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According to Stephen Martin's booklet about Bedlington, the first Post Office was in the Baptist Yard.

On the Facebook group Bygone Bedlington a member, Ian Foster, posted this clip from the BBC archives when the BBC was looking for the 'Market Place' Post office and you will need the volume turned up to listen to this :- https://bbcrewind.co.uk/asset/611257809e2c440020e8f292?selectedLatLng=55.13239860534668%2C-1.5979957580566406&zoom=11 So I checked the journey of the Post Office When it was in the Market Place :- Then it moved to 40 front Street East and was still called the Market Place Post Office :- Where it is now - Google Street View 2024 - 20 Front Street

The many comprehensive trade and residential directories are a great source of information covering such things as businesses, notable residents, tradespeople and local institutions - of which the Post Office is but one - so I spent yesterday (and a fair bit of today) rummaging through those I have access to and I thought a fair place to start would be the 1858 Post Office Directory of Northumberland (later called Kelly’s Directory). Part of the entry for Bedlington, p. 26, looks like this: Bottom left I can see that Bedlington did indeed have a “Post Office”. The Postmaster was John Urwin and letters were received by him, from Morpeth, by mail cart. Middle right we can see that John Urwin was a man of many talents when, under the businesses section, he appears as chemist, druggist and postmaster. I thought that was odd but further rummaging through the GPO and Post Office Museum sites shows that it was more than common to combine the role of ‘Postmaster’ with another profession. It seems that by the 1850s the postal system was so well developed that “no village, however insignificant” was “without its receiving-house”. By 1855 there was a network of almost 10, 500 post offices across the country “(made up of 920 Head Post Offices and 9,578 Sub-Post Offices and Receiving Offices)”. There were, in other words, several types of ‘Post Office’, whereof the receiving house had least responsibility. For them, it sufficed to receive letters from the Head Post Office and display them in a window so that anyone passing could see if they had mail to collect. The Postal Museum (online) describes the role of the Postmaster as “a salaried male official in charge of PO operations and staff within a specific area defined by its Post Town”. The term Postmaster, they add “was often used colloquially to refer to a Sub-Postmaster. Most Sub Postmasters and Sub Postmistresses were not employed by the Post Office. They had a main business, like a shop, which offered Post Office services”. Those who took on this role were often considered central, trusted figures in their community. That explains a lot! To me it seems that John Urwin was a sub-postmaster and, looking quickly through several other small towns in the directories, the terms ‘Postmaster’ and ‘Post Office’ are used fleetingly for what appear to be Sub-Postmasters and Sub-Post Offices – having mail delivered to them once a day from a Head Post Office by whatever means available. In 1830 mail was distributed by train for the first time and when Morpeth got its station, in 1847 (on the London to Edinburgh line), it appears to have become the location of the Head Post Office for quite a large area, including Bedlington, to which it distributed mail for further distribution or, more commonly, for collection. Next, I looked at the nearest census returns (1861) to see where John Urwin lived: There he is, schedule nr 36, right next door to the Grapes Inn. His neighbour on the other side, at schedule nr 35, is the Masons Arms: That all fits in nicely with what we can see on the 1860 OS map below. I can also mention here that the Post Office can be seen to have opened in the Market Place (Sch.nr 17). It is occupied by Robert Dobson who gives his occupation as “Ass’t. Overseer” rather than any sort of Post Office worker. Perhaps this dwelling is above the Post Office. I'll take a break here as one of the grandchildren has just arrived. I'll try to post the rest later.

The 3 booklets note that the first post office was located at Baptist Yard. It seems logical that the town’s first, more primitive post office would have been the location where the towns first telegraph messages were received, (the Victorian equivalent of email or texting.) I can find no reason to believe that the photo is not the Baptist Yard. The following is from ChatGPT. Bedlington’s First Post Office and early Postal Presence in Bedlington · The earliest record of a postal connection for Bedlington shows that in 1834 mail was already being handled for the town via the Morpeth post town. This means Bedlington had recognized mail services in the official British postal system from at least that year, even if there wasn’t yet an independent office building in the town itself Historical timelines compiled by the Six Townships Community History Group, note that a post office with a telegraph system was present by in the Baptist Yard in1858. This suggests that a functioning postal office at least capable of handling mail and telegraph messages existed in the mid-1850s. As the postal system became more organised in the UK, Bedlington’s postal facility was officially incorporated into the national Post Office numbering system. This moved operations from a yard setting into a more formal postal classification. By 1863, Bedlington had its own Railway Sub Office (RSO) designated with the code B75. An RSO was typically a postal facility associated with a railway station or rail mail sorting point, vital during the 19th-century expansion of mail transport via rail. After operating as a Railway Sub Office, the Bedlington postal facility later became an Independent Sub Office in 1905, indicating a more standard and autonomous local post office service. The postal office’s officially identity evolved over the 20th century, sometimes tied to railway-based names as the town and its services shifted: Bedlington Colliery office existed and changed name in the early 20th century. Bedlington Station became a recognised postal identity around 1936 Eventually the Postal Identity was simply “Bedlington”

@Canny lass this dosen't prove anything but I see in John Dawson's Bedlington Timeline he has an entry :- '1858 Bedlington's first post office had a telegraph system installed. It was situated in the Baptist Yard' - but no reference to where the info came from. i don't know if John still runs the Facebook group - Past Times History group - as he kicked me out of the group a couple of years ago because he thought I was an admin, and I wasn't and never had been, on the Ashington group and had deleted his post about selling his books/CDs on the local area.

I doubt if the Sleekurn edition would cover Front Street, West End, Alan. I don't have any of Stephen B Martin's books but I have several by Evan Martin - including the one above, posted by Vic. Evan Martin uses the same photo of 'Baptists Yard' accompanied by almost the same text. Unfortunately he doesn't disclose the source of the photo or the information in the text. He does say that the "The Baptist Yard" contained " Bedlington's first Post Office and in 1858 the telegraph system was installed there." (page 99). I find it somewhat strange that just 2 years after such an investment, the Post Office would move to new premises nearer the Market Place as shown on the 1860 map. It's also worth remembering that maps aren't created overnight. They take several years of survey work before being published, so the location of the PO shown on that map may well have been surveyed prior to 1860. I have to admit that I have wondered if that really is Baptist Yard and if the PO was ever located there.

Mild Cognitive Impairment? Never heard of it! I call that sort of thing ”having a senior moment” - mind you, I’ve been having them frequently since I was 30!

Uk doesn’t have free speech unless it depends on what side of the fence you sit on I’m afraid politically correct ok not politically correct no chance