Introduction to British Airmails of the 1930’s

This site has been developed by myself (Bob Farquharson) and I am responsible for the design, the building and the upkeep of the website. I became interested in the early days of internal flight in Great Britain in the 1930’s and I avidly read and collected to find what a fascinating story it was. The owners and pilots of these early airlines were real pioneers. None more so than Ted Fresson up in the Highlands of Scotland. He flew the aircraft, worked out the routes, built the airfields and even gave residents of the Islands joyrides to encourage them to fly and get them comfortable with the notion of flying from A to B in an aircraft. Up and down the country the story was the same, the major problem for these fledging airlines was not getting a landing slot but getting an airfield! Financially they were always skating on thin ice, even the most successful airlines like the Portsmouth, Southsea and Isle of Wight Aviation Co struggled with finances and Lionel Balfour was often having to try new ways of staying afloat. If it was not for the stabilizing influence and financial muscle of the Railways and Whitehall Securities few airlines may have survived. As I tried to increase my knowledge, I became aware of how little information there was on airmails in this period. Apart from a couple of pamphlets and some regional books there was only one book which dealt with this period and all the airlines involved and this was the book by Harold Redgrove entitled ‘The Air Mails of the British Isles’. Its period was from the start of Great Western Railways Services to the beginning of WW2. It was a fine book written by an eminent aero-philatelist, but it was published in 1940 some eighty years ago. Redgrove himself hoped to publish a second edition but this never happened. It does show that even then he knew there were gaps. I had the idea I could fill the gap and try to build a website for 1930’s airmails. I am certainly not an eminent aero philatelist, but I know a bit and have a passable collection. The idea was to put up what I knew and encourage others who knew more to share their information and build the website up from there. Then through the British Air Mail Society I met Peter Lister, FRPSL and he agreed to help. Now Peter is as eminent an aero philatelist today as Harold Redgrove was in his day and his speciality is British Internal Air Mails. With his help I have been able to far surpass what I first had in mind and hope the website holds its own as an update to Redgrove.

Scope and Limitations

Except for souvenir mail the site covers commercial airlines from the 12th April 1933 to the end of 1939. As far as Redgrove is concerned the following chapters are excluded - KLM, RAF Emergency Air Mail. East Yorkshire Motor Services is renamed The Humber Ferry and demoted to Souvenir mail. KLM had no internal flights and RAF is not commercial. I have continued to the end of 1939 rather than ending at the start of WW2 as per Redgrove as this would exclude some interesting Scottish covers. Rocket post which was excluded by Redgrove is included at the end of Airlines as is APEX. As far as Airlines are concerned the site covers airlines that provided an airmail service either official of unofficial. This would require that mail would be carried if taken to the airline office or in the case of Royal Mail contracts, posted into the system. Mail carried outside of a regular service is included in the souvenir mail section.

Site Navigation

The website is presented as a book in web format. The big advantage a website has over a book is that it can be instantly updated and changed, whereas once a book is written it is written, that is it until perhaps a new edition. The navigation bar at the top of the page shows the books main contents and the navigation bars at the bottom and sometimes at the side help in its navigation. The first button is the home button. This is like the dust wrapper; it has some pretty pictures and a bit of blurb encouraging you to view further. The second button is the introduction just like the introduction to a book. The third button airlines are the main contents of the book. If you press this button you get the content pages of the book, which is a list of airlines. You can use the side buttons or the buttons at the bottom of the page. The buttons at the bottom allow you to go back to the previous page, go to the next page as if reading the book, go to the top of the page to easily access the navigation bars or to go to the Airlines page which is like looking again at the contents. The rest of the buttons on the top navigation bar are the bits you get at the end of a book. The timeline lists the important events of the internal airlines between 1932 and the end of 1939. There are two types of events, airline events and airmail events. If you choose an airmail event you will be taken to the exact position on the page of the airline you chose. If you choose an airline event it will take you to the start of that airlines page. The bibliography is self-explanatory, every good book has one. Articles has a twofold use. Initially, it was meant to offer articles based on original research, particularly the role of the GPO in these years. That has been severely curtailed by the virus and the Post Office Archives not being open. Presently several articles from the Air Mail News are reprinted, plus a couple of articles from other sources. The last button is of vital importance to me. If you know anything (particularly if backed up by images) that is not on the website, please let me know. If you have any questions please ask, I may not be able to answer but I can probably find someone who can. Any other comments on the site are welcome. There is also a search button if you prefer to use that. The timeline is better because it takes you to the exact place in the page, whereas the search facility takes you to the page where the term you entered is located but then you have to find it yourself. Enjoy.