Leigh or Liege?

With the farm season going and a new job running, the time for in-depth work with the postal history is likely past.  However, I have long believed that small chunks of consistent effort can lead to a greater whole, so I am going to try my hand at creating a post on a single item for about 5 of every 7 days for a while.  This goes hand in hand with my efforts for daily posts on our farm blog and the facebook, discussion area posts I have been doing since March as a 'gift' to others during the pandemic crisis.  This one was first posted in the aforementioned farm blog just to mix things up for people - and to advertise this fine hobby to people who many not already be interested, but could become interested.

Choices Choices - Leigh/Liege? - England/Belgium?
Have you ever thought about how difficult it must be for postal people to deal with all of the bad hand-writing and mistaken addresses out there?  If you haven't, consider the item shown below.

The short story is that this letter was posted in 1858 in Le Havre, France.  It first went to England - which was NOT the correct destination - and then it went to Belgium.  Aha!  Right country!

Postal historians often enjoy letters such as this one because they show a journey that was a bit more complicated than most letters of the time took.  The markings on the back of the letter actually help us to tell the story:

1. Le Havre Feb 28, 1858 (on the front)
2. Le Havre A Paris Feb 28 (on the back - this was a marking for the mail train between Le Havre and Paris)
3. Paris A Calais Mar 1 (on the back - train from Paris to Calais)
4. London Mar 2 (on the front)
5. Manchester Mar 2 (on the back)
6. Leigh Mar 3 (on the back)
7. Manchester Mar 3 (on the back)
8. London Mar 4 (on the back)
9. Angleterre par Ostende Mar 5 (on the back)
10. Liege Mar 5 (on the back)

The sender of this letter had some issues with the correct spelling of Liege, Belgium - calling it “Leigh.”  The clerk on the mail train between LeHavre and Paris had lists of post offices to reference.  Finding no “Leigh” in Belgium, he did find it in England near Manchester.  Since the rate was the same (40 centimes) either way, he selected the town that matched the spelling best.  Once the letter arrived in Leigh, the postmaster there probably sighed a little and wrote “Try Liege Belgium” and put it back in the mail stream.

Of course, if you look at what this clerk wrote you could also think he wrote "Try Lieje Belgium."  I guess the writing issue didn't just belong to the general public?

More details for this item can be seen in the display page I have created for it.