PORF Auditorium

Number 1

Ships Division, Mount Pleasant sorting office, 1945.

Number 2

Bomb damage in London.

A street scene shows recent bomb damage outside the Central Telegraph Office in London (date unknown, 1940-1945).

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB417-E11770]

Number 3

Post Office Rescue and Salvage Squad, c.1940.

Number 4

Bomb damage in London

Significant bomb damage to the Battersea District Post Office, London. This photograph also shows K6 telephone kiosks that have survived the blast.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB417-E11956]

Number 5

Working during an alert.

Operators working switchboards wearing protective steel helmets at Bishopsgate Exchange.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB473-P2770]

Number 6

The GPO at the Cabinet War Rooms

Female operators, lent by the GPO, working on the main switchboard at the Cabinet War Rooms in London. This underground complex was a command centre used by ministers, military strategists and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Number 7

GPO repair depot

Loading cable drums, 9 February 1942.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB473-P2800]

Number 8

Repairs after bomb damage

Engineers repairing bomb damage to cable chamber at Bishopsgate Exchange, 2 May 1941.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TBC417-E11876]

Number 9

Emergency public telephones.

An attendant at an emergency telephone bureau, 1942.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB473-P2778]

Number 10

Working during an alert

Female operators wear steel helmets to continue working in an exchange during an alert, c.1939-1942.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCE361-ARC278]

Number 11

Sorting the mail

Temporary parcels office, Mount Pleasant sorting office, 1944.

Number 12

A mobile post office

c.1940-1945.

Number 13

The Home Guard on exercise.

The 20^th City of London (3^rd GPO) Battalion Home Guard, or Post Office Home Guard during an ‘Invasion’ exercise in the City of London, 29 June 1941.

Number 14

Delivering the mail

A postwoman delivers the mail in bomb-damaged streets, 1942.

Number 15

Operating the switchboards

Operators work auto manual switchboards at a wartime Emergency Telephone Bureau in London.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB473-P2784]

Number 16

Colossus at Bletchley Park.

Ten Colossus machines, the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers, were made by the GPO to assist codebreaking at Bletchley Park. This machine is Colossus 10.

Reproduced by kind permission, Director GCHQ

Number 17

At work during the Blitz

Operators with protective steel helmets and gas masks work at the Kensington Telephone Exchange in London, 26 January 1941.

Courtesy of BT Group Archives [TCB473-P2766]

Number 18

A switchboard fitter at work

32-year old GPO switchboard fitter Evelyn Leighton working as a switchboard fitter, having completed the 8-week Ministry of Labour Engineering Course. (date unknown, during WW2).

The Fellowship

Auditorium

The Bletchley Park Trust is grateful to the Post Office Remembrance Fellowship for their generous support of the Fellowship Auditorium.