In twenty years the need for extension became again pressing, and in 1895 the huge building known as G.P.O. North was opened. G.P.O. West was then given up to the Telegraph Service, and all the administrative offices were transferred to G.P.O. North. But these three immense buildings even in 1894 were by no means large enough to hold all the activities of the Post Office. The Parcel Post, the Money and Postal Order Departments, and the Post Office Savings Bank Department were all housed in other parts of the City of London, and there were overflow premises in streets near St. Martin's le Grand. In this chapter we are only concerned with St. Martin's le Grand, and it is not without regret for the severance of old ties that Londoners witnessed in 1910 the closing of Smirke's fine post office, and the migration of the staff to King Edward's Building, henceforth to be the home of the London Postal Service. Not a hundred years had passed since the move from Lombard Street, and the Post Office had become a small nation of itself. And this body of men and women has for years regarded St Martin's le Grand as the metropolis of their nation, and when they have stood under the big clock which has seen so many mails arrive and depart, they have felt that they were citizens of no mean city. CHAPTER IV KING EDWARD'S BUILDING In every big town the post office is now one of the most important, while in some cases it is the most imposing of all the local public buildings. Here the head postmaster is to be found, and here all the post office business of the district is administered. People have often asked me, “Who is the postmaster of London?” They understand that the Postmaster-General and the Secretary have their offices at St. Martin's le Grand, but it is evident that these gentlemen are the supreme heads of the whole Post Office system, and are not specially concerned with London. “Is there not a postmaster of London, just as there is one of Birmingham and of Liverpool?” The answer is that there is a London head postmaster, but his official title is Controller of the London Postal Service. Until a comparatively recent period he shared a building with the Postmaster-General and Secretary, and the dignity of his office was perhaps a little obscured by the presence of the greater luminaries. Latterly, however, the old building at St. Martin's le Grand became practically the chief London post office, and all the big administrative departments moved to the other side of the road. But old associations take long to die, and I do not think that even Post Office servants have ever looked upon the old building as belonging specially to London; they have thought of it still as a portion of the big administrative department which has monopolised so much of the district of St. Martin's le Grand.