Vectis postal service Vectis postal service The Vectis postal service was a postal service set up during the national postal strike of the United Kingdom in 1971. This was amongst a number of local delivery services which flourished during the strike. The service was set up by a group of Ryde business men, led by R.W.Cawdell, C.C., who acted as head postmaster for the service. It covered an area encompassing the whole of the Isle of Wight. At peak the service handled over 1500 items of mail daily. The national postal strike ended on 8 March 1971, and with it the local service.
Britain (place name) linguist Karl Schmidt states that the "name of the island was originally transmitted as Πρεττανία (with Π instead of Β) ... as is confirmed by its etymology". According to Barry Cunliffe: Following Julius Caesar's expeditions to the island in 55 and 54 BC, "Brit(t)an(n)ia" was predominantly used to refer simply to the island of Great Britain. After the Roman conquest under the Emperor Claudius in AD 43, it came to be used to refer to the Roman province of Britain (later two provinces), which at one stage consist of part of the island of Great Britain south of Hadrian's wall.