Frederic Festus Kelly

Frederic Festus Kelly (died 3 June 1883) was a high official in the British Post Office. He was also the founder of Kelly & Co. (later Kelly's Directories Ltd.), which published the Kelly's Directory, a sort of Victorian-era "Yellow Pages" that listed all businesses, tradespeople, local gentry, landowners, charities, and other facilities located in a particular village, city or town.

In many sources, both contemporary and modern, his name is spelled Frederick. He should not be confused with his identically-named eldest son.

He began working for the Post Office in 1819. In 1835 or 1836 he became a chief inspector of letter carriers. His exact title varied over the years because in the early 19th century there were three separate services with separate corps of letter-carriers: twopenny-post (for mail within London; renamed the London District Post Office in 1844); inland (for domestic mail outside London); and foreign (for overseas mail). Although the foreign letter-carriers had been abolished by 1835, with their duties carried out by the other two services, the (by then renamed) General Post and London District letter-carriers remained separate until 1855, with separate chief inspectors. Before that date, Kelly was inspector of only the inland or general-post letter carriers.

Kelly lost his government post in 1860 when the office of Inspector-General of Letter Carriers was abolished.

When he began his job as inspector of letter-carriers, Kelly took over the production of the Post Office London Directory. This directory had been started in 1799 by two inspectors of letter-carriers named Sparke and Ferguson, with the approval of the then joint Postmasters General, Lords Auckland and Gower. This date was later the basis for the claim "Kelly's Directories Ltd., established 1799" sometimes printed on the front cover of a Kelly's Directory, although this preceded Mr. Kelly's involvement by several decades.

The first edition had been called "The New Annual Directory; for the Year 1800", but in 1801 the name had changed to "The Post-office annual directory". Another inspector, Benjamin Critchett, joined in 1803; Sparke and Ferguson dropped from the list of authors in 1806 and Critchett and took over publication (in co-authorship with William Woods between 1810 and about 1827); the name changed to "Post Office London Directory" in the mid-1810s.

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