Chagai Hills - Very Deep Back Of Book Indeed

I don't know how the other major catalogues deal with it, but Gibbons maintains a stony silence on the Chagai Hills. And yet, it was a functioning mail service, that did carry mail.

Here is a cover from the Chagai Hills service



and because it succinctly explains the background, the write-up by the previous owner:



Goodness knows what it's worth. They come up for sale once in a decade or so.

A one-page write up of the "local post" can be found in "THE PHILATELIC JOURNAL OF INDIA" (1900) at this link:

https://books.google.com/books?id=5...ge&q&f=false

Although it doesn't really say much more than on the album page scanned above, it does mention that in the 6.5 months of operation, perhaps 10 letters per month were all that were sent and of these, perhaps five (5) covers are known to exist (and that was in 1900). Whether or not that count is accurate today is anybody's guess.

To coin a phrase this looks to be outside the envelope of postal use and history. It's essentially a private carriage same as what we call "courier" these days, and likewise for items carried in a diplomatic "mail" bag. I think "postal use" means, or should mean a government operated public service. Having said all that I would think it has considerable value.

CanadaStamp, I do take your point about the diplomatic bag. As Captain Ware was an Assistant Political Agent, he was acting 'On Her Majesty's Service'. It probably took the 6 months or so for the negative response from the Indian Post Office to filter through to Chagai.

I doubt that Ware made any profit on the 4 Annas he was charging: it would rather have been for the convenience of local merchants. For that reason, I wouldn't classify this as a 'courier'service.

Wt1, there was also some discussion of the Chagai Hills service in the journal of the India Study Circle, India Post. The last was this biographical entry:

Chagai Local Post and Col. F.C. Webb Ware

I was interested to read the letter by P.H.G. Clarke in India PostNo.\32, p.83, which identified Captain F.C. Webb Ware as the inspiration behind the Chagai Local Post. It so happens that I know Col. Webb Ware's grandson Tim, who was able to give me a few more biographical notes about his grandfather. Frank Webb Ware was born in 1866 on a sheep property on the Yarra river in what is now North Melbourne and was clearly an able and well connected man, as he was educated in England at Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining the Indian Army in 1887 and, subsequently, the Indian Political Service. He was apparently a protege of Lord Curzon, but did not endear himself to his superior officers by corresponding directly with the Viceroy! He retired from India in 1919 and was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple before moving, first to the Isle of Man and then to Vevey in Switzerland, where he died in 1934. The family name was Ware, descended from John Ware of Dublin, the brother of Sir James Ware the Irish historian, but was changed to Webb Ware some time between 1800 and 1820 when they lived in County Cork. Unfortunately there are no family papers that shed any more light on Col. Webb Ware's postal experiment in Baluchistan; and there is no family tradition that he had any interest at all in philately. In typical fashion, a few Indian covers have survived in the family, but none with the local Chagai stamp and none earlier than 1906. He produced a brief typed diary, but the entries from 1896 to 1899, while confirming his presence in Chagai, contain no reference to the postal service. Clearly Frank Webb Ware introduced the local postal service purely for administrative convenience and he never had any thought that it would be of interest to future philatelists, which explains the rarity of surviving examples. I am enclosing copies of two photographs of Col. Webb Ware.
Nick Rhodes

So the good Captain was born (at least) only a few kilometers from where I sit.

Here is a summary of the state of play, again taken from India Post

CHAGAI LOCAL POST (2)
Since publication of my summary of the known facts about Capt. Ware's local post of 1898 (India Post No. 127, pp2-3), no-one has so far reported the survival of any further covers. However the topic has aroused interest beyond the select few who actually possess an example, in particular Mr. Arshad Abdullah of Karachi has been kind enough to supply translations of covers numbered 45 and 53 which throw more light on the service. Both are addressed to places in India outside the Baluchistan province, as indicated by Jal Cooper about no.45, but correcting some of his details. I take this to mean that the OHMS covers were opened in Nashki and their contents transmitted by Imperial post from there. (Only the remaining one of the three known letters therefore was addressed internally within Chagai district, to Dalbandin.) Both are from persons describing themselves as 'Saudagar Heeng', to others of the same occupation; if my dictionaries do not deceive me, saudagar is a trader, and heeng is a herb or vegetable known to botanists as Narthex asafetida, which grew wild in Afghanistan and was exported through Sind to India. A resin smelling of garlic, derived from it, was used in medicine and cookery. It would seem that traders in this important commodity welcomed the provision of postal facilities in Chagai, even at a fee of 4as. Perhaps it gave them an advantage over their rivals. The full texts of the covers read as follows by David Padgham
No. 45:
To: Seth Thakkar Das Sahib / From: Sheekhani
son of Fahim Khan / Saudagar Heeng, Bazar-Katla
Quam Batar, Saudagar Heeng / Tambakoo Wala
Baluchistan. / Bamuqam Shaher Delhi / Mulk
Hindustan. Dated 7 October 1898.

No. 53:
To: Bakhidmat Janab Sher Khan, From: Qurban
Khan / Quam Band, Saudagar Heeng Saudagar
Heeng/care of Mata Din / Bamuqam Shaher
Kanpur. Dated 11 September 1898.
Mulk Hindustan.

The above dates correct my attempts to decipher these no. 45 is 7th, not 2nd, October, and no. 53 apparently 11 September rather than 13 October, despite having a higher serial number. Bamuqam means place, or address; Shaher is city, and Mulk Hindustan is of course 'Country of India'. Kanpur is the correct spelling of what we used to call Cawnpore. Hugill Clark has carried out research in the India Office Records, as the topic overlaps his own researches into the Indo-Persian frontier and its politics, the subject of his recent paper at our London meeting. He has traced the dates when the known stages of the local post were converted to Imperial POs. An office at Dalbandin was in fact open by July 1898, although it would not have been possible to convey letter no. 72 to it from Robat by the Imperial service as the latter place was not listed until April 1899, which coincides exactly with the stated closure date for the local post. §