Mauritius Postal Museum
The Mauritius Postal Museum is a postal museum in Port Louis , the capital of Mauritius .
The building
The building of today's museum was built between 1865 and 1870 as the General Post Office , i.e. the island's main post office . It's right on the harbor, next to the customs building in the center of town.
Construction began in January 1865 under the supervision of Surveyor General Morrison. In December 1868, 75% of the building was erected, and the building project was completed in the course of further work in the following two years. It was officially opened in December 1870. It had cost between £ 10,000 and £ 11,000 to build . The Surveyor General's Office employed 80 workers during the construction period. The building is a good example of the Victorian architecture of public colonial buildings in the middle reign of Queen Victoria , as it is also found in India , Sri Lanka , South Africa , Trinidad and Guyana . It replaced the previous Postmaster Building on what was then Government Street near Government House, where the post office had previously been based since 1847.
The main post office has been in use since December 21, 1870. In April 1877, the Central Telegraph Office also moved into the building. The postmaster general had his seat in the building. This is where all the mail from the 33 post offices in the rural areas of the island, which were built in the 1870s and 1890s, came together.
In 1958, on the basis of Government Notice No. Listed as a Historic Monument in 614 by the British Governor Sir Robert Scott . This was preceded by a recommendation from the Ancient Monuments Board . The Mauritian National Monuments Act of 1985 confirmed the protection status of the building, as did the "National Monuments of Mauritius" annex to the National Heritage Fund Act (Act No. 40) of 2003.
museum
The Postal Museum, opened in 2001, exhibits exhibits on the island's postal and telecommunications history. However, the world famous Red Mauritius and Blue Mauritius postage stamps are not exhibited here, but in the nearby Blue Penny Museum .
swell
- Satyendra Peerthum: Our mauritian national heritage: The Historical & Heritage Value of the General Post Office of Mauritius. In: Le Mauricien .com of February 28, 2012, online (English)
- Mauritius Institute, Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (Ed.): National Monuments of Mauritius , Volume 1: Port-Louis District. Éditions de l'Océan India, Port Louis, 1988, p. 4
Web links
- Save our heritage: Mauritius Postal Museum . Website about cultural monuments in Mauritius
- Postal Museum. Own website on the Mauritius Post website, at www.mauritiuspost.mu (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 6, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 20 ° 9 ′ 35.6 ″ S , 57 ° 30 ′ 5.9 ″ E