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| DISPLAYS at the NATIONAL
PHILATELIC SOCIETY 1999-2000 SEASON |
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See what you may have missed and the wide range of interests covered by philately For Reports on recent Season's Displays, please click here |
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September 1999 Meeting - British Letter Mail to Overseas Destinations by Jane and Michael Moubray FRPSL At the beginning of the display our President, Frank Jones, expressed great pleasure on his own behalf and the members present, in welcoming Jane and Michael Moubray FRPSL who had brought along some fine covers and other philatelic items for their display on "British Letter Mail to Overseas Destinations." The idea for this collection was formed while walking down the Strand about 25 years ago, so the collection had been built-up gradually and now forms a very comprehensive selection of items tracing the routing of mail to overseas destinations, starting about 150 years ago. Many items illustrate the routes, eastwards across Europe, via Rotterdam, Belgium and France and from Southampton via Gibraltar and Suez to the Far East and onto Australia. European mail to Germany and Scandinavia was sometimes affected by winter weather and post for Italy was routed through tunnels in the mountains, which were sometimes primitive. The packet service to Australia was often full of problems due to the distance and by 1857 the Union Castle Line was carrying post to South Africa. Transatlantic Mail to the USA and Canada was covered from about 1840 and this included post to California during the Gold Rush, when crews of ships often deserted to join in the frantic search for the "magic" metal. The items shown were of very high quality and Ian Nutley who proposed the vote of thanks remarked on the many magnificent covers which we had been shown. Ian expressed our sincere thanks to Jane and Michael for a fascinating display. October 1999 Meeting - Aspects of Postal Stationery in Thematic Collecting by Dr. Jean Alexander FRPSL On 9th October the Society was treated to a fascinating display entitled "Aspects of Postal Stationery in Thematic Collecting" given by Dr Jean Alexander, FRPSL. The wide range of material shown encompassed air letters and aerogrammes, envelopes, registered envelopes, newspaper wrappers, lettercards and lettersheets, and telegraph cards. The display started with ten frames of waterfalls on postal stationery with material from countries as diverse as Japan, the Belgian Congo, Russia and Ecuador. Dr Alexander then explained how she had been side-tracked from her main waterfall theme into collecting postal stationery generally and showed three frames dedicated to the New South Wales postal stationery cards of 1897 to 1907 illustrating the three types - those inscribed 'Christmas Greetings', 'New Year Greetings' and simply 'Greetings' - and exceptionally one card inscribed 'Birthday Greetings'. The second half of the display consisted of five cards issued by the various Canadian railway companies, principally the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the Grand Trunk Railway System, depicting railway hotels, dining cars and Canadian scenery. This was followed by eight frames of beautiful Argentinean material, including New Year Greetings Letter sheets from the turn of the last century together with unissued postal stationery postcards and pictorial lettercards. The display ended with three frames of more modem material, namely colourful Brazilian Christmas and New Year postal stationery from the 1970's onwards. The whole display was warmly received by an appreciative audience. November 1999 Meeting - Melville Centenary Lecture The November meeting was the culmination of the three-day celebration of the Society's Centenary. Following the Centenary Reception, hosted by Phillips Auctioneers on Thursday 11th November and the Centenary Dinner on the Friday evening, the morning of Saturday 13th November saw 83 members arriving for coffee at University College London to prepare for some philatelic history. Stephen Holder FRPSL had been selected deliberately by Frank Jones to give the Melville Centenary Lecture, as being a very knowledgeable person who researches his subject meticulously and can deliver a seminar to hold his audience. The subject was appropriate, "Fred Melville - his life and influence on the National Philatelic Society". Suffice to say that Stephen held the floor until mid-day with much interaction from those attending. The lecture was followed by a buffet lunch and then a return to the British Philatelic Centre to continue the usual monthly format of viewing before the Centenary Auction. December 1999 Meeting - Annual Competitions On December 11th, after the usual monthly auction which was well attended and supported by nearly 60 postal bidders, members were able to start the festive season almost a fortnight before 25th December, when they enjoyed delicious Christmas fare of mince pies, iced cake and sherry, kindly provided by our President Frank Jones and his wife, Judith. This very pleasant interlude enabled the judges of our annual competitions, Brian Asquith and David Sessions, to complete their deliberations on the winners of the four classes (Traditional, Thematic, Aero philately and Postal History). There were a total of 19 entries, and the judges reported that high standards were achieved in 3 of the classes. The winners were:
Ian Nutley organised the Competitions very efficiently and is to be congratulated on achieving a substantial increase in the number of entries. After the trophies had been presented, Keith Tranmer received the Johnson Literary Award for the best article published in "Stamp Lover" during 1998. Following the above events several members gave short displays with a Christmas theme. They included Peter Wood, Keith Tranmer, Allan Boyce and Brian Sole. January Meeting 2000 - The Troubles and Transition in Ireland by Peter Wood Peter Wood's display at our January meeting was entitled "The Troubles and Transition in Ireland". The subject was vividly illustrated by a very wide range of covers and other philatelic material, collected over a period of years from numerous sources. Items shown included colour post cards, publicity labels and a copy of the "Daily Chronicle" newspaper dated 29th April 1916, also official and unofficial notices. There was a range of Great Britain King George V stamps overprinted by the Provisional Government of Ireland (16 January to 6 December 1922) and for the Irish Free State (6 December 1922 to 29 December 1937), plus many unusual items such as "Censored by IRA" handstamps and examples of some confusion in Post Office circles over the validity of the overprinted stamps when used in conjunction with unoverprinted items. Official mail marked OHMS was for a period simply overprinted 'Free State of Ireland 1922' and the College of Arms, being part of the British Civil Service continued to use OHMS stationery until 1943. Postage Due labels were not finally replaced for about 20 years and mixed usage items were shown. It was a fascinating collection, which must have involved much detailed research and at the conclusion of the display Brian Sole expressed our thanks to Peter for showing us so many interesting items. February 2000 Meeting - The Airmails of Chile by Prof. John West, CBE, FRPSL We were delighted to welcome Professor John West CBE, DSc, C.Eng, FRPSL who gave us a very interesting and well-researched display on the subject of "The Airmails of Chile". He told us that the first airmail flight across the Andes took place in 1919. The Aero Club de Chile was involved in early commercial flights and the German Syndicate Condor started in 1924 with flights to Santiago. In those days, it was necessary to refuel aircraft in mid-Atlantic from a ship, which was somewhat hazardous. There were Graf Zeppelin flights in the early 1930s and these were identified by special cachets. Pan American Airways became involved in services to and from Chile, but the German services ceased before the outbreak of World War II. A weekly service to neutral Spain and Portugal across the Atlantic was operated in wartime. Converted Lancaster bombers were operated in 1946 by British South American Airways for passengers and mail and a Lancaster that crashed in the mountains, more than 50 years ago, has just been located. Frank Jones, our President, himself an airmail specialist, thanked John West for his very interesting display and presented him with two books as a token of our gratitude. March 2000 Meeting - Railways and the Mail by Harold S. Wilson For the March meeting, Harold S. Wilson C Eng., MIMech E., travelled down from Derby to give us his fascinating display "Railways and the Mail". In introducing the speaker, our President Frank Jones told us that Harold was a railwayman by profession, having spent many years as a rail engineer at Derby and his philatelic hobby is also associated with railways. At the commencement of his display Harold showed us early covers associated with Railway Post Offices, Travelling Post Offices and Sorting Tenders, commencing with the London & Manchester Railway which started to operate in September 1830, handling much mail for Lancashire cotton mills, also foreign mail which was arriving at the Liverpool ports and required speedy delivery to other parts of the UK. In the early days the Post Office insisted that their own Mail Guards must handle letters dispatched by rail, but later restrictions were eased and mail could be sorted on trains. The display included some of the special handstamps used in the early days of their service including those applied to missent letters. Many other train mail services were developed covering areas as remote as the north of Scotland and Cornwall. Later sections of the display were devoted to special facilities such as RAILEX Letters and the Railway Air Service. Other items of interest included wartime services to the Scilly Isles to handle mail sent to the large army garrison located there to prevent a German invasion, specimens of letters damaged by fire on trains and a photograph of the carriage involved in the notorious 'Great Train Robbery". In conclusion, Dane Garrod proposed a vote of thanks for an excellent display. April 2000 Meeting - President's Day Saturday 8th April was "President's Day" and after the usual members auction, Frank Jones, our President showed us a large number of sheets from his extensive airmail collection under the title "Aerophilately of the World". Among the many interesting covers on display were early items when mail was considered by the airline operators to be of more importance than passengers. Then there were etiquettes, Zeppelin flights and airmails from France, Scandinavia, Netherlands and other European countries. Of special interest was air/sea mail across the North and South Atlantic, where in the 1920s and 1930s large passenger liners sometimes carried aircraft that could be catapulted off when land was relatively close, in order to save one or more days in transit time. With the busy professional and philatelic life that Frank leads, it remains a mystery to many of us how he can find the time and energy to research, write-up and compile so many attractive pages of aero-philately. Thank you, Frank for a very interesting afternoon. May 2000 Meeting - The Road to Auschwitz by Ian Nutley The speaker was our own meetings officer, Ian Nutley who gave us a very thoughtful display, which he has recently completed, entitled The Postal History of the Holocaust 1933-1945 - The Road to Auschwitz. He showed us a sample of this material at our Christmas meeting 1999, which prompted several members to ask for more. He also revealed his interest in the subject when he wrote an article in the December 1998 issue of Stamp Lover entitled An Historically Significant Cover from Auschwitz. He warned us that his subject was a grim one. The Gestapo was founded by Goering in April 1933, soon after Hitler came to power and initially it was the only organisation with the power to send people to concentration camps. It was claimed that these establishments were set up for political re-education of Jews and to provide protective custody for prisoners, but they turned out to be centres of extermination and punishment. Letters and covers from various authorities formed part of the display together with interesting mail from inmates. All mail leaving these camps was censored and had to be written in German on official lettersheets or cards in an approved style, without disclosing anything of significance about living conditions etc. There were no Post Offices in the Concentration Camps and mail was sent in bulk to local German Post Offices. Material, especially ingoing mail, to form this collection is always difficult to find, as many of the inmates were employed as slave-labour and died at the time, but Ian did visit a surviving camp at Stutthof-Gdansk recently where he was welcomed by the camp Curator and supplied with copies of old records. This display obviously involved much careful investigation and Ian was congratulated on his research work. Further information on the display, with illustrations, may be seen by clicking here for "The Echoes of their Voices" June 2000 Meeting - Royal Navy Censored Mail of World War II by Rodney Vousden The meeting welcomed our member Rodney Vousden who showed us his display "Royal Navy Censored Mail of World War II". Rodney told us that in the early days of the war, censorship, like some other matters, was not very well organised! However it soon became a major task for officers, who often undertook the work as a Sunday Wardroom chore. It was estimated that most sailors wrote at least one letter home each week and as the Navy expanded this soon meant 25 million letters per year to be censored. To start with, World War I vintage censorship marks were used until the introduction of the familiar tombstone mark, inscribed From HM Ship, with an anchor device in the centre and underneath Passed by Censor and space for the signature of the censor and date. The postmark initially read Received from HM Ship until the less specific Maritime Mail was introduced. Rodney then showed us a number of warship photographs and a letter from HMS Exeter, which was involved in the Battle of the River Plate early in the war. Honour Letters, he told us, were intended for family news only and were not normally subject to censorship, but the originator had to sign a declaration on the front of the envelope. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Michael Furnell. July/August 2000 (The July Meeting comprised the Society's Annual General Meeting followed by the Stamp and Literature Auctions. As usual there was no Meeting during August) |
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Last updated 15th July 2001 |
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