Seapost -> The Devonport Cape Packet Mark
The Devonport Cape Packet Mark
By Mike Dovey
The first Devonport Cape Packet cancellation was used in December 1857 when a contract had been agreed between the Post Office and the Union Line Shipping Company. The Union Line had originally been a coaling company supplying coal to ships of the P & O and Royal Mail Lines at Southampton under the name of the Southampton Steam Shipping Company, being formed in 1853. However the five ships they owned were quickly taken over by the British Government to supply the troops in the Crimea in 1854. When that war ended in 1855 all the ships were surplus to requirements in their old task because of a surplus of coal stocks, so fresh routes had to be found. Voyages to South America proved fruitless so in 1857 the board of the company changed the name to Union Line and a contract was agreed with the Post Office for a monthly sailing to the Cape with a voyage not exceeding 42 days. For this they would receive a payment of £33,000 per annum.
The sailings were to be from Plymouth to Capetown, or in bad weather, to Simonstown (formally Symons Bay), South Africa. This service continued from the first voyage by the MV Dane on the 15th September 1857 until 1870 when the whole operation was moved to Southampton in order to cut costs and hopefully earn more revenue following the severe fall in trade around the Cape owing to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
The four cancels (Robertson1 types P3 – P6) were in use at Devonport from December 1857 until 1870 and little is known about which ones were used in what period of the 13 years they were in service.
Figure 1. P6 Dated 1869 towards the very end of the usage period together with the Robertson type M1 quartered circle bagging stamp.
Figure 1 shows the P6 cancel used towards the end of the era on an envelope posted in London on the 7th August 1869 and leaving Devonport the following day to arrive in Capetown on the 13th September. The 1/- stamp is obliterated by a London W43 mark. The quartered circle cancel is believed to have been used only on the Cape Packet voyages either on its own or in conjunction with a Cape Packet cancel and is known used from 1865 until 1869. The mark was applied to letters (or possibly just the back of the last letter in a bundle) sorted in the London Foreign Branch for the Cape Packet - "D" for Devonport2 .
Figure 2. P5 Used from somewhere in South Africa via Capetown to England franked by 1d red stamps cancelled at Devonport.
Figure 2 shows a cover sent from Capetown back to Lymington, England, with a P5 Cape Packet cancel in red. The envelope was posted and passed through the Post Office at Capetown in December to arrive at Devonport on the 18th January 1866 (the code used at Devonport is 250) to arrive at its destination the following day. It is an "Officers letter" and therefore was, it is assumed, posted by an Officer in a regiment on duty somewhere in Africa, as Cape of Good Hope stamps had been available in Capetown since 1853 (the now famous Cape triangulars).
It was usual for anyone in the Army to be able to post letters using GB stamps. The mail would be bagged up and sent back to Great Britain where it would be opened and dealt with. What makes Figure 2 interesting is that it was franked using six 1d red stamps and then cancelled at Capetown on route for Great Britain. This makes the cover all the more desirable.
See also South Africa Sea Post Office - Union Castle Ocean Post Offices.
References
[1] Robertson Revisited, Colin Tabeart, 1997 edition,
James Bendon Ltd, Limassol, Cyprus
[2] THE QUARTERED CIRCLE BAGGING STAMPS 1864-1900, M Scott Archer,
London Postal History Group
