Guyana Post Office Corporation

Michael Rego, writing in the June 2012 BWI Study Circle Bulletin about the history of the GPO, says the British Guiana Post Office was housed in the Parliament Buildings when the buildings were completed in 1834. The Georgetown Packet Office, under British Imperial authority, became a local Post Office in 1850, and in 1865 GPO Georgetown was relocated to a rented room in the lower flat of the Royal Agricultural & Commercial Society building.
Despite several attempts during the remaining century by successive Postmasters General to obtain its own building, it wasn’t until a 1901 Order resulting from discovered scandals in awarding tenders that the post office was moved.
On Aug. 1, 1901, Rego notes, Alexander Ashmore, then government administrator awaiting the Dec. 25, 1901 arrival of Governor James Swettenham, removed the post office after the tender scandal emerged, and relocated it to a building that later became the Commissaries Office.
When later governor Sir Walter Egerton purchased the old Hotel Tower in 1914, it was converted into the Post Office until the February 1945 Great Fire of Georgetown destroyed the building. The hub of the colony’s postal service, its operations were removed Feb. 28, 1945 to the St Andrew’s School Hall after the fire.
The Postmaster General and his staff worked out of a place called the McInroy’s buildings until they were relocated to rooms on the second floor of what was formerly the Regent Hotel at Hincks and Regent Streets on September 7. March 1 saw the mails branch, including the Parcel Post department, moved to the basement of the Town Hall, while an adjoining building within the Town Hall compound housed the postmen’s section on September 13.
On May 9, 1947 the GPO offices at the Regent Hotel were once more destroyed by fire and the post office moved to what was known as Avon House on Main Street in Georgetown the following day. Until the new GPO building was completed, various departments and operations were maintained at different locations in the city, while the Parcel Post department was removed to Waterloo and New Market Streets.
In 1952, then Governor Sir Charles Woolley officially opened a new GPO Georgetown and Telecoms Office building. Considered state-of-the-art at the time, the 90-room furnished structure was constructed of steel and reinforced concrete with two elevators and a 7-foot in diameter Westminster chiming-clock dial.
The building today also houses a section of the Guyana Revenue Authority, while some floors are rented to businesses.