Searching for family histories of GPO War Heroes

We are seeking family histories from relatives of Post Office service personnel who gave their lives during the First and Second World War.  

To mark the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day on 8 May 2020, we have teamed up with historian and presenter Dan Snow to invite you to share your family histories of the Post Office heroes who lost their lives during the First and Second World Wars. You can now contribute your family histories to the recently digitised Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance memorial books online. Find out more in the video below.  

To add your family history go to gpowarheroes.org.uk

Post Office at War

The Post Office, known as GPO prior to the 1960s, was once the largest employer in the UK. During both World Wars the postal service was a vital part of the war effort with 70,000 employees fighting in each war. Both men and women of the GPO carried out the essential job of helping to keep communication lines open. Sadly, 12,830 postal employees are recorded to have lost their lives fighting.

Post Office Rifles, c.1915. (2013-0021/3)

About the books

As part of the commemoration of postal workers who gave their lives, James Trezies, a postal worker himself, created a unique record and memorial to his fallen colleagues from the two world wars. Over the period of 3 years in the mid-1950s Trezies researched and hand-wrote the names of each of the fallen on individual sheets of cream wove paper, with each name appearing in alphabetical order.

POFR memorial book at gpowarheroes.org.uk

The completed pages were bound into two volumes, one for each conflict, later donated to The Postal Museum in 2015 by The Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance. These volumes have been recently digitised and made available online with the support of The Post Office Fellowship of Remembrance and BT Archives.

You are invited to access both memorial books at the GPO War Heroes website. Here, you can search for the name of relatives or friends and add details about their lives through a simple form. Submissions will be reviewed by the museum team and added to the website, to bring these volumes of names alive with citizen history.

What information can I add?

We are open to any stories you have of the service personnel listed in the books and welcome all submissions.  

An example is the story of Percy Walter Minns. Percy joined the Post Office as a Postman in 1937, before this he had served in the Royal Navy and would re-join in 1939 to fight in the Second World War. However, on 17 September 1939 in the beginning weeks of the war, Percy died on the H.M.S. Courageous along with over 500 crew members when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.

We’ve now added Percy’s story to the GPO War Heroes website, and we hope you will share your own stories of relatives, so these online memorial books become a valuable resource for family history researchers and the future generations alike.”

Discover more stories uncovered by Curator George in her research into some of the names in the two books.

View the books and add your family history at gpowarheroes.org.uk.