# First Post Office Opens (11 December 1861)

URL: https://allhistories.com/seychelles/timeline/1861-first-post-office-opens
Location: Victoria, Mahé
Themes: main-event

For most of the first half of the nineteenth century, mail between Seychelles and the outside world was handled informally by ship captains and officials, routed through Mauritius. From 1848 Mauritian stamps were used on Seychelles mail, but there was no dedicated public postal office in the colony. On 11 December 1861 the first post office in Seychelles was opened in Victoria on Mahé. It operated as a branch of the Mauritian postal service, selling and cancelling Mauritian stamps on letters bound for Mauritius, India, Africa and Europe. Its opening coincided with improved shipping connections in the Indian Ocean as steamship lines began to call more regularly in the region. The Victoria post office remained the only one in the colony for forty years: a second post office was not opened until 1901. Mauritian stamps continued to be used until Seychelles issued its own stamps in 1890. The post office was an important step in linking the islands with the wider world, paving the way for the submarine telegraph cable of 1893 and for the gradual integration of Seychelles into imperial communications. At this point in the timeline (11 December 1861), the Queen of the United Kingdom was Victoria (20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901). Local administration and government: the Commissioner of the Seychelles was Charles William Bhering, Viscount Bhering (1852 – 1862).

## Why it matters
The post office gave Seychelles its first formal link to imperial communications networks.

Ruler at the Time: [Victoria](https://allhistories.com/seychelles/rulers/queen-victoria)

Commissioner of the Seychelles: Charles William Bhering, Viscount Bhering

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Postage stamps and postal history of Seychelles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_Seychelles)
- [Wikipedia — Victoria, Seychelles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_Seychelles)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Seychelles postage stamps](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Seychelles+postage+stamps)
- [Wikipedia — British Dependency Of Mauritius (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Seychelles)