Brief history of the Universal Postal Union

The First known Postal document, found in Egypt, dates from 255 BC. But even before that time postal services existed on nearly every continent in the form of messengers serving kings and emperors. Overtime, religious orders and universities added their own message delivery systems and eventually, private individuals were allowed to use these messengers in order to communicate with one another. In these early postal systems the postal charges were generally paid by the recipient.

In the seventeenth century the first international treaty was established, consisting agreements governing the transit of mail within several European count centuries latter, the web of bilateral arrange between countries had become so complex began to impede the rapidly developing trade and commercial sectors. National Postal reforms started the process of ringing order simplification to the international postal probably the most important of these took place in England in 1840 under the leadership of Sir Lowland Hill. Letters were to be prepaid, using uniform rate of one nine in the domestic service for all letters of a certain we regardless of the distance involved. On the initiative of United States Postmaster – General Montgomery Blare, a conference was held 1863, in Paris, France, to continue the process of postal reform at the international level. Further attempts to improve the international postal service on the basis of bilateral agreements during the rest of the 1960s could not keep pace with rapid technological, economical, commercial and cultural developments. Heinrich von Stephan, a senior postal official from the North German Confederation, then drew up a plan for an international postal union. At his suggestion, the Swiss Government convened in Berne, from 15 September 1874, a conference, which was attended by representatives from twenty-two nations. On 9 October-a day now celebrated throughout the world as World Post Day the Treaty of Berne establishing the ” General Postal Union” was signed. Membership, in the Union grew so quickly that the name was changed in 1878 to “Universal Postal Union”.

The Treaty of Berne succeeded in unifying a conflicting international maze of postal services and regulations into a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of letter post items. It reduced the multitude of rates for mail between the twenty-two countries which met in Berne to a single rate for all. Within the single territory, the principle of freedom of transit for letter post ems was also guaranteed by all parties. The Friers and frontiers which had impeded the flow and growth of international mail had finally been pulled down.

Today, by virtue of its mission to promote and develop communication between the people of the world, the UPU is called upon to play an important leadership role in promoting the continued revitalization of Postal Services.