Postal History
Lying c.850 miles north of St Thomas, c.700 miles from New York, and about the same distance from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bermuda has depended at different times on all three for its sea communication by packet. A packet agent, appointed from London, dealt with external mails from 1818 (datestamps known from 1820) to 1859.

A domestic postal service, begun by the Bermuda Gazette in 1784, was continued officially from 1812. Daily services with delivery were established between 1835 and 1843. In 1859 control of all services was vested in the colony. The packet port and therefore the chief postmaster remained at St George's until 1879, though Hamilton had become the capital in 1815.

The first stamps were produced by the Postmaster in Hamilton, Mr Perot, in 1848 and these primitive strikes of a handstamp on gummed paper were used at Hamilton and St George's until 1861. The first issue of definitive stamps for Bermuda was released in 1865.

During the American Civil War, Confederate blockade runners passed letters through forwarding agents in Bermuda. During the Boer War, Boer prisoners were interned in the islands and their mail was censored. Bermuda played a major role in the censorship of Allied transatlantic mail in World War II.

Regular airmail services to New York were established by Imperial Airways on 16 June 1937 and to Baltimore by Pan American Airways on 6 March 1938.