The current Geelong

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

opened in 1994 and is located on the corner of Gheringhap and Little Myers Streets. The original post office was located on the corner of Ryrie and Gheringhap Streets. The Geelong Telegraph Station was located next door.

History

The first post office in Geelong, which opened around June 1840, was in a corner of a store in Barwon Terrace, South Geelong. After August 1842, the

Geelong Advertiser The ''Geelong Advertiser'' is a daily newspaper circulating in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, the Bellarine Peninsula, and surrounding areas. First published on 21 November 1840, the ''Geelong Advertiser'' is the oldest newspaper title in Victor ...

office was used as a post office. A permanent post office was completed in 1857 on the corner of Ryrie and Gheringhap Streets, erected by contractor William Crocker Cornish. It was demolished in 1889 to make way for the building that stands on the site today. The new building was opened in 1891, with one major omission - the clock tower did not have a clock in it. Work on providing a

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

and

chimes Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...

started in July 1911, as a memorial to the late

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

, following a fund-raising campaign, with a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

firm contracted to supply the timepiece. Each clock face is 2.5 metres in diameter; the hour hands are 1 metre long, and the minute hands 1.25 metres long. The chimes comprise five bells, the largest one weighing 15

hundredweight The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal, is a British imperial and US customary unit of weight or mass. Its value differs between the US and British imperial systems. The two values are distingu ...

(760 kg). They were first activated on 2 December 1911.

Today

In 1994, Australia Post relocated the main Geelong post office to the corner of Gheringhap and Little Myers streets. The old post office building was purchased by the

City of Greater Geelong The City of Greater Geelong is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the western part of the state. It covers an area of and, had a population of 271,057 as of the 2021 Australian census. It ...

and is currently used as a youth services hub.

References

*Peter Begg (1990). ''Geelong - The First 150 Years''. Globe Press. {{Commons category, Geelong Post Office Buildings and structures in Geelong Geelong Heritage-listed buildings in Greater Geelong 1891 establishments in Australia Buildings and structures completed in 1891