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Early Postmarks on Postage Stamps
The earliest postal markings of any kind are the red and blue ink markings on the letters of Egyptian court officials during the Third Dynasty (c 3000BC) bearing the exhortation ‘In the name of the living king, speed!’
The earliest examples of a postmark in Europe consist of injunctions to the postal officials not to delay state correspondence. A formula used in Venice by the early fourteenth century was the Latin ‘Cito, cissime, volantissime’ meaning ‘Quickly, very quickly, very fleetingly’. By the sixteenth century, the French were endorsing the mail ‘en diligence’ (with speed and care), and it is from this endorsement that the French mail coaches came to be known as diligences. In Tudor England, a common expression on the covers of letters was ‘Haste, haste, for life, post haste’ and this in turn, has given the language an expression meaning with all speed.
Many of the more important state letters bore the signatures of the respective post-masters through whose hands they passed en route, together with the times of arrival and departure. Such express letters are of considerable interest to postal historians for the light they shed on medieval mail routes and the time it took to cover these journeys.
Only when the state services were thrown open to the general public did a system of manuscript marking come into use to denote the amount of postage due from the recipient. Even after the introduction of handstruck post-marks, charges were often indicated in manuscript – black ink for postage due and red ink or crayon for prepaid letters.
The earliest record of manuscript postal charges comes from France in the mid-sixteenth century, when it became customary for senders to endorse the wrappers to indicate that the letters had been prepaid. These endorsements were quite unofficial and are not believed to have been applied by the post office. In 1588, however, the regulations for the Toulouse-Paris messengers stipulated that each letter had to be endorsed on the wrapper with the amount paid or due at the rate of eight sous per ounce weight. Charges were expressed simply as numerals in black or red ink.
The earliest letters of the general public in England were transmitted without charge markings. The service was severely disrupted during the Civil War (1642 – 1649) and not resumed until 1652. From then onwards, charges were indicated with simple numerals. Paid letters usually included a manuscript endorsement of ‘Post Pay’d’ or ‘P Pd’ but are relatively scarce. Manuscript was used to denote the amount of postage, with very few exceptions, until the advent of Uniform Fourpence Postage in December, 1839 and the Penny Post the following January, but many offices continued to indicate charges in black ink. After the adoption of adhesive postage stamps in 1840, the British Post Office permitted the prepayment of letters in cash as late as the 1850s, the amount being indicated in red ink or crayon on the front of the letter.This concession was withdrawn in the provinces in 1852 but survived in the London area as late as 1855.
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