Acceptance at Newton Abbot. 17th July 1933.

On 17th July 1933, the motor bus service connecting Haldon with Teignmouth and Torquay was diverted so as to connect also with Newton Abbot, and mail was accepted for aerial transport by the Great Western Railway at Newton Abbot and for posting at Newton Abbot. There was a new Newton Abbot cachet for the sending of mail from Newton Abbot. It seems fairly certain that this was a one off service. For what reason is not known. Redgrove states ‘The existence on the market of covers either accepted at or posted at Newton Abbot on the two dates specified, namely 17th July and 27th July, has given rise to the quite erroneous opinion that Newton Abbot was served only on these two dates’. This view was wrong, there was only one service at Newton Abbot and that was on the 17th. A discussion of the covers that were erroneously considered the second date on the 27th are covered below. There are cachets (see below) which say ‘special trip’ which indicates it was intended as a one-off. The dealer A. Phillips wrote in ‘GWR Air Mail’ that “By Courtesy of Dr. J. Wortley-Talbot of Churston Ferrers we have received a cover carried on the first flight over the extension of the Cardiff — Plymouth — Torquay line to ABBOT, which took place on July 17th”. Redgrove talked of an individual involved in the cachet but I do not think it was this gentleman, this appears to be a red herring. I believe the cachets were originated by Sir Henry Jackson, a director of GWR. In the earlier section ‘May 15th’ you will have seen a letter from Jackson to his son. Fortunately for us Jackson had very distinctive handwriting and it looks the same handwriting on the covers where the cachets are used. It makes sense as the cachet sender clearly knew the inner workings of GWR and knew the first date, the 17th, was a one- off, hence the ‘Special Trip’. However, it may have been his writing on the 27th covers which also had a purple cachet. As we will see the 27th covers are a bit of a mystery. We will look at some examples to support the hypothesis. Firstly, Jackson’s letter is printed again for comparison, then another example in the same handwriting and then the full collection of covers sent with an example without the ‘special trip’ cachet and not in Jackson’s handwriting. Jackson lived in Torquay.

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GWR (Great Western Railways) Hand Stamps and later air mails.

The major change of route for GWR was on the 22nd May with the extension to Birmingham. Despite this there are several areas of interest between then and the last flights of the 30th September. There was an acceptance at Newton Abbot which only seems to have taken place on two dates - the 17th July and the 27th July. There are changes to the cancelling stamps at Birmingham and Cardiff and there several different cachets.

New Cardiff Hand Stamp

The first handstamp to change was Cardiff. This was specifically for Air Mail, mentioning Air Mail in the stamp. Redgrove notes its use in Cardiff to Newton Abbot covers on the 17th July but is uncertain whether this was its first use. The earliest I have seen the new ‘lozenge’ Cardiff hand stamp is the 5th June. I show an example below and a cover with a fine strike in August to show the cancel clearly. Philatelic covers were not used outside of main events so these were both commercial covers.

New Birmingham Cachet.

Birmingham issued a new cachet for Snow Hill and it was thought that this was to coincide with the first and only Sunday service on the 18th June. In fact, the Snow Hill cachet was introduced earlier than this, the earliest recorded being the 16th June.

New Snow Hill Cachet 16th June 1933.

First Sunday Service 18th June 1933.

New Birmingham Hand Stamp

Redgrove notes that a new hand stamp was being used on covers from Birmingham to Newton Abbot on the 27th July. In fact, it was being used much earlier than that in June. Two examples are shown below on commercial covers.

New Birmingham Hand Stamp 26th June 1933.

New Birmingham Hand Stamp 9th July 1933.

Special Trip. Newton Abbot to Cardiff Special Trip. Newton Abbot to Birmingham

It has always been presumed that acceptance at Newton Abbot occurred on at least two dates, the 17th and 27th July 1933. However, there is no evidence that there was any acceptance on the 27th July. The confusion has arisen by the existence of several covers sent from Birmingham to Brixham which went via Newton Abbot. All the covers were in the same handwriting and all had a ‘Birmingham - Newton Abbot’ cachet. Now this was perfectly logical as Newton Abbot is on a more direct route to Brixham. The trip though is a mystery. The important consideration is that unlike the 17th mail was not accepted at Newton Abbot. It is also unclear that mail would have been accepted for Newton Abbot at GWR offices.

Teignmouth

As has been previously explained, the route originally consisted of 3 Airports and 5 offices. After the 22nd this was four airports and six offices. Of the six offices, mail from four Plymouth, Torquay, Cardiff and Birmingham is common. Official mail from Newport is not known to exist and Teignmouth is highly elusive. Teignmouth was not geared up to sending mail, as the office appears not to have had a stamp. However, mail from Teignmouth, though very scarce is not non-existent. Since the official sending of mail from the 15th May, mail given in at Teignmouth or Newport was stamped with the Torquay or Cardiff handstamp respectively. The exceptions were the manuscript cancels shown below. The history of this is not known.

Manuscript cancel. Teigmnouth to Plymouth.

Manuscript cancel. Teigmnouth to Plymouth and Jugo-Slavia.

This cover most unusually has a Plymouth manuscript cancel. This is the only one I have seen. Perhaps the stamp was lost on that day. It is cancelled ‘PLYMOUTH/GWR/6/6/33’