On No. 87 Newgate St., to the left beyond Christ Church Passage, is a tablet recording that Sir Henry Irving served his time there as a publisher's clerk; and on No. 78, just beyond the Post Office Tube Station and King Edward St., is an old relief (below the second floor window) of William Evans and Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the gigantic porter and dwarf of Charles II. (see Scott's �Peveril of the Peak'). This is believed to be a shop-sign and to be near its original position. A large part of the block bounded by Newgate St., Giltspur St., St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the street called St. Martin's-le-Grand (a little farther east) is occupied by the premises of the General Post Office. The name St. Martin's-le-Grand commemorates the church, college, and sanctuary of St. Martin (founded in 1056 and dissolved in 1548) and, as the old public General Post Office stood from 1829 till 1913 on the east side of this street, is often used as a synonym for the chief postal authorities, as �Scotland Yard� is employed to designate the police. In King Edward St., which runs north from Newgate St., skirting the east end of Christ Church, is the imposing main facade of KING EDWARD BUILDING, the General Post Office proper, in which all the usual postal business with the public is transacted. This large classical edifice in reinforced concrete, by Sir Henry Tanner, was opened in 1910. The statue of Sir Rowland Hill, in front of it, is by Onslow Ford (1882).�On the other (east) side of King Edward St. stands the GENERAL POST OFFICE NORTH (1890-95), containing the offices of the Postmaster General and his Administrative Staff, and connected by a flying bridge over Angel St. with the GENERAL POST OFFICE WEST (1870-73). The latter is mainly occupied by the Central Telegraph Office, the largest telegraph office in the world, with world-wide telegraphic and wireless connections.
The Sorting Offices, the Telegraph Instrument Galleries, and the Roman Bastion, as well as the principal London telephone exchanges, may be visited on the recommendation of a banker or other well-known citizen.
About 13,000 officials are employed in the General Post Office buildings in the St. Martin's-le-Grand district. Other departments of the service are the Post Office Savings Bank at West Kensington; the Postal and Money Order Office at Holloway; the Mount Pleasant Office, for inland letters, returned letters, and parcels; the Stores Department in Studd St., Islington; and the Telephone Department in Stamford St.
It is uncertain when the Crown undertook to be the regular carrier of letters for its subjects, but the first �Master of the Posts� was appointed in the early 16th century. The Penny Post was introduced in 1840, the Money Order Office in 1838, the Book Post in 1848, the Post Office Savings Bank in 1861, the Post Office Telegraph in 1870, Postal Orders in 1881, the Parcels Post in 1883, the Telephone Service in 1892, Imperial Penny Postage in 1898, and the Payment of Old Age Pensions in 1909. An underground tube railway for the conveyance of letters and postal packets of all kinds between Paddington and to the Eastern District Office in Whitechapel was completed in 1926, with intermediate stations at King Edward Building and elsewhere. The tube between stations is 9 feet in diameter; the trains have no drivers and are operated by a system of distant control.
On the right side of Newgate, opposite the General Post Office West, diverges Panyer Alley, so named from having formerly been largely occupied by basket-makers. In it, to the left, is an old relief of a boy seated on a �panier� (now under glass), with the inscription:�
When ye have sought the Citty round Yet still this is the highest ground.
August the 27, 1688.
Newgate St. is continued towards the east by Cheapside, at the junction of which with St. Martin's-le-rand and St. Paul's Churchyard is a statue of Sir Robert Peel (died 1850), by Behnes.
