Early Precancels of Great Britain

The aim of this web site is to consolidate information on early GB precancels.

Further information is invited and welcome.

Scans of actual stamps are given at 300dpi with illustrations as far as possible to the same scale.
Click on blue-outlined images to see enlargements.

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Text in Red indicates an open invitation/request for further information.

The early precancels of Great Britain are relatively few in number compared to countries like France, Belgium, Canada and the U.S.A., but the information about them is rather sparse and scattered. For some of the items documented in records, it is not certain whether actual examples exist. There are some items with controversy as to whether they are precancels or not including at least one that I have been unable to find records for!

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 to customers. Distributors of newspapers. Publishers sending out lists of products.
This is the scenario that created the need for time-saving innovations such as precancels.

Britain was not the first country to use precancels, James Hale & Co. operated an independent Postal Service in the U. S. A. from March 1844 until June 1845 when closed down by an Act of Congress (March 1845).
During this time, precancels are known to have been used on local issue stamps, for example Boston, Mass. 16/8/44.
The Government issues of 1847 onwards continued to use precancels.

According to 'The History of Precancels', the first non-US precancel was the French 1-centime used from November 1860 to 1862
to affix to blank newspapers and subsequently precancelled by the newsprint prior to posting.
It is reasonable to suppose that the Postal Authorities in Britain were aware of at least the French usage, and may have been inspired by them to introduce a similar system into the U. K.

With the introduction of Precancels, companies were allowed to cancel and sort their own mail so that they could then deliver it themselves
either to the main post office for local mail, Mail-Boats for foreign destinations or a railway station for other inland destinations.
This arrangement took some of the workload off the post office whilst cutting delivery times.

It has to be said here that there is a contrary opinion circulating to the effect that all of these precancels were used by the Post Office either at the Newspaper Branch or the Foreign Office.

I have tried to track down the source of this information.

J.G.Hendy, H.C.Westley, James Mackay, J.B.Seymour, J.Parmenter and Alcock & Holland say that the precancels prior to the 'Public' precancels and the 1878 Stamford Mercury were in the hands of and used by the firms concerned.

Curt Fernau quotes Alcock & Holland, I have not so far found an opinion expressed by G.Brumell or J.T.Whitney, whilst F.H.Vallencey seems confused and ambiguous on the subject.

The only strong support for this minority opinion that I have found is that given by John H.Chandler & H.Dagnall who have done some excellent work on the "Milled Edge Postmarks" ('Public' precancels) and are also familiar with the story of the 1878 Stamford Mercury precancel. It may be that they have simply assumed that the earlier precancels were done the same way, certainly I can see no references in their work in support of the assertion unless it is W.G.Stitt Dibden whose work I have not yet seen.

What's New

Due to the dynamic nature of the website, I have decided to start a list of significant updates:

Feb. 2010	New pages for 'Public Precancels', 'Embossed', Data Collection and DataBase Lookup.
Feb. 28th	Added section at the bottom of the 'Public Precancels' on the relationship of precancels and Meter Franking.
Mar. 2nd	'Newspaper Precancels', 'Public' and WHS updated.
Mar. 3rd	'Public' page updated with Precancel usage of 'Normal' postmarks
Mar. 5th	More early history added above on this page and another Smith, Elder illustration added.
Mar. 6th	Added illustrations of Local Issues 1865-68 on 'Newspaper Precancels' page.
Mar. 7th	Meter Franking Illustration added on 'Public Precancels' page.
Mar. 9th	Not Precancels added below showing things that may be mistaken for precancels.
Mar.17th	'Public' page updated.
Mar.27th	'Public' page - Major update.
Mar.31st	'Frank' page split from 'Public' page, 'Railway' page added. Navigation links updated.
April 3rd	Made website more friendly to small monitors. Still some problems with 'Dates' chart using some browsers.
April 4th	Made modifications to support more browsers, now works reasonably well with these browsers.
April 11th	Updated the 'Embossed' page.
April 13th	Updated the 'H. S. King' page.
April 15th	Another cover added to the 'T.O.1 to T.O.6' page.
April 22nd	More Wagon-Wheel examples added to the 'H. S. King' page.
April 24th	Some historic scans added to the 'T.O.1 to T.O.6' page.
Aug. 3rd	More examples of Smith Elder on Stationery added and more examples of T.O. series on Stationery added.
Aug. 22nd	Extensive additions of T.O. series material.
Aug. 23rd	Updates to Railway Precancels.

Click on the images below to go to the relevant category where you will find more related types.


Smith Elder & Co	H. S. King & Co	W.Dawson & Sons	W. H. Smith & Son	Newspapers	Railway Precancels


'Public Precancels'	Precancel Franking	T.O.1 to T.O.6	Anomalies	Time frame	Embossed

Not Precancels:

These are things that are sometimes mistaken for precancels.

	These are known as 'Commercial Overprints'. The stamp is usually overprinted with the name of a local authority or utility company to prevent petty-theft much in the same way as perfins. The difference is that these were used for receipt purposes at a time when duty was payable hence some have 'Received for' as part of the design. When this duty was abolished in 1971, the unused stocks could be used postally for a period of 6 months.
	The first item here really belongs with the group above, these were used in the Victorian period and most often found on the 1881 penny lilac. The others are Telegraph cancellations, the circular and occasionally elliptical ones for England and Wales, less commonly rectangular ones for Scotland and a rather scarce diamond shape for Ireland. Sizes vary and there is sometimes an 'A' or 'B' on the end of the number.
	These are official overprints prepared for the use of various Government Departments. A word of warning, there are many forged overprints, particularly on the rare items. When buying, compare the overprint to a known genuine example (say a poor common example). Any postmark should obviously be on top of the overprint and also the overprint is usually easily legible from the back of the stamp. Be wary of say an ebay item that does not show a scan of the back, especially if the seller appears to have large numbers of officials for sale.
	The Victorian 1d one shows a Scottish cancellation, in this case Aberdeen (they were numbered alphabetically). The next is a parcel cancellation which can come in many varieties often with rectangular designs, the next two are machine cancellations and the last is a type used by the Post Office for training purposes which is often seen on King George VI and Queen Elizabeth stamps with 1 or 2 bars. Apart from the last, these postmarks are more often at an angle, but when neatly parallel with top or sides can look like a precancel.

References:

Tim Burgess, A Postmark Mystery, The postage stamps of the Queen Victoria period of Great Britain, 1840-1901
http://www.members.tripod.com/~pennyreds/yz.html
and http://www.members.tripod.com/~pennyreds/mystery.html	This is the site that got me started on this.

Jan Kosniowski, W H Smith & Son Newspaper Wrappers 1870 – 1901, Stamp Domain
http://www.stampdomain.com/newswrapper/gb/whsmith/ - another good resource.

Philatec Newsletter.004 30/3/07 - The McInroy Collection, available as a pdf document.

GB Meter Franking (Gibbons Stamp Monthly) - Jack Peach’s history of meter franking Parts 1 to 4 available in pdf format at the bottom of this Meter Stamp Society page.

The History of the Postmarks of the British Isles from 1840 to 1876, compiled chiefly from official records John G. Hendy - Available at www.archive.org. (see chapter 4)

The Encyclopedia of British Empire Postage Stamps, Volume 1, Robson Lowe 1948 - Sorry, can't help you with this - see below.

The Postmarks of Great Britain and Ireland, Alcock and Holland (1940). - Sorry, can't help you with this either.

Alternatively, British Postmarks - a Short History and Guide, R. C. Alcock and F. C. Holland (1960)

The Postmarks of the British Isles, George Brumell (1930). - Sorry, can't help you with this either.

British Postal Stationery, A Priced Handbook of the Postal Stationery of Great Britain, Alan K. Huggins (1970) - 3 important pages available as a zip file from www.philatelicsannex.org

Collect British Postal Stationery, Alan Huggins and Colin Baker (2007) ISBN 978-0-907630-22-7 A Simplified Listing of British Postal Stationery 1840 to 2007 - readily available.

A Historical Survey of Precancels by R. Malcolm Hooper (1979) - Relating to the U. S. A.

The History of Precancels, collected works of N. R. Hoover, Published by the Precancel Stamp Society Inc. (PSS350 - 1989) - Almost exclusively U. S. A.

The Postage Stamps of Great Britain Part One: The Line-Engraved Issues 1840 to 1853, J. B. Seymour , edition 2 (1 Jan 1950) or 3 (1967)

English and Welsh Postmarks Since 1840, James A. Mackay (March 1980) - or try the library.

First with the News: The History of W.H.Smith, 1792-1972 (1985) Charles Wilson.

Collect British Postmarks: Handbook to British Postal Markings and Their Values, Compiled by Dr. J. T. Whitney.

Newspaper and Almanac Stamps of Great Britain and Ireland (1981) by John H.Chandler & H.Dagnall .

Newspaper Branch Cancels / Killers (1971) by W.G.Stitt Dibden.

The railway letter stamps of Great Britain & Ireland 1891-1947 (2000) by Roger De Lacy-Spencer.

The Plating of Alphabet III, 1856-64; plates 22-68, R15-R17 by W.R.D.Wiggins, G.C.Tonna (5 volumes, 1973) - I got my copies from Amazon for £11.25 plus postage, but you have to shop around.

The Story of the Stamford Mercury Postage and Revenue Stamps by John H. Chandler Published in 1958, Rutland & Stamford Mercury (Stamford, Lincolnshire) - I have a photocopy only of this.

The next three are well out of print, but are thankfully, available for free download at:
www.philatelicsannex.org - a valuable resource that few seem to know about.

London Postmarks used on printed matter and parcels from 1860, Curt N. Fernau pages 19 & 20

The Postal Cancellations of London 1840-1890 by H. C. Westley pages 43 to 45

Billig's Handbook on Postmarks Volume 9 'British Postmarks' by F. Hugh Vallancey Page 28, 32

Life Span of the Printing Plates by Allan Oliver - Good for Line-Engraved, incomplete for Surface Mounted. - www.philatelicsannex.org

Barred Numeral Cancellations of London by John Parmenter. British Philatelic Trust Publications (£25 + £3 P&P)
(1999, ISBN 1 871777 10 X, 392 pages, hundreds of cancellations illustrated and PRICED)

This web page is at an early stage. Comments, criticisms, information or suggestions are all welcomed. Contact Steve.Panting@gmail.com

Please include the word 'Precancels' in the subject.

Last updated 22nd Aug. 2010

©Copyright Steve Panting 2010 except where stated.
Permission is hereby granted to copy material for which the copyright is owned by myself, on condition that any data is not altered and this website is given credit.