John Lowther du Plat Taylor

Colonel John Lowther du Plat Taylor CB VD (1829 – 5 March 1904) was the founder of the Army Post Office Corps and the Post Office Rifles.

Du Plat Taylor trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but left in 1844 before he was commissioned. He then joined the Consular Service and was posted to China but was invalided back home after just two years. He joined the General Post Office in 1852 and worked as a Private Secretary to the Secretary of the Post Office, Sir Rowland Hill and then to Postmaster General.

In 1860, he joined the Civil Service Rifle Volunteers and was promoted to Captain; by 1865 he held the rank of Major and so began a lifelong association with the Volunteer Movement.

He formed the 49th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers in 1868 and was its Commanding Officer until 1896. In 1880 the regiment was renumbered 24th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers and he was appointed its honorary Colonel on 27 February 1901.

He proposed at his regiment's 1872 annual prize giving the formation of a reservist Telegraph and Postal Corps and in 1877 the War Office established a committee “to consider the formation of a Corps for the performance of Postal Duties in the Field”. The War Office rejected the committee’s recommendation that such an organisation should be formed, reasoning that it would be too expensive. However, in mid July 1882 du Plat Taylor was authorised by the Postmaster General, Henry Fawcett and the Secretary of State for War, Hugh Childers to organise an Army Post Office Corps (APOC), and on Saturday 22 July 1882 Queen Victoria issued a Royal Warrant to that effect.

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