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

FOREIGN BRANCH.
5S
such an arrangement. It is noticeable that, although the Home Government has no
power whatever to compel a self-governing Colony to alter its postage rates, yet all of
them joined most willingly in the arrangement. The measure proved a good one, not
only by diminishing the rates of postage, but by rendering the rates uniform and simple,
many sources of error and trouble, especially to the clerks of the Foreign Branch, were
removed.
By an agreement with France, which took effect from the ist January, 1855, the
minimum postage rate was reduced to a uniform one of fourpence, if prepaid, a double
rate being levied upon unpaid letters. This arrangement was eventually embodied in
a postal convention between the two countries, dated 24th September, 1856. Under
Article 1 1, in addition to the regular mail service, letters were to be exchanged between
several British and French ports, such mails being carried by private vessels of either
country, a gratuity of one penny being paid on each letter. This means of communication
became so constant that all the vessels carried movable boxes on board for collecting
such letters, and stamps were brought into use for postmarking letters so posted.
Fig. 306 is a type of the mark in use in the London office. Similar stamps were in use
elsewhere (Figs. 307, 308).
MB
FE
Z
\ t867 .
FRANCE
MB
AP26
Fig. 307. Havre and Southampton. Fig. 306. "M.B." means "Movable
Box." Used on Letters posted in
movable boxes on board steamers
from France, impressed in red ink.
Fig. J
St.
Malo and Jersey.
Under Article XXXII of the same convention, it was agreed that all ordinary
unpaid correspondence, charged with transit or sea rates, which should be exchanged in
the mails between the two countries, "shall receive, in some conspicuous part of the
address, the impression in black ink of a stamp intended to show the rate at which the
dispatching office shall have delivered those letters to the other office." The following
are types of the stamps in use in Great Britain (Figs. 309, 318) ; somewhat similar types
were in use in France bearing the letters " F r " instead of " G B "
^Qr
2F,
Fig. 309, Fig. 310. Fig. 311.
Fig. 312.
r^B^
2^62*^
Fig. 313. Fig. 314.
GB
F60^
Fig. 315,
<(}-BfeK>
Fig. 316,