Frank Parfett

Frank Parfett (1885-1980), father of UK Postage Meters.

1939 Living at 9 Manor Mount, Lewisham, Engineers Designer. With May E. M. Parfett.

1944 'Mr. Parfett, who is in his 60th year, is the son of the late Mr. Frank Parfett, who for some years was Sergeant-at-Mace at Faversham (the immediate predecessor of Mr. W. H. Smith who recently retired from that position). Mr. Parfett was educated at Upper Nautical School, Greenwich; Devonport Naval Dockyard School, and at Goldsmiths College under the late Professor William Lineham. Shortly after the completion of his apprenticeship at Devonport Dockyard, he joined the staff of the Western Electric Company, Ltd., and in due course was promoted to the Telephone Engineering Department, specialising in switchboard circuits for manual and semi-automatic telephone exchanges. During the last war he reverted to mechanical engineering as leading draughtsman-in-charge, Carriage Inspection Department, Woolwich, dealing with heavy howitzer equipment. Since 1922 he has been specialising in mailing machines of various kinds and in this connection he has visited the U.S.A. and the Continent. He contributed a paper on this subject in 1936 which was read before the Society. He was Assistant Manager of the Sterling Telephone and Electric Co. Ltd., and is now Chief Engineer of Universal Postal Frankers, Ltd. He has been a member of the Society of Engineers since 1919 and joined the Council in 1935. He was made a Trustee of the Society in 1943. Mr. Parfett is a cousin of Mr. Sydney Masters, Headmaster of North Preston Council School.'

1981 'Some years ago at a Pitney Bowes function I was introduced to an elderly gentleman with the comment that we might like to chat with each other on early meters. I had not met him before but found out that Frank Parfett was one of those rare people who can talk with someone whose interests are not really the same but at the same time generate an interest in both directions that does not come often. His interest always was the mechanical, innards of the machines, the impressions which we study and treasure were almost a by-product to him. He was always and primarily a brilliant mechanical engineer and by chance very early on the scene with meters. In 1920, then in his thirties, he was well known as one who could translate ideas into practical propositions and was associated with a device known as the Auto-Map Dead Reckoner, designed for handy map reading while driving a car (and later developed in some ways for use in aircraft during the war of 1939/1945 before radar and the like took over). When Universal Postal Frankers first tried, to win acceptance for the Moss machine from the Post Office it was turned down because it was fitted with only one recording unit, whilst the Pitney Bowes machine had both an ascending and a descending meter. Frank Parfett was engaged by Pedersens’ Guages who were to produce the prototypes with the specific task of re-designing the Moss model and within five months he had evolved the Universal N.Z. machine. He was subsequently responsible for the design of all the machines manufactured by Universal Postal Frankers, which later of course became part of Pitney Bowes. He served a total of 33 years with the Company and then a further 9 years with the Board, a total of 42 years. Now, shortly before his 95th birthday, this grand old man has died, but his work lives on in those machines still being used in many countries and indeed is likely to go on for some time yet, and the memory of a truly wonderful person will remain with those of us fortunate enough to have met him'

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