David Winnie

The postcard above shows a fine example of the Grand Hotel de la Pomme D’Or, Jersey cachet in violet. This is a cachet from one of the four maisons Françaises in Jersey that catered primarily for the French clientele.

In the book “Delivered by the Hotel’s Care” by Roger Harris, he states  “A highly significant observation was that the cachets were only on cards addressed to France; there were none on cards addressed to England”.

Posted in Jersey in 1910, this postcard is addressed to Mrs E. J. Kendall in England, using the rural three‑part format typical of the period: farm/locality – nearest village – nearest market town. The name Cold Harbour refers not to a hamlet or village but to a recognised farm locality between Blyton and Northorpe in the Gainsborough postal district, though seldom named in census returns. Such addresses relied on the rural postman’s detailed knowledge of his walk rather than formal street naming. The card illustrates the effectiveness of early 20^th Century postal delivery to isolated agricultural communities, where a simple locality name was sufficient for accurate routing and final delivery

The postcard’s journey would have been:

• Jersey – Southampton or Weymouth (depending on the sailing)
• Forwarded to Gainsborough Head Post Office
• Sent to Blyton sub post office
• Handed to the rural postman serving the Northorpe/Blyton route

Delivered to Cold Harbour (the Farm/locality   

I have recently acquired an excellent item for my new interest of Mail between the Channel Islands and France.

Before formal postal conventions, Channel Island mail to France travelled as ship letters carried privately or by local vessels. For Brittany, the usual landing point was St Malo,  directly opposite Jersey and Guernsey.

Sark had no Post Office in 1819. Letters were carried to Guernsey (most commonly) and then placed on a vessel bound for St Malo or St Servan. On arrival in France, the letter entered the French postal system and was rated according to distance and weight. This is a rare example of early mail from Sark to the French mainland.

Before the standardised COLONIES PAR handstamp became commonly used, the St. Malo and St Servan offices occasionally applied the Colonies par notation by hand when either the handstamp was unavailable or when the clerk was processing a small batch of foreign letters. France treated the Channel Islands as “colonies” for postal accounting purposes. . Anything landed there was purely chance / if the ship had no business at St Malo and was proceeding further down the Rance estuary and offloaded the odd letter from the CI there. 

The above letter from Sark to Nantes in 1819 shows a superb example of the manuscript Colonies par notation and the 34/S^T SERVAN town mark with its departmental number.

The rate of 16 décimes is confusing to interpret. The cover has a figure 30 in the top left-hand corner, apparently denoting the weight. The correct rate for a 30gr letter from St. Servan to Nantes (180 to 200kms) under the 1806 French tariff was 16 décimes but it is hard to justify this weight being correct for a single-sheet letter. Can anyone comment on the rate charged, please? – chairman@ciss.uk

Very recently, I purchased the above Registered Letter on ebay which was sent to Hanover, Germany, on 21 December 1921. The 5d embossed stamp shows that the registration fee was 3d plus 2d for postage, and was uprated by a further 2½d with the addition of a KGV blue definitive to make up the 7½d overseas rate. The stamps were cancelled by a 25mm single circle datestamp with Code Binserted. Also shown on the front, is a London Hooded registered circle in purple for 24 December 1921. On the reverse is a smart Hanover receiving mark for 26 December 1921.

The registered label is a CType small sheet label recorded as used from this Town office in 1921. This shows JERSEY in small upper-case letters and the office number 3 inserted in manuscript. This label is illustrated in David Gurney’s The Postal History of the Jersey Sub-Post Offices.

Until now, only two items have been recorded for this town sub-post  office, and these are cutout pieces of the 22mm single circle steel datestamp for the same date, 22 April 1905. An example of this item from my collection is shown at Figure 1.

On 22 March 2025, I visited the Stamp Fair at Kempton Park Racecourse and, as a last resort, having not added anything of interest to my Channel Islands collection, I found myself sitting at a well-known dealer’s stand. Having made myself comfortable, I worked my way through his stock of C.I. material, and, to my complete and utter surprise, I found myself looking at an early registered cover for a Town Office in Jersey. This is shown at Figure 2 below.

The registered letter is addressed to Kotagiri, Nilgiris (Blue Mountains in English), South India and is rated 3d, 2d for Registration and 1d for postage. The embossed stamp has been cancelled by a Registered Jersey oval for 2 February 1910. Beneath is the 22mm single circle datestamp with an asterisk code inserted for GREAT UNION ROAD for the same date.

A ’C’ type small sheet Jersey 7 registration label No.24 was attached top left. Most interestingly, Jersey 7 was subsequently allocated to Georgetown town office following the closure of Great Union Road in 1923.

The reverse of the cover (Figure 3) shows the arrival mark of Kotagiri on 20 February 1910. Kotagiri is a hill station in the Nilgiris district of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. It is located at a height of about 6,400 feet and is therefore an unusual destination for such an item.

What I find strange is that Great Union Road opened on 15 June 1905 and closed on 7 November 1923, yet only three items are now recorded from this office. Nevertheless, for the time being, this is the only known complete example of postal history from this office, enhanced by its spectacular destination.

I refer to my article in Les Iles Normandes Volume 44 No 1 Pages 15/16 and wish to make a correction to the content for which I sincerely apologise. My report seemed to make sense to me, but I am very grateful to Alan Moorcroft, FRPSL for providing me with a key fact, the significance of which I failed to initially recognise.

The significance of the Weymouth Ship Letter mark (shown in the original article as Figure 3) is all important. The letter was not carried by packet to Weymouth but by private ship from Alderney to Weymouth (as there are no Guernsey markings), where it received the Weymouth Ship Letter handstamp.

There is also a change to the calculation of the rate. The letter was charged 4d as a Ship Letter and then sent inland to Ashburton. Ashburton was served by the Western Road, and it is believed that mail from Weymouth would have to go to Shaftesbury to join the Western Road and then on to Ashburton. The letter was charged 7d for 116 miles (80-120 miles) to make up the 11d rate shown on the front of the entire.

My thanks to Alan for providing such helpful guidance.

When Post Offices were established in Guernsey and Jersey in 1794, no provision was made for Alderney, and mail for that island was carried privately until 1812. As such, mail between 1794 and 1812 from Alderney is very scarce.
I was very pleased to obtain recently an 1806 entire letter from Alderney (Figure 1 below) confirmed by the entry on the first page of the letter.

As can be seen on the front (see Figure 2 below) the entire is addressed to Ashburton in Devon and is rated at 11d.

Rate: Total 11d comprising the packet rate Guernsey to Weymouth 3d and UK inland single letter rate (80 – 120 miles) 8d.
On the reverse (Figure 3 below) is an oval ‘Ship Lre/Crown/Weymouth’ (Robinson S 2) handstamp.

I would be interested to learn if any of our members have similar entires. If so, please contact chairman@ciss.uk.

At our recent meeting at the RPSL on 8 February, I had a very pleasant duty to perform. Some considerable time ago, we created the position of Honorary Life Member in recognition of the contribution that Michael Wienke had made in promoting Channel Islands philately and, to this day, Michael has remained our only member with this honour. Wanting to make this honour very special and, as part of the Executive, I and my fellow committee members put together a list of criteria which we felt would be necessary to achieve such a status. Quite frankly, we thought it would be almost impossible for anyone else to meet these requirements, that is until now. David Gurney FRPSL ticked every one of our boxes and it was with great pleasure that we announced at our meeting that David would be our second Honorary Life Member, and it was my pleasure to present David with a certificate in recognition of this award.

Whilst it is almost impossible to list all of David’s achievements in the space allowed in this Journal, David has been a member of our Society since November 1970 and has supported the Society as a Committee Member since 1974 when he became Packet Superintendent (interesting title!) remaining in this position until 1995 when he became Auction Secretary. Perhaps he is best known for his time as Editor of our excellent Journal, a position he took up in 1999 and held until December 2023. Of course, David was also our third President following in the footsteps of Bill Newport and John Simpson.

David provided numerous articles for our Journals on a significant number of topics and carried out extensive research which has enabled him to write and publish at least six key books on Channel Islands postal history, especially, but not exclusively, covering his interest in the history of the Sub-Post Offices of the Channel Islands. These include:

The Channel Islands Sub-Post Offices and their Postmarks (1983)

Red Cross Postal Message Scheme with the Channel Islands during the Occupation 1940-45 (1990)

The Post Offices in the Smaller Channel Islands (1993

The Postal History of Guernsey Sub-Post Offices (1995)

The Postal History of the Jersey Sub-Post Offices (2001)

Letter Forwarding Agents of Great Britain handling Channel Island Letters 1673-1855 (2011)

David has also furthered Channel Island philately with his longstanding membership of both the RPSL, where he held the post of Honorary Secretary, and of the Society of Postal Historians. As he enters his ninetieth year in April, I am sure like me, you will all be extremely appreciative of David’s commitment and contribution to the Society and understand that it is time for him to enjoy concentrating on his philately, also giving him time, deservedly so, to “put his feet up”.

To a great fanfare, on the 7 July 2007, in the Departures lounge at Jersey Airport, a Post Office outlet opened. It was basically a foreign exchange facility providing postal services as well. It was not a traditional post office; more of a franchise operation.  It was open daily from 6.00 to 20.00, the most extensive opening hours locally with the ability to change money on departure.

At 19.00 on Sunday 24 March 2024 this facility closed, although the post box will remain in place for passengers to drop off cards and letters before making their way through security. The Ports of Jersey reported that the office was being closed as ‘part of a redesign of customer services’ whatever that means.

Shown below is a tracked and signed cover with the stamps making up the £2.55 rate cancelled by the self–inking datestamp with Code B inserted on 24 March 2024, this being the last day of opening for this office.