Data Processing and Technological Change: The Post Office Savings Bank, 1861-1930

Technology and Culture

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 1-32

  Campbell Kelly, Martin ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0032351198     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3107002     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. There is no separate census tabulation for clerks, but workers in commercial occupations included about 70 percent clerks, the remainder being shop workers, salesclerks, and miscellaneous nonmanual workers.
2. J. R. Beniger, The Control Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), p. 24. See also M. U. Porat, The Information Economy: Definition and Measurement (Washington, D.C., 1977).
3. J. R. Beniger, The Control Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), p. 24. See also M. U. Porat, The Information Economy: Definition and Measurement (Washington, D.C., 1977).
4. Guy Routh, Occupations of the People of Great Britain, 1801-1981 (London, 1987), p. 55.
5. M. Campbell-Kelly, "Large-Scale Data Processing in the Prudential, 1850-1930," Accounting, Business and Financial History 1 (1992): 117-39, and "The Railway Clearing House and Victorian Data Processing," in Information Acumen, ed. L. BudFrierman (London, 1994), pp. 51-74.
6. M. Campbell-Kelly, "Large-Scale Data Processing in the Prudential, 1850-1930," Accounting, Business and Financial History 1 (1992): 117-39, and "The Railway Clearing House and Victorian Data Processing," in Information Acumen, ed. L. BudFrierman (London, 1994), pp. 51-74.
7. P. H. Gosden, Self-Help (London, 1973), p. 12.
8. D. Morrah, A History of Industrial Life Assurance (London, 1955).
9. H. O. Horne, A History of Savings Banks (Oxford, 1947), pp. 386-87.
10. Gosden, pp. 227-28.
11. C. R. Perry, The Victorian Post Office (London, 1992); M. Daunton, Royal Mail (London, 1985).
12. C. R. Perry, The Victorian Post Office (London, 1992); M. Daunton, Royal Mail (London, 1985).
13. Daunton, pp. 84-92.
14. W. Lewins, A History of Banks for Savings (London, 1866), p. 328.
15. For detailed descriptions of the accounting system, see "Description of the System," 1903, 1908, 1914, 1948, Public Record Office, NSC 9/1435.
16. W. J. Gordon, "A Day at Our Savings Bank," The Leisure Hour, November 1886, pp. 755-62, 756.
17. "Women at Work: V. - The Post Office Savings Bank," Lady's Pictorial, March 31, 1888.
18. "The Post-Office Savings Bank - II," Sunday Telegraph, September 15, 1901.
19. Ibid.
20. Gordon, p. 757.
21. The booklet is in "Instruction Manuals - General Correspondence Branch," 1888-1939, Public Record Office, NSC 9/1167.
22. "Premises Occupied by the POSB, 1861-1923," Public Record Office, NSC 9/ 769.
23. "Decentralisation, POSB, 1892," Public Record Office, NSC 9/292.
24. The introduction of a charge for cross-entries no doubt would have discouraged the rise in their number. However, the introduction of a charge for withdrawing a depositor's own money would have been unthinkable in the thrift movement and would have encountered massive political resistance. With the single exception of telegraphic withdrawals, the POSB and the TSBs were always free at the point of use.
25. F. I. Scudamore, memorandum, January 1873, Post Office Archives, POST 75/ 4.
26. P. Johnson, "Class Law in Victorian England," Past & Present no. 141 (November 1993): 147-69.
27. H. Fawcett, Aids to Thrift (London, 1881).
28. Gordon (n. 13 above), p. 759.
29. Horne (n. 7 above), pp. 182-98.
30. P. Johnson, Saving and Spending: The Working Class Economy in Britain 1870-1939 (Oxford, 1985), p. 115.
31. Good secondary sources are A. Clinton, Post Office Workers (London, 1984), and M. Zimmeck, "Jobs for the Girls: Expansion of Clerical Work for Women, 1850- 1914," in Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England, 1800-1918, ed. A. V. John (Oxford, 1986).
32. Good secondary sources are A. Clinton, Post Office Workers (London, 1984), and M. Zimmeck, "Jobs for the Girls: Expansion of Clerical Work for Women, 1850-1914," in Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England, 1800-1918, ed. A. V. John (Oxford, 1986).
33. GB Civil Service Inquiry Commission, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Session 1875, vol. XXIII, pp. 1-450.
34. Post Office Savings Bank, Report on Committee of Inquiry into the Condition of the Department (London, 1875), Post Office Archives, POST 75/28.
35. J. L. Kieve, The Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic, History (Newton Abbot, 1973).
36. Civil Service Inquiry Commission, p. 314.
37. "Women at Work" (n. 14 above).
38. "Economical Changes of System," 1891-1906, Public Record Office, NSC 9/ 753.
39. "The Post-Office Savings Bank - II" (n. 15 above).
40. K. Lipartito, "When Women Were Switches: Technology, Work, and Gender in the Telephone Industry, 1890-1920," American Historical Review 99 (1994): 1075-111.
41. J. Yates, Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Baltimore, 1989), and "Evolving Information Use in Firms, 1850-1920: Ideology and Information Techniques and Technologies," in Bud-Frierman (n. 4 above), pp. 26-50.
42. J. Yates, Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Baltimore, 1989), and "Evolving Information Use in Firms, 1850-1920: Ideology and Information Techniques and Technologies," in Bud-Frierman (n. 4 above), pp. 26-50.
43. "Forms Committee," 1913-14, Public Record Office, NSC 9/429.
44. Although the bank did not maintain a "perpetual balance" system, this rarely required a clerk to calculate an exact balance when validating a withdrawal. The clerk merely had to ensure that there were sufficient funds to meet the withdrawal, which normally could be done by inspection.
45. "Women at Work" (n. 14 above).
46. "Burroughs Adding Machines," 1903, Post Office Archives, POST 30/1017A; "Historical Statement of Negotiations . . . Relating to Machine Duties in the POSB," 1927, Public Record Office, NSC 9/636.
47. "Burroughs Adding Machines," 1903, Post Office Archives, POST 30/1017A; "Historical Statement of Negotiations . . . Relating to Machine Duties in the POSB," 1927, Public Record Office, NSC 9/636.
48. "Proposals for Loose-leaf and Card Ledgers," 1909-10, Public Record Office, NSC 9/645.
49. Ibid.
50. Charles Letts, Modern Office Methods (London, [1906?]), p. 7.
51. L. R. Dicksee, Office Machines and Appliances (London, 1917).
52. "Committee to Enquire into the Organisation and Staffs of Government Offices," 1918, Public Record Office, NSC 9/646.
53. W. Desborough, A Manual of Duplicating Machines (London, 1920) and Office Machines, Appliances and Methods (London, 1921). In 1931, Desborough was appointed managing director of Powers Samas, one of the two British-owned punched- card machine companies. He was instrumental in enabling the company to capture and sustain a 50 percent market share in Britain and the Empire. For more on Desborough, see M. Campbell-Kelly, ICL: A Business and Technical History (Oxford, 1989), pp. 75-76.
54. W. Desborough, A Manual of Duplicating Machines (London, 1920) and Office Machines, Appliances and Methods (London, 1921). In 1931, Desborough was appointed managing director of Powers Samas, one of the two British-owned punched- card machine companies. He was instrumental in enabling the company to capture and sustain a 50 percent market share in Britain and the Empire. For more on Desborough, see M. Campbell-Kelly, ICL: A Business and Technical History (Oxford, 1989), pp. 75-76.
55. W. Desborough, A Manual of Duplicating Machines (London, 1920) and Office Machines, Appliances and Methods (London, 1921). In 1931, Desborough was appointed managing director of Powers Samas, one of the two British-owned punched-card machine companies. He was instrumental in enabling the company to capture and sustain a 50 percent market share in Britain and the Empire. For more on Desborough, see M. Campbell-Kelly, ICL: A Business and Technical History (Oxford, 1989), pp. 75-76.
56. "Committee on Machine Posting and Loose-Leaf Ledgers," 1924-26, Public Record Office, NSC 9/617.
57. Post Office Savings Bank, Ledger-Posting by Machines (London, 1928), p. 2.
58. M. Dintenfass, The Decline of Industrial Britain, 1870-1980 (London, 1982), pp. 13-14.
59. D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline," 1870-1970 (Cambridge, 1996); B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick, eds., The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1987).
60. D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and the British Industrial "Decline," 1870-1970 (Cambridge, 1996); B. Elbaum and W. Lazonick, eds., The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1987).
61. B. Collins and K. Robbins, British Culture and Economic Decline (London, 1990); M. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980 (London, 1988).
62. B. Collins and K. Robbins, British Culture and Economic Decline (London, 1990); M. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980 (London, 1988).
63. "Re. Typewriters, 1899," Public Record Office, STAT 2/12.
64. M. Campbell-Kelly, "Information Technology and Organizational Change in the British Census, 1801-1911," Information Systems Research 7 (1996): 22-36.
65. "Use of Calculating Machines in the Public Service," 1917, Public Record Office, STAT 38/1.
66. Post Office Savings Bank (n. 49 above), p. ii.
67. D. de Wit, The Shaping of Automation: A Historical Analysis of the Interaction between Technology and Organization, 1950-1985 (Rotterdam, 1994).