Nick Stuart

At the meeting in Guernsey Roger Harris showed a cover which had been flown out of Paris by ballon monté and then sent on to Guernsey. If I remember correctly, he said that only four covers have been recorded sent to Guernsey by ballon monté.

I knew that I had a ballon monté cover. On checking, mine is also to Guernsey. See illustration below. 

It was sent to Madame Esperou at Hotel Marschalls, Guernsey, with a small St. Pierre written at the bottom.

It is dated 14 November 1870 with a PARIS R. D’AMSTERDAM / 4e datestamp 15 NOV 70. It has a Guernsey receiving backstamp NO 24 70 code B. The expertising form states that it was carried on the balloon Le General Ulrich.

I hope this would be of interest to the readers of the Journal.

I was intrigued by this letter (Figure 1 on page 13)  because it was sent from Guernsey to Captain Le Roy of the Brig ‘Esperanza of Guernsey’ care of Messrs Le Maitre & Co., Ship Brokers, Liverpool. However, the 1d red (plate 185) is cancelled with a Southampton duplex.

On the front, above the address, is ‘Via Hind’ which suggests that the Customs Officer gave it to the Captain of the Hind for him to post the letter in Southampton on his arrival. It was probably the quickest way to get it to England as the message required Captain Le Roy to act urgently with regard to the registration of his ship.

The entire is dated 16 October 1862, the Southampton duplex is dated OC 18 62. It was sent to London on the same day with a receiving thimble date stamp also for OC 18 62. It arrived in Liverpool the next day with a receiving thimble date stamp of OC 19 62.

This was delivered faster than the mail today from Guernsey!

The letter reads:

Customs Guernsey

16 Oct 1862

Captain Le Roy

Brig Esperanza

The certificate of Registry issued at this Port (I Mathew absent on leave) on 4hrs ? 15 was inadvertently granted for your vessel by the then acting Registrar – prior to this step having been taken, as it should have been administered under 21 Sec MS Act 1854 Part 2nd Rules.

It is now desirable to rectify this error that your loading shall not have proceeded too far, or such goods as you may have on board can with facility be removed imperatively she should be measured as above stated.

For this purpose it will be necessary that you with Mr Neber’s Representative attend before one of the Measuring Surveyors at the Custom House, who upon the proper application being put in will proceed to take dimensions

The formula (the Norm Coutt the new Tonnage) will then have to be forwarded to the Surveyor General for Tonnage, Customs House, London for verification with a request that when verified it may be sent to me here for the purpose of amending the mistake which has occurred.

Your Obdt Servant

On the letter, in a different manuscript, ‘Measurements & Cert of Registration transmitted 24/10/62’

On the front below the address is written “Guernsey 8th Return”. Presumably the letter was sent back to Guernsey along with the verified documents.

I have had lovely responses from Alan Moorcroft and David Gurney regarding my article on page 12 of Les Isles Normandes Volume 43 No 1. Readers of the Journal might like to read the article because it gives a lot more detail about the marking on the letter “With a Crate”. I am most grateful for their help in providing more information and the implication of the phrase “With a Crate”

Alan Moorcroft writes:

“The Priaulx and Son letter is a super example of a ‘consignee letter’, that is a letter which accompanied a consignment of goods on a ship and as such were exempt from ship letter charges, as confirmed by the endorsement “with a crate”. These are also called ‘Exempt Ship Letters’. Such letters were not exempt from inland postage charges but as your letter travelled from Southampton to Guernsey no inland charge was applicable, so no postal charge. The practice of exemption of postage on letters of merchants and ship owners sent with a ship’s cargo was first enacted in 1710. Subsequent acts confirmed and modified this practice limiting the number and   weight of exempt ship letters.

More details of these exempt ship letters can be obtained from the book Ship Letters by John Hendy (Appendix 4 by Patrick Frost.)

David Gurney sent me a copy of the relevant pages written by Patrick Frost from the Hendy book which states that “Only two British ports were issued with special Exempt Ship Letter handstamps. London had three different handstamps, recorded in use from 1814, while two different handstamps were issued to Liverpool, being recorded in use from 1835 to 1864.”

Frost goes on to state: “An unusual use of the London Exempt Ship Letter handstamps occurs on consignee’s letters posted on the Mobile Box service between London and France. The Mobile Box service, which operated between various English and French ports, resulted from the Anglo-French Postal Convention of 1 June 1843. Mobile post boxes were placed on the quayside and transferred onto cross channel steamers just prior to sailing. Mail could be posted into the boxes while on the quay or on-board ship. The post office entered into contracts with each steamer and so the mail posted in the Mobile Box was charged at the packet letter rates. However, these steamers were privately owned ships and mail landed from the Mobile Boxes in London was handled by the Ship Letter Office, being handstamped “M.B.” and, usually, “ship letter” as well. Consignees of goods could post consignee’s letters into the Mobile Box which were handstamped “Exempt Ship Letter” and charged the inland postage only.”

Firstly, do any members have an example of a letter which was sent along with a piece of cargo to the islands and secondly are there examples of mail to the islands from France, which went via London. So, has anyone got a letter which accompanied some cargo with the “Exempt Ship Letter” handstamp or did cargo from France to the islands come direct and not via London?

This entire is a letter from Messrs Priaulx & Son based in Southampton addressed to a “Major De Havilland/ Guernsey/ with a crate” and is dated 10th December 1824 carried privately.

The entire is signed “Yours & obliged obedt. servants Priaulx & Son” and was sent to Guernsey via Captain Le Maître of the Aeolus.

There are no postal or charge markings, however the letter details the charge for the carriage of a crate from London to Southampton and shipping it to Guernsey at a cost of 6 shillings and ten pence plus 4d for the Duty charge making a total of 7/2d.

The SG Channel Islands Postal History Catalogue lists Priaulx & Sons as Forwarding Agents in Southampton in 1829, David Gurney, FRPSL in his book Letter Forwarding Agents of Great Britain handling Channel Islands Letters 1673 – 1855 states ‘The Stanley Gibbons Channel Islands Postal History Catalogue lists this firm as an Agent in 1829, but the author has not so far seen an example of use’ at the time of writing his book in 2011’. This letter clearly shows the firm was in existence and trading much earlier, in 1824.

The Priaulx family were wealthy merchants and their various firms and partnerships based in Guernsey and also in Southampton and Jersey were heavily involved in the merchant trade with many countries. As a matter of interest, the Priaulx Library in Guernsey is housed in the old Priaulx family home, Georgian Candie house, and the magnificent Candie gardens with superb views across the sea to Herm Island and much further.

However, between 1796–1829, the firm of Priaulx and Bienvenu was in business in Southampton. This entire suggests that the dates given by the Gibbons catalogue may be incorrect at the time of writing the catalogue and that other related firms include Priaulx and Son, Nicholas Priaulx and N.M.Priaulx all in Southampton and possibly Josué Priaulx in Jersey and Guernsey and Priaulx Lauga & Co in Guernsey commenced conducting business in the period mentioned above and certainly Priaulx and Sons from 1824 as shown in this significant letter providing the first evidence of their existence.

I am most grateful to my colleague David Gurney FRPSL, for providing some additional information for this article.