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| Railway Lines |
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| The A. Wilson covers |
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We illustrate two 'A. Wilson' covers used on the Manchester South Junction & Altrincham Railway to Manchester. The control numbers on the stamps (A238 and A353) are usual - these acted as an accounting safeguard (attributed to 1,000 stamps issued in 1919). The two stamps have been altered in manuscript with '3' and '-/3', quite different in style. The reason for this is that the railway postal clerks were instructed to uprate stamps, and the methods they used do differ from one station to another. Mr. A. Wilson, the addressee, was a fanatical collector of these stamps and well over half of the covers that have survived until today are addressed to him. He spent countless hours cycling around Great Britain, and posting covers to himself. Both the covers illustrated are rare. The A238 cover is the only example recorded with the particular manuscript 3, and the '-/3' cover is one of four recorded by Captain Jackson - an early specialist in this area of philately. The '-/3' style, indicating an increased value, is particular to the MSJ&A Railway Company (see illustration).
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| ABOVE, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: From the Great Central Railway Company a simple manuscript updating to 4d from 3d(issued on September 1, 1920); two stamps from later in 1920 showing the handstamped 4d uprating in small-size purple, and much larger in orange; the final stage of uprating was to print the '4' onto the stamps, shown here in pale blue and purple varieties |
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To show that manuscript marks do not differ much, we illustrate a block of 10 Metropolitan Railway stamps down-rated to 3d in manuscript. The Metropolitan Railway was opened in 1863 and served London - part of it is now the present day Metropolitan Line on the Underground system. The railway lines went from Verney Junction, Watford, Wembley Park, Finsbury Park, Shoreditch, New Cross, Richmond and Uxbridge. In the first year, it carried 9.5 million passengers and by 1940, it had 65 miles of track and 34 stations. The control numbers are from 1453 to 1462, and the original stamps were issued in 1922 (a run of 1,500 was issued).
Another selection of different manuscript, handstamped and printed 4s on 3d stamps are illustrated for the Great Central Railway Company. This was a very important railway that linked the ports on the West Coast of England (Liverpool, Southport etc.), with the East Coast ports and towns (Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Lincoln). It also ran South to Woodford, Chesham, and Marylebone. It owned 629 route miles of track, and vast numbers of passengers and tonnes of freight were carried every day.
During the stamp issuing period (1897 to 1923), about 25,000 stamps were printed and sold. Roger de Lacy-Spencer identifies 19 specific issues. As can be seen, the first stamp is a simple manuscript uprating the 3d stamp to 4d - this stamp was issued on September 1, 1920. The next two stamps were issued later in 1920, and the 4d uprating is indicated using a handstamp, applied to each stamp. We are showing a small 4 in purple, and a larger 4 in orange. As a final stage of the uprating, the '4' numerals were printed on the stamp. We show the same type 4 but in two colours, pale blue and purple. Not all railway companies went into this much detail for the provisional stamps. |
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| A Dying Breed |
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ABOVE: A block of 10 Metropolitan Railway stamps down-rated to 3d in manuscript. The original stamps were issued in 1922, and part of the Metropolitan Railway is now the present-day Metropolitan Line on London's underground system |
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With the reorganisation of the railway companies in 1923, and the relative high cost of using the Railway Letter Service, companies began to give up using special stamps. By World War II, whilst parcel stamps were still much in use, specific letter fee stamps were phased out. One of the last issues dates from 1940, and was used by the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway.
For those interested in knowing more about these fascinating stamps, the above catalogue is extremely useful. To see one of the best collections of these stamps, visit the British Library where a major collection formed by H.L. 'Estrange Ewen is displayed. Ewen produced the first Railway Letter Stamp catalogues in the early 1900s. Nowadays the preserved railways issue stamps, starting with the Talyllyn Railway in 1956, are produced only to meet the visitor and souvenir/cover market, rather than to indicate a service. Saying this, there is quite a large body of collectors who specialise in these 'private railway issues'. |
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