British Post in China
The British Post in China was a postal service of the Royal Mail in the Chinese contractual ports from 1844 to 1922 and in the Weihaiwei lease area from 1899 to 1930 .
history
The Treaty of Nanking in 1842 opened five Chinese ports to British trading companies. A British consulate was opened in each port , which from 1844 accepted mail from trading companies and forwarded it to Hong Kong . The mail was processed there and received appropriate stamps and guidance notes.
With the Beijing Convention (1860) a further eleven ports were opened to foreign traders and the volume of mail traffic increased sharply in the period that followed. From October 15, 1864, the use of the Hong Kong postage stamps was mandatory, showing the value of the silver currency used in the Chinese Empire . The consulates were gradually overwhelmed by the increase in postal traffic and, from May 1, 1868, the postal traffic was placed under the post office in Hong Kong and postal agencies or post offices opened that could be used by the public. Until 1876, however, the postage continued to be stamped and forwarded via Hong Kong, where the stamps with the oval bar stamp with the number B62 were canceled. Between 1876 and 1885, the post offices in the contract ports received their own cancellation and local date stamps. The cancellation of the stamps with a so-called "killer stamp", a stamp in oval format consisting of wide bars with a recess for an alphanumeric code in the middle, remained common until the mid-1880s. Only then do postage stamps have been canceled with local date stamps, which were previously only knocked off the envelope.
From 1876, the contractual ports were not only integrated into the British postal network via the British Post, but also into the postal network of the Universal Postal Union , while the Imperial Chinese Post was not founded until 1896.
With the further increase in postal traffic in the early 20th century and the reduction in postal rates to the standard rates within the British Empire, the postal service in China became a burden on the relatively small post office in Hong Kong. Therefore, from January 1, 1911, the post offices in China were directly subordinated to the main post office in London .
According to an agreement with the government of the Republic of China , the postal services in the contract ports were closed on November 30, 1922. British postal agencies in the Weihaiwei lease remained open until September 30, 1930.
Contracted ports with UK postal services
British postal services (post offices and their subsidiary postal agencies) existed in 11 of the 16 contract ports. The spelling of the places is based on the spelling used in English at the time, which can also be found on the postmarks.
Amoy
Amoy received a consular post office in 1844. Postmarks were delivered as early as 1866 and were used the following year. It was a bar oval stamp with the identifier A1 for stamp cancellation and the local date stamp AMOY . In 1876 two post offices were opened, one in the city itself and one on the offshore island of Ku Lang Seu . The post office in the city received a new bar oval stamp with the identification D27 , the older stamp A1 was used on the island of Ku Lang Seu.
Anping
The port of Anping (Tainan) on the island of Taiwan was opened to British traders in 1860. A post office was not opened until 1889, using only a local date stamp. The post office closed in 1895 when Taiwan came under Japanese control.
Canton
Canton had a postal service as early as 1834, which had been organized by the merchants established there. The postal service was stopped during the First Opium War in 1839 and only reopened in 1844. As a result of anti-British riots in 1856, the post office had to be temporarily relocated to Whampoa . After British troops occupied the city in the Second Opium War , the post office in Canton was reopened. The post offices in Canton and Whampoa were closed in July 1863 and mail was handled through the British consulate. From 1875 there was again a post office for the public; the cancellation stamp was a highly oval bar stamp with the number C1 .
Chefoo
Chefoo only received a British post office on January 1, 1903, which was equipped with a two-circle stamp. The post office was on the premises of the Curtis Brothers company .
Foochow
The consular post office in Foochow (at that time still Foochowfoo ) opened in 1844. From 1873, the use of a bar oval stamp with the number F1 is documented. The first place date stamp still had the old place name, in 1894 a new stamp with the place name Foochow was delivered.
Hankow
Hankow is a river port on the Yangtze River that opened to British trade in 1860. The British Post Office existed from 1872 and used a bar oval stamp with the number D29 from 1878 to 1883 .
Kiungchow / Hoihow
The town of Kiungchow with the port of Hoihow is located on the island of Hainan and was opened to British traders in 1860. The first consular post office was established in the city in 1876 and used the oval bar stamp D28 . Just two years later, the post office was relocated to the port of Hoihow. However, the high volume of mail made it necessary to reopen the post office in Kiungchow in 1879, so that two post offices existed.
Ningpo
The consular post in Ningpo had existed since 1842. From 1870 the oval bar stamp N1 for stamp cancellation and the local date stamp NINGPO are documented.
Shanghai
A freight post existed in Shanghai since 1842 in the premises of the consulate. The high volume of mail made it necessary to have its own building, which the company moved into in 1861 and which was given the status of a post office in 1867. The oldest post stamp from 1861 used the spelling SHANGHAE , a stamp with a halo was used to cancel the stamps until 1865, after which an oval bar stamp with the number S1 was used .
Swatow
A freight agency that also collected mail had existed since 1861 in the British Consulate in Swatow . In 1867 a British post office was opened in the Chinese district on the north side of the Han Jiang , which was equipped with the local stamp Swatow and the oval bar stamp S2 . In 1883 a second post office was opened on the site of the trading posts and consulates south of the river.
Tientsin
Tientsin received a British post office in 1882, which was closed again in 1890 due to strong competition from a German, French, Japanese and Russian post office abroad. On October 1, 1906, the British Post Office reopened under the direction of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Co.
Wei Hai Wei lease area
Wei Hai Wei became a British lease on May 24, 1898. At that time, there was neither a Chinese state post office nor a private postal service in the territory. The Chinese post office was opened in March 1899, and in September 1899 a British post office was established on the offshore island of Liu Kung Tau . A transverse oval stamp with the inscription LIU KUNG TAU * POST OFFICE was used to cancel the stamp . * used. On April 1, 1904, another post office opened in the British naval base Port Edward , which used a three-line box stamp. The lease was returned to China in 1930 and the UK postal agencies closed.
Postage stamps
British Post stamps in China were not introduced until January 1, 1917. These are Hong Kong stamps with a black horizontal print CHINA . The introduction of these stamps had become necessary because after Yuan Shikai's failed attempt to reinstate a monarchy in China, the country sank into chaos and the value of the currency fell. In order to prevent speculative postage stamp purchases, the stamps with overprint were only sold for Chinese silver dollars and not for higher value Hong Kong dollars ; they were also only valid in the post offices of the contract ports and in the Wei Hai Wei lease area. A total of 28 different values are cataloged, the last 11 values did not arrive at the post office counter until March 1922 and are more valuable when canceled because of the short period of use than when they have not been used. Used specimens mostly come from the Wei Hai Wei lease area.
See also
literature
- Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalog, Part 17: China. 10th ed., Stanley Gibbons, Ringwood, 2014, pp. 225-235. ISBN 978-0-85259-911-2