An Australian Post Office History

of Queensland

[By MALCOLM M. REA, Historical Officer, Public

Relations Section, Australian Post Office, and Secretary,

Post Office Historical Society of Queensland.]

(Read at a meeting of the Society on 22 July 1971)

The story of communications is one of the great stories of man. It is a proud story which stretches back through the centuries into remote antiquity to the very genesis of the postal service.

From there it traces the emergence of various forms of this postal service in Ancient China, Persia, Rome, Greece, Egypt, to France, Spain, England and other countries to our day. But the real story of communications did not begin until the 19th Century when electricity was harnessed and commanded to carry the messages of man across the nations and the world at the speed of light. Out of the great scientific discoveries of Morse (1791-1872), Wheatstone (1802¬1875), Siemens (1823-1883), Maxwell (1831-1879), Bell (1847-1922), Edison (1847-1932) and other great men, a natural communication partner arose—Telecommunications. First came the telegraph in 1844 and on; its heels, the telephone in 1875, while wireless and television had to wait until the 20th Century.