The Postal Museum’s Archive Achieves National Accreditation

The Archive here at The Postal Museum has been awarded Archive Service Accreditation. We look after almost 400 years of social communications history through our collections, including the Archive of Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd.

The Postal Museum’s Archive Repository © The Postal Museum

What does this mean?

Accredited Archive Services ensure the long-term collection, preservation and accessibility of archive heritage. Accreditation is the UK quality standard which recognises good performance in all areas of archive service delivery. Achieving accredited status demonstrates that The Postal Museum has met clearly defined national standards relating to management and resourcing; the care of its unique collections and what the service offers to its entire range of users.

What’s in the Archive?

The Royal Mail Archive, cared for by The Postal Museum, is designated as being of outstanding national importance by the Arts Council. Its 1636-1969 records and General Post Office Film Unit are on the UNESCO Memory of the World UK Register.

The historic records held in the archive deal with essential bits of everyday life through and beyond the delivery of mail. They are full of stories of how we communicated, and the innovation, development and hard work needed to keep us all in touch. All aspects of this unique history, from employment records to stamp artwork, are held within the archive, one of the oldest business archives in the world. The collections are varied, covering subjects from social history to transport, pensions to publicity material.

Gavin McGuffie, Senior Archivist commented:

“I’m delighted we’ve achieved the Archive Service Accreditation standard. It’s great to be able to demonstrate external recognition of the quality, strength and innovative approach of our archive service and our facilities at The Postal Museum. Great credit should go to the whole archive team and those we work with at the museum for their contribution to this success.”

The Archive Service Accreditation Panel noted that:

“[The Postal Museum’s] transformative building project had been a step change for both customer experience and collections management. We were glad to see the service looking ahead now that the move has been completed to continue to build and improve their access and collections management. Among other strengths, we noted the great online offer and the innovative work with varied audiences. We welcomed the effective integration of the archive collections into a real variety of access opportunities.”

Want to see it for yourself? Find out more about visiting the Archive at The Postal Museum.