Tracing the long history of the postal service

Tracing the long history of the postal service

By Ida Indawati Khouw

The beauty of the central post office on Jl. Pos in Central
Jakarta is now fading away as it becomes masked by the stalls of
sidewalk vendors mushrooming around the building. This is the
69th article on Batavia.

JAKARTA (JP): The postal service in Jakarta has a long history
but people can no longer see historical sites where the
development of this vital public service began as all of them no
longer exist.

The history of Indonesia's postal service is itself quite a
remarkable part of national history, as it relates to the
construction of the Anyer-Panarukan road connecting the western
and eastern parts of the island of Java.

The central post office building still exists at Jl. Pos in
Central Jakarta, accentuated by beautiful and colorful glass
windows and wall recesses.

The present office, however, is relatively new, developed on
the site where the former post office building once existed until
its demolition in 1913.

The first post office was built in the Pasar Ikan area, in the
old port of Batavia, North Jakarta, during the authority of
Governor General Gustaaf Willem Baron van Imhoff, who officially
opened the office on Aug. 26, 1746.

At that time the main purpose for establishing the office was
to guarantee the security of community letters, particularly for
those involved in trade, and letters from the offices of VOC
(Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie, the Dutch trading company
which was in power at the time) outside Batavia, as well as mail
sent to and from the Netherlands.

The postal service system in the early days of Batavia was
unique at that time, with letters only directed to the VOC
officials, under orders that they should not contain any news
related to the VOC's trading activities in Indonesia, to protect
the secrecy of the company's operations.

The prohibition was so strict in order to guarantee that
sources of valuable spices, of which trading was monopolized by
VOC, would not become known to its competitors.

"Transgression of this regulation resulted in severe
punishment, even exile," according to the book History of Posts
and Telecommunications in Indonesia.

To fulfill the goal, all letters, which were first read by the
head of the purchasing department before its contents were
summarized in a book called "patria", were placed in a general
box in Batavia.

The letters' arrival from the Netherlands were recorded in a
book kept by the official confiscator. Then, those expecting
letters from the Netherlands should first check the record book.

In 1633 a new system was imposed. Letters from the Netherlands
were displayed at the City Hall (at the site where the Jakarta
Historical Museum is now located in West Jakarta) after having
been recorded by the official confiscator, forcing people to go
to the City Hall to see whether they had any mail.

Postal services at that time were not regular and relied on
the VOC's naval vessels. The journeys were complicated by the
prevalence of pirates at that time.

"The company government once offered a reward of 500
rijksdaalder to whoever could capture the murderer of the
employees at the Cirebon post office (in West Java) on 15th March
1798," the history book said.

Due to this problem, original letters were usually followed by
a duplicate.

In those days, it took nine months for letters to arrive from
the Netherlands to Indonesia and four months from Jakarta to
Ambon.

Achievement

Postal services showed significant progress during the French
colonial era, between 1808 and 1811, where the country was under
the government of Governor General Herman Willem Daendels,
notorious for his iron-fist rule.

At that time, a 1,000-kilometer long postal highway connecting
Anyer in West Java and Panarukan in East Java, stretching along
the northern coast of Java, was constructed.

Construction of the gravel road, performed under a forced
labor system which sacrificed thousands of indigenous Indonesian
lives, was started in 1809 and completed a year later.

Its completion brought significant improvements in the postal
service as it shortened trips between East and West Java to six
days, a vast improvement from the previous 40 day journey.

The advanced payment system in the postal service was first
introduced during the English occupation between 1811 and 1814,
replicating the British postal system, while the first postage
stamps were introduced here in 1864.

In Batavia, where postal service facilities were continuously
improved, in 1835 the central post office was located at
Waterlooplein (at Daendel's "palace" in Lapangan Banteng in
Central Jakarta, which is now turned into the Ministry of Finance
office). By 1853, it was relocated to nearby Post Weg (now Jl.
Pos).

"The precise year when the central post office first operated
from this site is not clear but it would have been between 1835
and 1853," Scott Merrillees writes in his book Batavia in the
Nineteenth Century Photographs.

The central post office, which still operates today, was built
only after 1913, following the demolition of the older building.

In the 1930s, postal service traffic had become very busy with
about 28 million letters moving through Batavia's seven post
offices annually, according to the book Batavia als Handels,
Industrie en Woonstad (Batavia as a Commercial, Industrial and
Residential Center).

"For delivery of letters (telegrams included) and the emptying
of the post boxes, the postal service at Batavia has about 150
postmen, 175 bicycles, 8 delivery cars and 14 trucks ... ," the
book recorded.

Now, the central post office on Jl. Pos is used as the office
of the philatelic division of PT Pos Indonesia.

The interior of the art deco style building is primarily an
oblong hall which enabled hundreds of employees to work together.

In the past, the 7,518-square-meter estate had a good
ventilation system because of its high roof, however this has now
changed due to the hall being partitioned.