This exhibition revisits the post office of days gone by with stories of those who worked behind the counters, on the telephone switchboard and in the mail room. It includes exquisite architectural plans, letters of the famous and the anonymous, rare photographs and post office memorabilia.

Drawing on the vast collection of postal records held by the National Archives, the exhibition presents an intriguing look at the role and influence of the post office over the years.

The post office was once the most impressive building in many Australian towns and cities. Often it still is. Its formal, sometimes grand, architecture symbolised its authority as the arm of government responsible for communications throughout the land. The post office had a profound effect on the lives of all Australians. Usually in the centre of town, it was the point where distances to other cities and towns were measured, further reflecting its importance as a landmark.

The National Archives of Australia holds a huge collection of postal records including hundreds of architectural drawings of city and country post offices, bags used to fly mail to Europe via the North Pole, war telegrams, weird items from the dead letter office and hundreds of early photographs. Among the tens of thousands of letters in the Archives collection are fascinating missives from the Chief Censor, from Sir Douglas Mawson, from Winston Churchill to Lord Casey, and from nine-year-old Patrick Maloney to the Army Inventions Directorate, complete with drawings, about his ‘greatest invention in the world’.

The post office was a place where people wanted to be. They came to post and collect letters, make phone calls, send telegrams, do their banking, meet friends and exchange gossip. And it touched everyone’s lives, especially when Australia was at war. For a nation of immigrants, sending and receiving mail was paramount in maintaining links with family and friends in distant lands and in the vast new continent they called home.