries

In many places the postal counties did not match the counties of the United Kingdom. There were several reasons for this:

Places part of a post town in another county

Firstly, many of the approximately 1,500 post towns straddled county boundaries and the postal addresses of all places in such areas included the postal county of the post town regardless of their actual location.

In a written answer in the House of Lords in 1963, Lord Chesham, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Transport estimated that about 7% of towns and villages with a post office lay in a postal county different to their geographical county. He went to explain that: "Postal addresses are in effect routing instructions for Post Office sorters and, in settling what they should be, the main concern is to ensure a quick and efficient service at reasonable cost. The general aim is to align postal boundaries with those of the counties and where this has not been done it is usually because road and rail communications are such that mail can be got more quickly and efficiently to and from certain villages, et cetera, via a neighbouring county than via the county in which they are situated. Alignment of postal and county boundaries in these instances would mean either a poorer postal service for the villages, et cetera, in question or prohibitively heavy additional costs."^[1]

Examples, usually consisting of small villages near to county boundaries, include:

London

London postal district shown (in red) against the Greater London boundary

Secondly, the London postal district, created in 1858, did not conform to any county boundaries and did not coincide with either the County of London in 1889 (which was somewhat smaller) or Greater London in 1965 (which was much bigger). Addresses in the London post town (an area of 241 square miles (620 km²)^[4] or 40% of Greater London) did not include a county; however, the rest of Greater London (60% of its area) formed parts of other post towns in the postal counties of Surrey, Kent, Essex, Middlesex and Hertfordshire.

For example, the London Borough of Barnet had sections in the London postal district (e.g. Golders Green) and in the Middlesex and Hertfordshire postal counties (e.g. Edgware and East Barnet); with the NW7 postcode district touching the Greater London boundary to divide the three sections. Anomalously, Sewardstone, outside Greater London in the Epping Forest district of Essex, is included in the London postal district.

Changes in 1965 and 1974

Thirdly, the Royal Mail adopted some, but not all, of the local government reforms of 1965 and 1974/1975. This caused postal counties in some areas to reflect boundary changes, while in other areas they did not.

Although the Post Office did not follow the changes of the London Government Act 1963 with respect to the outer London suburbs, it did reflect the move of Potters Bar from Middlesex to Hertfordshire. In contrast, Middlesex remained part of the postal address for Staines and Sunbury, which had transferred to Surrey. The 1960s saw an increase in the number of addresses the Post Office delivered to, but a decrease in the volume of mail sent which caused a significant drop in revenue and an increase in operational costs.^[5] Furthermore, retaining the existing postal county boundaries was explained as largely due to cost reasons. The Times pointed out that this might cause confusion, noting that in future "children will no doubt wonder why their address should refer to a county in which they have never lived", but that "some people [...] want the name of Middlesex preserved because of its historical associations".^[6]

In non-metropolitan areas of England, the postal counties broadly followed the changes of 1974 but there were differences such as Hereford and Worcester, which was not used as a postal county because of the risk of confusion with the respective post towns.

The 1974 changes were also followed with regard to most metropolitan areas, so Sunderland was referred to by the Royal Mail as "Sunderland, Tyne and Wear" not "Sunderland, County Durham". Greater Manchester, however, was not adopted as a postal county. Humberside was, but the two parts of Humberside, being on opposite sides of the estuary of the River Humber, were counted as "North Humberside" and "South Humberside" respectively. The Post Office was considering its policy in January 1973,^[7] and in November 1973 noted that "Greater Manchester" would be unlikely to be adopted because of confusion of the Manchester post town, but that Avon was likely to be introduced.^[8]

In Wales, the 1974 changes were adopted by the Post Office, so that Rhuddlan was no longer postally in Flintshire, but in Clwyd. In Scotland, however, the postal counties were not changed. Thus Alva, despite being in the Central Region after 1975, was still postally in Clackmannanshire.

1974–1996 postal counties

(listed with official abbreviations, if any)

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

Usage

The postal county was omitted for 110 of the larger towns and cities and places where the county name was derived from the post town. These post towns were:

ABERDEEN                ABOYNE               ANTRIM
ARMAGH                  AYR                  BANFF
BATH                    BEDFORD              BELFAST
BERWICK-UPON-TWEED      BIRMINGHAM           BLACKBURN
BLACKPOOL               BOLTON               BOURNEMOUTH 
BRIGHTON                BRISTOL              BROMLEY 
BUCKINGHAM              BUSHEY               CAMBRIDGE
CARDIFF                 CARLISLE             CHELMSFORD
CHESTER                 CLACKMANNAN          COLCHESTER
COVENTRY                CREWE                CROYDON
DARTFORD                DERBY                DUMBARTON 
DUMFRIES                DUNDEE               DURHAM
EDINBURGH               ELLESMERE PORT       EXETER
FALKIRK                 GLASGOW              GLOUCESTER
GUERNSEY                HEREFORD             HERTFORD
HOUNSLOW                HUDDERSFIELD         HULL 
INVERNESS               IPSWICH              ISLE OF MAN
ISLES OF SCILLY         JERSEY               KINROSS  
KIRKCUDBRIGHT           LANARK               LANCASTER
LEEDS                   LEICESTER            LINCOLN
LIVERPOOL               LONDON               LONDONDERRY
LUTON                   MANCHESTER           MILTON KEYNES
NAIRN                   NESTON               NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
NORTHAMPTON             NORWICH              NOTTINGHAM
OLDHAM                  ORKNEY               OXFORD
PEEBLES                 PERTH                PETERBOROUGH
PLYMOUTH                PORTSMOUTH           PRESTON
READING                 REDHILL              RENFREW
ROMFORD                 SALFORD              SALISBURY
SELKIRK                 SHEFFIELD            SHETLAND
SHREWSBURY              SLOUGH               SOUTHAMPTON
SOUTHEND-ON-SEA         STAFFORD             STIRLING
STOKE-ON-TRENT          STRATHDON            SUNDERLAND
SWANSEA                 SWINDON              TORQUAY
TWICKENHAM              WALSALL              WARRINGTON
WARWICK                 WATFORD              WOLVERHAMPTON
WORCESTER               YORK

Elsewhere popular usage did not always follow the postal counties as prescribed by Royal Mail. In those places where the postal county differed from the traditional or administrative county, popular usage varied either because of ignorance or defiance.

Modernisation

The Royal Mail has ceased to use the postal counties as a means of sorting mail following the modernisation of their optical character recognition equipment in 1996. Instead, using postcode defined circulation, the outward code (first half) of the post code is used to differentiate between like-sounding post towns. The former postal county (as they are now known) for each post town as it was in 1996 is still held on record by the Royal Mail but where new post towns are created they will not be assigned to a former postal county. Where it is possible, and it is proven there is demand, Royal Mail will consider changes to their address data. Under their code, however, changes to county data will not be considered.^[11][12]

1990s UK local government reform

In 1996 some non-metropolitan counties in England such as Avon and Humberside were abolished. This reform caused further changes to the locations in which the former postal counties (which the Royal Mail will not change) did not match up to the geographic counties. Hereford and Worcester had not been adopted as a postal county in 1974, so the reconstituted Herefordshire and Worcestershire broadly matched the former postal counties. Once the 1990s UK local government reform was complete, the areas in England that did not match the former postal counties became:

In both Scotland and Wales local government was also reorganised in 1996, such that in some places counties reverted to the traditional names once again (e.g. Pembrokeshire), but in others the post-1974 names were retained (e.g. Powys, Highland). As in England, the formal postal counties are unchanged by Royal Mail.

Amendment for Rutland

After a lengthy and well-organised campaign,^[13] and despite a code of practice which excludes amendments to former postal counties,^[12] the Royal Mail agreed to create a postal county of Rutland in 2007. This was achieved in January 2008 by amending the former postal county for all of the Oakham (LE15) post town and part of the Market Harborough (LE16) post town.^[14] In contrast, Seaton Delaval residents had unsuccessfully campaigned in 2004 to be removed from the former postal county of Tyne and Wear.^[3]

Flexible addressing policy

Since the Royal Mail's change to postcode-defined circulation, a county no longer forms part of any postal address.^[11] As part of a "flexible addressing policy", as long as the post town and postcode is included, users can also add a county, which will be ignored in the sorting process. Some forms continue to include a section for a county and this is sometimes compulsory.

A supplement to the Postcode Address File (which is the definitive source of correct postal addresses), the Alias File, identifies local, colloquial and "postally-not-required" details in addresses that have been added by individuals and organisations. The county record part of the file holds "traditional" (e.g. Gloucestershire), "former postal" (e.g. Avon) and "administrative" (e.g. South Gloucestershire) county data.

References

External links

• Information from Royal Mail about PAF and Alias data
• Some details of postal counties including Scotland