POSTAL HISTORY
The postal history of Renfrewshire, and an intriguing pre-stamp cover
The postal history of Renfrewshire is so bound up with maritime history arising from the importance of the port of Greenock, along with Port Glasgow, and the industrial town of Paisley, renowned for shawls.
There are more than twenty ship letter marks recorded from Greenock and among the rarest and most intriguing are the Post Paid Withdrawn Ship Letter marks. The Ship Letter Act of 1814 imposed an additional charge on any letter sent by private ship instead of by the official packet service. The charge was one-third of the packet rate and, if there was no packet service to the destination, a ‘deemed’ rate was applied. A sender wishing to avail themselves of this service had to take the sealed letter to one of a limited number of post offices where a special datestamp was applied over the paper join on the reverse to prevent additional content being added later. Customs officers were encouraged to inspect vessels for any unstamped letters which would be confiscated along with a hefty fine for the
captain. Needless to say this payment for a service not provided was not universally popular and by July 1815 the Act was repealed. With a life of under a year it is hardly surprising that letters bearing these marks are among the most elusive and correspondingly expensive. Indeed not a single example has been found from St. Ives or Queenborough and I am grateful to Malcolm Ray-smith for permission to illustrate the sole example recorded from Port Glasgow.
Before depression sets in, another maritime aspect for which Greenock is well known among collectors is that of the Greenock & Ardrishaig Packets. Even by the 1820s steam boats were taking tourists down the Clyde during the summer season and in 1851 the shipping company of G. & J. Burns hived off their West Highland services to David Hutcheson, with David Macbrayne, a nephew of the Burns’, taking over the undertaking in 1879 under his own name. Starting with nine ships in 1851, the fleet had grown to a dozen by 1879 and to 33 by 1905. What makes the Macbrayne steamers so unique in British postal history was the opening of on-board post offices on the Columba and the Iona in 1879 which plied between Greenock and Ardrishaig during the summer season and which continued until the public service became a casualty of the First World War in 1915, although sorting continued until 1917. Post Offices also functioned on board the ‘Grenadier’ and the ‘Chevalier’ but since these provided a winter service they are considerably rarer than the first two named. Apart from the postmarks themselves, the Company also produced a colourful range of postcards and stationery depicting both the ships and the magnificent scenery of the isles which add to the visual appeal of such a collection. The title of ‘The Royal Route’ stems from Queen Victoria’s use of the Company’s steamers in 1847, and on two subsequent occasions, although King Edward and Queen Alexandra preferred the privacy of The Royal Yacht on their visit in 1902.