Old Parcel Tag From Great Britain

From my WW block collection, I will share with you, an old parcel tag with a block of seven Queen Victoria stamps, GB Scott #89, used to pay the postage to ship two pheasants to Eton College. The sender was Sir Alfred Jodrell of the Bayfield Hall estate, and from Wikipedia:

Jodrell was also noted for his generosity to people. He would send a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables every week to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in Norwich. At Christmas time he sent the hospital 40 chickens and 40 turkeys plucked and oven ready. He gave generously to many charities and good causes especially to his locality. His generosity extended to his friends as well. He was known for his hosted dinners where he served the finest food and wine to his guest, although he himself abstained from alcohol. He once hosted King George V who visited from his Norfolk home at Sandringham to attend a pheasant shoot on the estate organized by Jodrell. Jodrell was also a keen collector and had collections of teapots and ceramic birds although he is best known for his collection of seashells. He had a museum built next to St Martine's church to house the shell collection. The museum can still be visited to this day.

Linus

Very nice! Also good to see the time when just a name and "Eton College" would get mail delivered. Custom printed tag, too, implying he sent out a lot of pheasant. Is your whole block collection annotated like this? Regardless, more please?

I am also amused by the content-based advertising that appears with this post. If anyone can't see it, I'll post the image but not the advertiser.

hy-brasil - Thanks for the kind words. I write up certain items throughout my stamp and postal history collection, when there is a story to be told. I belong to another online forum called Stamporama, and the friendly folks over there helped me figure out this piece years ago. To some, I am sure this item is old news, but some of you on SCF have not seen it, so I am sharing it here tonight.

Obviously, Sir Alfred was a wealthy man, and his custom label decodes as below:

Pheas. = Pheasants
Part. = Partridges
Rab. = Rabbits

Linus

Lovely Piece Linus.
No Partridge or Rabbit on the Menu I note.

Presume they are very worn NORFOLK Rubber Parcel Obliterators.

Fail to understand "Holt"
Holt is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in the English county of Norfolk.

Hmmm, rod.

Now that you mention it, it doesn't look like NORFOLK in the parcels cancel at all. I think I see ??RBHA? or ??R?HA?

EDIT: From a stamp on the upper row, the ending might be HAM. Not a lot of help there in British town names, though.

So can anyone tell me why not a Holt parcels cancel or were packages specially handled by parcels offices?

My Word, HB you have good eyesight.
I'll check the nearest PO's
Holt has a CDS

NORWICH, CROMER, OR KING'S LYNN

I never have figured out that cancel...



Thanks for the kind words, Rod.

Linus

Nope, lost the trail.
Confusing address, written "Bucks" = Buckinghamshire
Eton College is in Berkshire.

Possibly not able to ID Pmk
Norfolk to Berkshire 152 miles, the Pheasants probably went by rail.
(alive I presume)

I like the top line of the tag: DELIVER IMMEDIATELY PERIOD, as in NO excuses. The fastest mode of transport would be to put the parcel on the next train headed that way. I could never figure out any nearby town, so perhaps it was cancelled on a train, or at a train depot, and since there is no date, perhaps the stamps were cancelled with any old rubber stamp, maybe railroad related?

A mystery I might never solve.

Linus

Hi Linus,
these are common format rubber Parcel Obliterators,
2 rings and sometimes 2 line bar with Town name across.
Not rail related

Parcel Post
Not mine.

This is quite a puzzle.

I wonder if the postmark could be BURNHAM in Bucks?

I imagine Sir Alfred could have carried several labels like this and would use them wherever he was at the time.

Perhaps he's had a day's shooting with friends in Burnham, bags a few pheasant, and then sends a couple off with this label to the school?

I believe Eton used to be in Buckinghamshire.

The cancellation looks like a typical rubber post office parcels postmark (as I see Rod has identified).

This style was introduced in 1889.

Rod, that's a nice clear Kingsland postmark.

Well done, nigelc! Very, very, very plausible.

Of course, Vayolene might still swoop in and provide the answer absolutely.

I like it! Nigel
I was not aware Eton was once in Bucks.
I enjoy these little "solve its"

Assume rubber obliterators came into vogue, to address difficult surfaces of the parcel post.

"Bag a few Pheasants"
I say, what a jolly good pastime, pip pip and all that.

(actually killing birds turns my stomach)

PS: Princes Harry and William. attended Eton.

AMERSHAM?

Yes, Burnham! Very good possibility, Nigel. Thank you very much!

Thank you Rod, and hy-brasil for your work on this mystery. Working all together, things can be figured out.

Rod said:


Probably not, as Nigel stated above. When I posted this tag on Stamporama, member Brechinite added this:

"The brace of pheasants would have been dead, un-plucked and wrapped in brown paper.

On arrival they would have been hung for a few days, then plucked and roasted."

I am also not a hunter myself, Rod, but I do go fishing, and enjoy fresh fish fillets.

For further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Jodrell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayfield_Hall

I will share another one from collection, hy-brasil, someday soon, now it is time for sleep.

Linus

That letter between R and H is an S, not an N.