General Post Office, Colombo

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The old General Post Office - Janadhipath Mawatha (President's Street), Colombo fort Old GPO CMB.jpg
The old General Post Office – Janadhipath Mawatha (President's Street), Colombo fort

The General Post Office (abbreviated: GPO) is the headquarters of the Sri Lanka Post. It is also the office of the Postmaster General.

Sri Lanka Post

The Department of Posts, functioning under the brand name Sri Lanka Post(Sinhala: තැපැල් දෙපාර්තමේන්තුව, ශ්‍රී ලංකා Tæpæl Departhamenthuwa, Shri Lanka), is a government operated postal system in Sri Lanka. The postal headquarters is the General Post Office which is located in Colombo. The department itself comes under the purview of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Posts. It was formerly known as the Ceylon Post and Telecommunications Department and is one of the oldest Government departments in existence today.

The Postmaster General of Sri Lanka is the appointed head of Sri Lanka Post, which is a government department. The current Postmaster General is Mr D.L P. Rohana Abhayaratne.

Contents

History

The first post office in the country was established in Colombo in 1882. It was housed in several different locations until the construction of the General Post Office building at 17 Kings Street (now known as Janadipathi Mawatha), Colombo Fort, opposite the-then Governor's residence at King's House (now the President's House) in 1895. [1] The site, bounded by Kings Street, Prince Street (now Srimath Baron Jayathilake), Baille Street (now Mudalige Mawatha), was a former rock quarry. [2] The building was designed by Herbert Frederick Tomalin of the Public Works Department [3] [4] and built by Arasi Marikar Wapchi Marikar. [5] Tomalin (1852-1944) was an English engineer/architect, who migrated to Ceylon in June 1886 to take up a position in the Ceylon Civil Service. His first position was as a District Engineer however as a result of his involvement in a number of government buildings in Colombo and his architectural qualifications he was entrusted with the job of designing and supervising the construction of the GPO. In 1906 he return back to England. Maikar (1829-1925), a local mason/builder and the paternal grandfather of Sir Razik Fareed, constructed a number of landmark buildings in Colombo, including the National Museum of Colombo, Colombo Fort Clock Tower, former Colombo Town Hall, Galle Face Hotel and Colombo Customs building. [6] [7]

A post office is a public department that provides a customer service to the public and handles their mail needs. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms, processing government services and fees, and banking services. The chief administrator of a post office is called a postmaster.

Presidents House, Colombo

President's House is the official residence and workplace of the President of Sri Lanka, located at Janadhipathi Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Since 1804 it has been the residence of British governors and governors-general and Sri Lankan presidents, having been known as the "King's House" or the "Queen's House" until Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972.

Razik Fareed Sri Lankan politician

Sir Razik Fareed, OBE, JP, UM, was a Ceylonese landed proprietor, politician, diplomat and philanthropist. He was the former Cabinet Minister of Trade, Senator, member of parliament and the state council. He had also served as Ceylon's High Commissioner to Pakistan.

Construction commenced on this two-storey Edwardian style building, with the official laying of the foundation stone on 29 August 1891 and was not completed until July 1895, [4] although partial occupation of the building occurred in January that year. The cost of construction was Rs. 372,961.65 [8] (Rs. 160,000 over the original construction budget) [4] with the steelwork fabricated by Messrs Walker and Sons Company and the granite sourced from quarries in Ruwanwella and Ratnapura. It took a workforce of 375, including 180 specialist craftsmen, almost five year to build. [4] The building was constructed in a typical Colonial renaissance archectural style, with its 775 m2 (8,340 sq ft) basement was designed along Doric lines, the 1,721 m2 (18,520 sq ft) ground floor incorporating Ionic architecture whilst the matching upper floor features Corinthan influences. [5] [9] The main entrance stairs led into the public hall, the floor of which was laid with multi-coloured intaglio tiles, the escalier at the rear of the hall were finished with polished granite and the plaster ceiling had papier-maché enrichments. [10] The ground floor contained the parcel and postage stamp counters, the money order and savings bank counters, the registration and poste restante counters. The offices of the Postmaster-General, Superintendent of Telegraphs and the Resident Postmaster's quarters were located on the second floor, together with the Telegraph Department and Telephone Exchange. [10]

Edwardian architecture architectural style popular during the reign of King Edward VII

Edwardian architecture is an architectural style popular during the reign of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Architecture up to the year 1914 may also be included in this style.

Cornerstone ceremonial stone set at the corner of a building

The cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.

Sri Lankan rupee currency of Sri Lanka

The rupee is the currency of Sri Lanka, divided into 100 cents. It is issued by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The abbreviation is generally Rs., but "LKR" is occasionally used to distinguish it from other currencies also called rupee.

The building served not only as the post office but also as the country's first telegraph and telephone exchanges. [11] The first public telephone booth in the country was installed in the GPO in 16 August 1909. [12]

Telephone booth small structure furnished with a payphone

A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a small structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience.

In May 2000 the GPO was was moved, for security reasons during the Civil War to the current Sri Lanka Post headquarters, [9] a nine storey building, at 10 D. R. Wijewardene Mawatha (formerly McCallum Road), which also hosts the Postal Museum. [13] [14]

Sri Lankan Civil War armed conflict in Sri Lanka (1983–2009) between the government and the separatist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The Sri Lankan Civil War was an armed conflict fought on the island of Sri Lanka. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end.

Postal museum, Colombo

Postal museum is a Sri Lanka's national museum of post that located at the Postal Headquarters in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Firstly, the postal museum was functioned at the Central Telegraph Office during 1918–1925, and moved to General Post Office in 1994. Again, a national postal museum was opened on 6 July 2010.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Herath, Mervyn H. M. (2004). Colonial Kollupitiya and Its Environs. Lions Club of Kollupitya. p. 71. ISBN   9789559748335.
  2. ↑ Dishan, Joseph (27 January 2019). "Sri Lanka Post: 200 years of stamping with excellence". Sunday Observer . Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  3. ↑ Wright, Arnold, ed. (1999). Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources. Asian Educational Services. p. 122. ISBN   9788120613355.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "The old General Post Office gets a facelift and hosts an International Arts Festival". Roar Media. 11 July 2018. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  5. 1 2 "The Architectural mark left by three European Nations on one City". Time Out Sri Lanka. 4 January 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  6. ↑ Mohan, Vasundhara (1987). Identity Crisis of Sri Lanka Muslims. Mittal Publications. p. 16.
  7. ↑ Jayawardana, Ruwini (4 January 2017). "Standing the test of time". The Daily News . Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  8. ↑ Wright, Arnold, ed. (1999). Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources. Asian Educational Services. p. 207. ISBN   9788120613355.
  9. 1 2 "Stamps of the Past". The Sunday Times . Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  10. 1 2 Skeen, George J. A. (1906). A Guide to Colombo, with maps. Colombo: A. M. & J. Ferguson. pp. 17–18.
  11. ↑ "Ferguson's Ceylon Directory". Associated Newspapers of Sri Lanka. 1958: 373.
  12. ↑ "First public call box". The Sunday Times . 12 August 2007. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  13. ↑ "When pigeons carried mail from place to place". Sunday Times (Sri Lanka). Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  14. ↑ "Sri Lanka's snail mail history". Ceylon Today. Archived from the original on 2 June 2015. Retrieved 18 February 2019.


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