Registered envelope from Filton, 1940

I'm not sure where to put this cover: it is a Registered, Express cover from Filton franked with two meter marks and sent from the Bristol Aeroplane Company in April 1940.  It fits under so many headings !

Express Delivery

There were a number of classes of Express mail but the most common was express delivery on the final leg from the post office to the recipient.  Here are a couple of examples, one from Taunton in 1939 and the second from Bristol in 1963.

Burnham-on-Sea three colour franking

This nice cover below bearing a three colour franking is from Burnham-in-Sea to Switzerland in July 1921.  3d paid for the UPU surface mail while the additional 6d paid for the overseas Express service (typically just the delivery from the local delivery office to the addressee.

Registration Receipts, Parcel Post and Express Mail

Post Offices issued receipts to the senders of Registered Letters - here are two examples, from 1854 and 1857, the first on white paper, the second on blue.

Parcels could be registered from June 1891.  Here is a Parcel Post label from Bath in the KEVII period.

There were different levels of  'Express' service, the most common being where the mail was sent in the ordinary post to the nearest Express Delivery Office, and were then sent out by special messenger.  This example from August 1922 was to Huntly's Beach Hotel, Weston-super-Mare - the postcard at the bottom shows the location of the Hotel.