Postmaster
head of a post office
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), the title of Postmaster General is commonly used.
Responsibilities of a postmaster typically include management of a centralized mail distribution facility, establishment of letter carrier routes, supervision of letter carriers and clerks, and enforcement of the organization's rules and procedures. The postmaster is the representative of the Postmaster General in that post office.
In Canada, many early places are named after the first postmaster.
History
In the days of horse-drawn carriages, a postmaster was an individual from whom horses and/or riders (known as postilions or "post-boys") could be hired. The postmaster would reside in a "post house".
The first Postmaster General of the United States was the notable founding father Benjamin Franklin.
In England, King Henry VIII appointed Sir Brian Tuke as the first "Master of the Posts" in 1516 to establish a formal postal network.
United States
An appointed position, postmasters were prized offices for political party members as they helped keep your political representatives in power.
“Postmaster” enters the record as head of a post office. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Postmaster, head and post can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1416611. The Library of Congress control number is sh85105483. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1516.
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This entry incorporates text from “Postmaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.