How 50 years after every home was given a postcode those letters and numbers now define so many areas of our lives

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In 1965 Tony Benn announced the postal code system would expand nationwide
On June 5, 1968, the full alphanumeric postcode was introduced across Britain
System defined status, property values, insurance premiums, and loan eligibility

The year 1968 was memorable for many reasons. Student demonstrators in Paris called for the fall of the French government; in the U.S. people wanted an end to the Vietnam War; while in Prague there was a brief flowering of democracy as protesters took on the communist leadership.

And in Britain? Well, The Beatles may have sung about revolution, but it was a far more mundane development that was to dramatically effect our lives.

Fifty years ago, the full alphanumeric postcode — a combination of letters and numbers — was introduced.

On June 5, 1968, residents of the exclusive London district of Mayfair woke up to find they were no longer just living in W1, but a whole new combination that they had to try to remember, composed then of four letters and two digits.

Remember, you’re not fully addressed without it,’ was the memorable slogan on posters and the leaflets that were pushed through letterboxes.

Fail to include the postcode and your letters could be severely delayed, residents were warned.

Over the next six years, tens of millions of UK households would have to get to grips with this addition to their postal address.

They were not to know that what began as a minor irritation would, five decades later, come to define and influence so many areas of our lives, from our status and property values to insurance premiums, loan eligibility, the range of healthcare available to us — and even whether we are targeted by criminal gangs.

Ten most expensive postcodes in Britain
W84QP - £36.1M

N6 4LP - £22.9M

SW1X 7EE - £22M

SW10 9TB - £18.6M

W14 8AA - £15.1M

N6 4LB - £13.7M

SW3 6LR - £12.2M

W8 5PR - £12.1M

W1S 4HE - £11.7M

W8 5BT - 10.6M

The idea of a postcode originated with Sir Rowland Hill, a Victorian social reformer who is credited with laying the foundations of the modern postal service.

He thought the Post Office charged too much (it was the recipient who had to pay for the letter back then), was slow, unreliable and really benefited only the wealthy.

So, in 1857, he divided London into sectors to help distinguish between streets with the same name in different parts of the city.

Hill’s system, however, consisted only of one or two letters: W for west, SE for south-east and so on.

It wasn’t until 1917 that the Post Office started using numerals in postcodes — and then it was in Dublin (still part of the United Kingdom) where the idea was pioneered.

The now-familiar London postal districts, W1, SW2 etc, followed soon afterwards.

A full code (six letters and numerals) was piloted in 1959 in Norwich — selected because its sorting office had already been fitted with new automated sorting machines —using the letters ‘NOR’ followed by two digits and a letter to identify individual properties.

It was a success. In 1965, Postmaster-General Tony Benn — still Anthony Wedgwood Benn at the time — announced that the postal code system would be expanded nationwide, starting with Central London.

The postcodes Mr Benn settled on, however, were not specific to an individual property.

They consisted of six or seven letters and numerals and covered an average of 15 properties each. Today, there are two million postcodes covering 29 million properties.

The aim of the postcode was straightforward and uncontroversial: a means of helping Royal Mail staff sort letters faster.

Neither Benn nor anyone else foresaw the day when our postcodes would become as much part of our identity as our age or place of education.

Nor could anyone have had any idea of the chaos that could result from a simple change in postcode.

A few years ago, the Royal Mail ‘moved’ my village from one postcode district to another.

For months, I had problems trying to prove to my bank that I hadn’t moved home, or to convince delivery companies that my house existed at all.

It was a sharp reminder as to how much commerce nowadays — even more so in the age of the internet — is linked to this crucial element of our address.

It could have been worse, as one homeowner in Salcombe, Devon, found out when he tried to renew his home insurance. He was refused cover on the grounds that his property was liable to sea flooding — even though it was 250 ft above sea level.

The insurance company analysed all risk by postcode, and his house had been blacklisted because it shared a postcode with homes much closer to the water.

Residents in Thurso, in the far north of Scotland, have a different problem. When they try to order goods online, they often find that firms will refuse to deliver to them, or demand an extra fee.

As if their homes were not remote enough, they share a postcode district with Kirkwall (KW), the main town on the Orkneys, which is a two-hour ferry journey away — with just two sailings a day.

Meanwhile, the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic, which is part of the British Overseas Territory, was given an unusual four-letter postcode — STHL — to stop postal sorting staff confusing it with St Helens in Merseyside. Any letter that found its way on to the St Helena mail ship would not be ‘returned to sender’ for months.

Today, we are classified by marketing organisations into socio-economic groups based on our postcode.

This determines whether they will target us with marketing campaigns, or whether we qualify for special deals.

Experian, the consumer credit reporting agency, for example, has pigeonholed us into 66 groups. If you live in a townhouse in Chelsea, London, you might be classified as a member of the Uptown Elite, defined as ‘high-status households owning elegant homes in accessible inner suburbs where they enjoy city life in comfort’.

If you live in one of London’s poorer districts, on the other hand, you may be classified among Families With Needs, defined as ‘families with many children living in areas of high deprivation and who need support’.

You won’t be aware of it, but if you apply for a loan, book a holiday or even apply for a job, a company will have access to this information and may be making judgments about you as soon as you disclose your postcode.

Charities make rather cynical use of postcodes, too. In 2013, the National Deaf Children’s Society admitted it used data based on postcodes to direct its door-to-door fundraisers to sectors with the right age, income profiles or a track record of generosity.

Of course, we’re all aware of the postcode factor when it comes to property prices. Those digits and numerals can have a huge effect — at least according to the people with the ‘wrong’ postcodes.

Residents of Whitton in West London fought for 40 years to be shifted from the postcode district TW3, which covers Hounslow, into what they considered the more salubrious TW2 district covering Richmond.

A compromise was reached in 2015 thanks in part to the MP Vince Cable, who was Business Secretary at the time with responsibilities including the Royal Mail.

‘Whitton’ is now accepted as part of the formal address — although residents must still put up with the TW3 postcode.

The Whittonites are not the only ones accused of postcode snobbery. Residents of Tyersal in West Yorkshire are campaigning to be transferred from BD (Bradford) to a more ‘upmarket’ LS (Leeds) postcode. While Windsor residents have risen against their SL (Slough) postcode.

They have failed so far to change it, and surely what’s good enough for the Queen — Windsor Castle has an SL postcode — is good enough for them.

There was a time when people would have been glad to move out of London’s East End and settle in Essex. But that’s not how it’s seen by one group of Ilford residents who have campaigned for a London postcode, E19, rather than IG.

‘Our cultural identity and passions are now very different from people living in Essex,’ stated a petition to the Royal Mail last year — and it possibly related to the fact that, while London voted to remain in the EU, large parts of Essex voted to leave.

However, there may be another reason at play. Last January, the website Moneysupermarket.com revealed the IG4 postcode was the worst for burglary in Britain — pushing up premiums for the unlucky residents.

The Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit has rarely changed a postcode, except for operational reasons. However, it has agreed to give a few organisations a distinctive code — with the former Girobank, for example, carrying the code GIR 0AA.

It is one of life’s great ironies that we owe our postcodes to that great class warrior Tony Benn who, in 1963, renounced his hereditary peerage so he could stand for Parliament as a man of the people.

His unintended legacy has become an instrument of snobbery quite unlike any other.