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Eric Ng

Hongkong Post has come a long way since its inception in 1841, but one thing that has not changed throughout its 160 years is its rapid transformation to adapt to the changing needs of Hong Kong.

It was one of the first government departments set up in the early days of colonial Hong Kong. The first Postmaster, T. G. Fitzgibbon, was appointed on August 25, 1841, and was given a monthly allowance of #25 to cover his salary and operate a post office.

As Hong Kong was only a small fishing village in those days, the main purpose of the post office was to serve the Hong Kong-Britain correspondence needs of the large number of soldiers and a small but growing number of merchants and government officials here.

Service in those days was 'slow, irregular and unreliable', according to Hongkong Post assistant postmaster general (postal) Joanna Choi Leung Yuen-mei.

'There was no way to know for sure if your mail would get delivered, and we are talking about a few months for a letter to be delivered to Europe,' she said.

'Sailing ships, steamships and even warships were used for international delivery, as long as they were going to the required destinations.'

Mail was often lost as mail-carrying vessels were buffeted by typhoons or attacked by pirates.

Air mail services only began in 1932 when the first trial flight carried mail to Marseilles in France. From there, the mail was sent to London by land.

But regular services only started in 1936, and in the same year, airmail delivery was available to parts of China as well.

Fitzgibbon did not see the completion of Hong Kong's first post office - near where St John's Cathedral now stands in Central. He died two months following his appointment.

The office was 'long, one-storey' and 'rather ramshackle', according to historical records. In the first three years of operation it handled 240,000 letters and parcels, with just five staff.

What's more, probably nobody in Fitzgibbon's years would have imagined that the office would evolve into a large organisation processing 1.35 billion items last year - equivalent to 3.7 million items a day. Today, Hongkong Post has more than 300 mail delivery vans, 27 delivery offices, 126 post offices, three mail processing centres, more than 800 postal boxes and employs 7,200 staff. In 1999 its total revenue was a staggering $3.5 billion compared to $20 million in 1954 when it operated only eight post offices.

But Hongkong Post did not always handle all mail deliveries in-house. In the first two decades of its operation, limited allocated resources and fast-growing volume of mail meant delays and disappearance of letters, which led to losses of orders and business for merchants.

This prompted some merchants to employ their own vessels for the delivery of their mail, and some members of the public were seen off-loading arriving mail boats with no regard to the correct procedure of centralised collection and re-distribution by the post office.

Interestingly, outsourcing was also popular in the late-19th century for mainland China-bound mail. As China did not have a national postal system at the time, mail from Hong Kong to the mainland was carried by private postal agents.

To legitimise their operation, the government granted licences annually to these so-called 'postal hongs'.

As the postal system became more institutionalised, pre-payment of all mail became mandatory in 1858, and the use of postage stamps became compulsory in 1864, two years after Hong Kong issued its own postage stamps for the first time.

While Hongkong Post's past history is closely linked to the social and economic development of Hong Kong, its present and future is linked more to local economic and technological advancements.

Mrs Choi said Hongkong Post is no longer only a mail service provider, but rather a logistics corporation.



HISTORY