The History of the Postmarks of the British Isles from 1840 to 1876 - John Hendy (1909)

LONDON DISTRICT. 47
nothing to distinguish one occupant or one house from the other the letter reached the
wrong person, who forged the signature of his namesake and obtained payment of the
money orders, an offence for which he was tried and punished. It was stated that
irregularity of numbering was carried in some instances to such an extent as to have the
same number on seven different houses in the same street. In particular places some
ridiculous anomalies were reported. An Inspector of Letter Carriers gives the following
ludicrous instance :
''
On arriving at a house in the middle of a street I observed a
brass number, '95,' on the door, the houses on each side being numbered respectively
14 and 16. A woman came to the door, and when I requested to be informed why 95
should appear between 14 and 16, she sa'd it was the number of a house she formerly
lived at in another street, and it (meaning the brass plate) being a very good one, she
thought it would do for her present residence as well as any other.''
The first number of the British Postal Guide was issued on May ist, 1856. Its
principal contents consisted of information regarding the Post Office, such as rates of
postage, inland, colonial, and foreign money orders, and lists of Post Offices with the
number of the obhteration mark in use in each. In the third edition, issued January isfa
1857, will be found a list of the principal streets and places in London and its environs,
with their postal districts. This list was added for the purpose of educating the public
in regard to the new postal districts, the whole usefulness of which depended solely on
the co-operation of the public, who were ofificiaUy requested to append the initials of the
district to their addresses. This co-operation was readily given, and at the suggestion
of Mr. F. J.
Horniman, it was decided, early in 1857, to add to the London stamps the
district initials, as on Fig. 243.
-T A
I
^
B'ig. 243.
The ten * districts were as follows : East Central, West Central, Northern, Southern,
Eastern, North-Eastern, South-Eastern (Borough Branch Office), Western (Old Cavendish
Street Branch Office), North-Western, and South- Western. A complete set of all
types of stamps in use in the ten London District Offices, with an explanation of each,
are given in Figs. 244-265.
Figs. 244
Combined Date and Obliteration Marks.
* The number appears to have been reduced later to nine by the abolition of the Southern
District, unless Mr. Flendy made a mistake in this matter. His original list only included nine,
but he omitted "Eastern."—E. B. Evans.