Lives Remembered: Donald McDougall

My father Donald James McDougall, who died on 23 January aged 93, was a distinguished and innovative civil servant. He rose through the Post Office without any post-16 education to become Director of Postal Services for Wales and the Marches and Chairman of the Welsh Postal Board. In his retirement he undertook voluntary work, becoming Principal Secretary and later Chancellor of the Priory for Wales of the Order of St John.

During his Post Office career he had operational responsibility for large swathes of the London Postal Region and, as Chief Planning Officer at Postal Headquarters, he was responsible for the planning and introduction of a number of innovations to the service – including the two-tier (first and second class) letter service, Datapost, Freepost and the Recorded Delivery Service. He also oversaw the modernisation of other aspects of postal collection and delivery including the Postbus service. On his retirement he was commended by the Chairman, Sir William Ryland, for being "a pathfinder in many fields, long-range postal planning being only one".

He was born on 5 October 1916, and like most young men of his generation his early career was interrupted by the Second World War. He joined the Territorial Army in May 1939, five months before its start, and served in Normandy in 1940 and in French North Africa and Italy with the Sixth Army from 1943 until demobilisation in 1946, rising in 1945 to the rank of Major and Staff Paymaster.

He was granted the Freedom of the City of London (where he spent most of his working life) and became a member of the Guild of Freemen. In recognition of his services to the Order of St John, he was made a Knight of Grace of the Order in 1979 and a Knight of Justice in 1981, later being appointed Bailiff of St Davids. Other voluntary work included 11 years as a member of the Round Table, of which he became a Branch and Area Chairman in the 1950s.

He was married twice, first to Sheila MacDonald, with whom he had two sons, and later to Anne McCulloch, who survives him.