Stamp_&_Coin_Mart_2016_02_

32 FEBRUARY 2016 http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk

asasas

Stamp sidelines

T

he Precancels

of Great Britain

are relatively

few in number

compared to

countries like

France, Belgium,

Canada and the USA, writes Stephen

Panting, but the information about

them is rather sparse and scattered;

unfortunately the official records are

also fragmentary.

By the beginning of the 1860s,

the post office was under a lot of

pressure to deliver mail quicker

under an ever increasing workload.

This pressure came from several

quarters, including bankers trying

to get the latest share prices

Precancels of Great Britain

to customers, distributors of

newspapers, and manufacturers

sending out lists of products.

This is the scenario that created

the need for time-saving innovations

such as precancels. Pre-cancelling

allowed companies to cancel and

sort their own mail so that they

could then deliver it themselves,

either to the main post office for

local mail or a railway station for

foreign or other inland destinations.

This arrangement took some of the

workload off the post office whilst

cutting delivery times.

Britain was not the first country

to utilise pre-cancelling, the USA

had been doing so since the 1840s.

It was only 25 years later, in 1865,

that Smith, Elder & Co., East India

agents, bankers and publishers,

became the first company in Britain

to use a precancel (figure 1). These

can be found on stationery of Smith,

Elder & Co., ‘Home News’ and

(rarely) Smith, Elder & Co., crossed

out, as well as on ordinary postage

stamps, commonly, the 5/-.

Henry S. King & Co. obtained

their own precancel on 20

September, 1875 (figure 2) for

distributing the official Stock

Exchange lists. These are most

commonly found on the 2d plate 15,

but have been seen on values up to

2/-. They are not usually found on

stationery, but I have seen a single

example on a ‘Home News’ 1d.

According to John G Hendy,

Curator of the GPO records room,

WH Smith & Son were first granted

the use of precancels on 1 August,

1876 to cancel wrappers and send

mail directly to Euston station

(figure 3). The cancel (illustrated by

Alcock & Holland) is shown on a

wrapper to HMS Neptune, redirected

to Galway, Ireland. These appear

Figure 1. Early precancels for Smith, Elder & Co., East India agents, bankers and publishers

Figure 2. The Henry S

King & Co precancel

used to distribute offi cial

stock exchange lists

Figure 3. WH Smith &

Son precancels used

on mail sent directly to

London’s Euston station

p32 Sidelines.indd 32 21/12/2015 09:41