AN ACCOUNT OF THE MEETING OF THE SOMERSET & DORSET POSTAL HISTORY GROUP
HELD AT HORNSBURY MILL, CHARD, SOMERSET ON SUNDAY 20th MARCH 2022.
We assembled at Hornsbury Mill for our first meeting of 2022, being met by the usual homemade cookies and coffee provided by the wonderful owner, Jane. We were only eleven in number on this occasion due to ill health and transport problems.
Apologies were received and accepted from: Peter Basterfield, Nigel Borlase-Hendry; Keith Brown; John Forbes-Nixon; Roger Martin: Martin Townsend; Graham Warren and Keith Wright.
After the announcements by Bill Pipe, we started the day with a wonderful display of Boer War military and political satire postcards formed over forty years by John Cowlin, one of our members. Shown in two parts, John showed us the spite and contempt held by nearly all of the European Nations towards Great Britain and its “adventure” in South Africa against the Dutch settlers. Britain had just one ally in Europe, the Greeks; but the Greeks were not the target of these postcards. Queen Victoria, Edward VII, Chamberlain and the Generals were the targets; often depicted as mice, frogs, toads, monkeys, snakes or donkeys. The donkey, mule or ass was the favourite depiction of satire by the French, Dutch, Germans, Swiss and other nations because of an incident which occurred just prior to the Siege of Ladysmith. A mule train bringing much needed weaponry and ammunition was spooked and bolted, taking all of the stores with them. The British were unable to capture the mules or the cargo and this led directly to the Siege within a few days. The foreigners were particularly cruel to King Edward VII, often depicting him as a fat, lonely and stupid person. The quality of the cards was outstanding and the variety was almost endless. John was thanked in the usual way by the assembled members.
To fill-in before lunch, Bill Pipe showed his expanding collection of WWI named warship censor marks and included two items he had bought the previous day at the Shepton Mallet postcard show; two postcards from the Hospital Ship “Glenart Castle” addressed to the same address in London with Greek or Maltese stamps being tied by the ships cachet and with the straight-line “Passed By Ship’s Censor”; all in a lovely green ink. Also shown by bill was a postcard from the Royal Naval Air Service Armoured Cars Division with the appropriate large, framed censor mark of the unit and a similar themed card from a sailor serving with the Russian Army with the Armoured Car Division cachet in Russian; two recent purchases.
After lunch, Nick Bridgwater showed us a wealth of commercial mail from Bristol - the whole of the first half was taken up by perfin covers from the various merchants and manufacturers of goods in Bristol, particularly those in the tobacco trade. Nick also showed examples of perfin stamps on covers from national companies who had offices in Bristol and overprint stamps; namely 2d values from kings GEO V & GEO VI used as receipt stamps on invoices and receipts. In the second half, Nick showed meter mail and ephemera from a wealth of companies based in Bristol; the chocolate makers were particularly well represented in both covers, postcards and in ephemera.
Before we broke for lunch, Allen Cotton proposed a motion to the membership that “Bill Pipe be added to the list of cheque signatories of the Somerset & Dorset Postal History Group”. This was voted upon and was a unanimous decision of the membership that Bill Pipe be added to the list of signatories and the motion was therefore carried.
After lunch individual member displays included Mike Tombs showing the one and only Dorset Corsini Letter written from on board an un-named ship in Poole Harbour dated 1587 and addressed to Corsini in London. Mike went on to show an almost complete range of Poole Ship and India Letters received from all over the world and landed at Poole as well as postcards of the local Dorset harbours where ship letters are known to have been landed.
Bill Pipe showed just one item, a large cover from an unknown start point addressed to Sheffield and dated 25th May 1847. On the cover was a Great Western Railway parcel label from an unknown start point and with a further parcel label placed over the GWR label from the Bristol and Birmingham Railway indicating a charge of 1/10d for the service from Gloucester to Birmingham.
Graham Mark gave a two+ frame display of stamp dealers censorship & export permits from both World Wars on mail going abroad. The exportation of postage stamps was controlled as these items in many cases could and were used as a form of currency. The name and address of the dealer was mandatory on all mail, as was the permit label or name and permit number of the dealer. Just a few hundred dealers were permitted to export postage stamps under this scheme and some are very hard to obtain. Graham showed an example going to the United States where the dealer had not given his name or address, but the item was still allowed to pass for onwards transmission. The numbered censorship tape used went into the 1,000’s with some; very few, reaching the low 2,000’s. A careful look at these covers and you will see a bundle number and item number, e.g. 15/4 meaning bundle 15, 4th item. This came about as the customs officials had to list all of the items in each envelope, pass them to the censor for checking and had to make sure that the batch and numbers matched the appropriate packet.
Allen Cotton brought along more items [and more] from his family archive with postal markings from Shepton Mallet including postcards and advertising envelopes from the then “Anglo-Bavarian Brewery” at Shepton. Interestingly, it took the company until 1916 to drop the word “Bavarian” from the company title and Allen showed postcards with the word Bavarian, carved into the façade of the brewery being obliterated. The company did change its name to the Anglo Brewing Company later in 1916.
After the members’ displays, Bill re-affirmed the date of the next meeting on the 16th October where we have booked John Cowlin to show us mail from the French Revolution and something from Bill Pipe and Nick Bridgwater.
Thanks were offered to the two members who provided the main displays, the individual members who displayed, Elizabeth Higgins for organising the turn-out and the menu, Graham Mark for bringing the display boards, Allan Cotton for his work on the accounts and Nick Bridgwater for producing yet another informative and well produced journal.
Tea was consumed together with more homemade cookies and we all went home having learned a little about the many subjects we were entertained with.
Bill Pipe,
Secretary of the Somerset & Dorset Postal History Group.
24th March 2022