The GPO (General Post Office) was created by Oliver Cromwell's Parliament in 1657, which declared: 'There shall be one General Post Office and one officer styled the Postmaster-General of England.' However, Charles II recognised none of Cromwell's laws so issued a very similar act in 1660, which confirmed the formation of The Post Office. The law made the GPO the sole carrier of post in the UK and forbade all competition. In 1870 GPO took control of Britain's telegraph network and assumed complete control of the telephone network in 1912. From then on the GPO was monopoly supplier of both the telephone and telegraph networks until 1982, when the first carrier was licensed in competition with the new British Telecom (successor to Post Office Telecommunications)