SUMMARY OF THE MEETING OF THE SOMERSET & DORSET POSTAL HISTORY GROUP AT HORNSBURY MILL, CHARD ON SUNDAY 20th MARCH 2016
Our Chairman, Bill Pipe welcomed 18 members. Apologies were received from Clare & John Scott, Peter Basterfield, Keith Brown, John Harding, Brian Purcell, John Russell and Dave Wynn.
The usual notices concerning lunch & speakers were read out and a minutes silence was held for our past Editor & Secretary, John Millener who sadly passed away earlier this year.
At our October 2016 meeting on Sunday 9th October 2016, Bill Pipe will show his Purbeck District postal history and Roger Martin will show Portishead postal history.
Nick Bridgwater was then invited to show us his Taunton postal history display. Nick started off with a very early Ca.1704 handstamp and then travelled through the different aspects common to most postal history displays in that the introduction of new methods and handstamps were set out in a chronological order. These included straight-line marks, the horseshoe types, mileage marks, travellers & early skeletons, the penny post system with both stamped & unstamped examples. Nick showed a lovely 1d black cover and Mulready along with various miss-sent and too late marks which were followed by barred numeral & duplex cancels, undated sub-office and local cancels, squared circles, machine cancels, the introduction of postcodes to Taunton and finished with various meter mail marks, postage due material and parcel post labels. Bill then gave the vote of thanks and lunch was taken.
On completion, the members’ displayed:
First up was Bill Pipe who showed nine sheets including a wrapper from Blandford to Bridport with two of the 1840 2d blues tied by black crosses in 1841; a Gibraltar postcard used from CASTLETOWN, Portland and addressed to France before being redirected to Egypt in 1899; a 1d charge mark of Dorchester on cover from Weymouth to Dorchester & redirected to London in 1872; a stunning 1d black cover with a plate eleven from Lyme to Salisbury, 1841; a 1d definitive from the GEO VI 1951 issue paying postage due from Southampton to Poole with the endorsement “DUE” in red ink across the stamp; an advertising Mulready letter sheet from Shaftesbury ; a lovely GREEN inked 698 numeral cancel of Shaftesbury & a nice plate nine 1d black used from Weymouth in 1841.
Graham Warren followed Bill with a lovely 1900 Ilminster Express cover with a 4d Jubilee affixed, a “Bye Bag” letter from Minehead of 1843; a newly recorded straight line mark of Milverton; a Minehead money letter of 1838; a lovely Missent to Taunton mark of 1857 and an unusual imprinted “Special Postal Wrapper”.
John Forbes-Nixon never disappoints - he showed some fantastic material perforation trial material including the Treasury Roulettes on entire & as stamps; Henry Archer plate 92 in an imprint corner block of six; various examples of miss-perforation, a strip of six x 1d roulette from plate 101 and ended with a matched pair of green numeral cancels 29 from Ballina and Ashburton.
Graham Mark gave a short display marking the 1916 censorship centenary with registered mail through Liverpool to the U.S and also West African mail. Censors set up operations to censor intercepted mail from Greece, Turkey, Egypt etc. He also showed a selection of stamp dealer licence/permit items which were introduced on 1st July 1916. Amongst Graham’s display, I noted a very nice Syrus Aegean censorship mark.
Roger Martin was next up and showed a No.53 receiving house mark of Portishead in the Bristol Penny Post; both framed & unframed. As always with Roger, he kept us up to date with the latest developments in the modern postal history world [yes, there is another world out there!] with the showing of Bristol city & local posts.
Allen Cotton announced that he had for sale, copies of his book on Glastonbury & District postal history. A book which is essential if you want to understand not only the postal history of Glastonbury, but that of most other small market towns within the UK. The book is available from the Secretary, [Bill Pipe] for £9.99 with postage charged at 1p!!!! Allen then showed us postcards & cancels from Parbrook post office from 1899 to its close. He also showed a postcard mentioning aircraft flights at Bournemouth by Drexell and Christiaens.
Mike Tombs showed us parcel post labels from the “lost village” of Tyneham, Bridport & other places as well as Somerset & Dorset Railway parcel/luggage labels.
Finally we end where we started with Nick Bridgwater showing Wellington & Wiveliscombe marks from the Hancock correspondence; a local private post cover of the 1700’s. an entire from Minehead to Orkney, a 1d black from Bath of 1840; a cover from Minehead dated 1842 which had been taxed for using an old, previously used stamp.
After tea & cookies, thanks were given by Bill to all members & particularly to those who make the meetings as enjoyable & well run as they are. Our next meeting will be on the 9th October at Hornsbury Mill, Chard
Bill Pipe.
5th April 2016