While it is still too cold to do much on the farm, the daylight hours are getting longer and we have seedlings in trays that are striving to look like miniatures of the plants they will become. Once we approach April, it seems as if everything speeds up at the Genuine Faux Farm. And yet, here we are, with another Postal History Sunday!
Postal History
Sunday is published each week at both the Genuine Faux Farm blog and the GFF Postal History blog. If you are interested in prior entries, you can view them, starting with the most recent, at this location.
Not too long ago someone was asking questions about a piece of mail that traveled from the United States to China in the 1860s. One of those questions is something we can all relate to - even if we aren't really interested in the minute details that a postal historian seems to enjoy getting into.
"How long did these letters typically take to travel from somewhere, like the United States, to another place, such as China?"
We get to start with a map this time! If you love maps - there you are! Feel free to click on the image to view a larger version.
What you see here are the common routes for mail traveling to South and East Asia in the late 1850s to mid 1860s. The major difference you will see here is that one route, in blue, travels by sea from Southampton (United Kingdom) to Malta and the other, in red, travels overland across France - then goes on to Malta.
Once we get to Malta, the route is not necessarily distinguishable for the purposes of this blog. Sometimes, the route went via Bombay and sometimes it doesn't. Maybe I'll get into that in a future entry.
First, I need to make it clear that transportation in the 1850s to 1870s was rapidly changing. Rail lines were springing up in Europe, the Suez canal was being built. Passes were being developed for more rapid transit in the Alps and shipping lines were adjusting as it became clear where the money was in terms of routes and schedules. Just trust me when I say that transportation companies were not concerned that postal historians in 2023 might have a difficult time piecing things together because they kept changing routes and schedules!
On the other hand, there are all sorts of sources, primary and secondary, that provide opportunities to unearth the most likely schedules and routes that fit items in a postal historian's collection.
Above is a rough schedule that was commonly followed for mails that would have left the United States for destinations in India, Singapore, China and Japan (among others).
Let me show a couple of examples to help provide the answer to "how long did it take for mail to travel from here to there?"
This item shown above was a business letter sent from New York City, in the United States, to Shanghai, China, in 1863.
And here is how it traveled. Dates in parenthesis are those I can derive from shipping tables and the established China mail schedule. I put dates that match the mail schedule in BOLD. Other dates correspond to markings that can be found on this letter.
- New York Jul 25
- Southampton (Aug 6)
- London Aug 7
- Dover (Aug 10)
- Marseilles (Aug 12)
- Malta (Aug 14 arrival and Aug 15 departure)
- Alexandria (Aug 19)
- Suez (Aug 23)
- Bombay (Aug 29)
- Singapore (Sep 13 arrival Sep 14 departure)
typhoon Sep 20 - 3 day delay - Hong Kong Sep 23
- Shanghai (Sep 30)
Why yes! They DID have typhoons and hurricanes in the 1800s! So, even the best laid plans (or schedules) were subject to change.
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| from The London and China Telegraph, Nov 27, 1863 page 582 |
There was certainly sufficient ship traffic worldwide that we can find evidence of severe storm events if we know to look for them. Newspapers that served the English-speaking communities were among those that were very interested in reporting on shipping. With a minimal amount of looking, I found this contemporary report that gave some evidence for this particular weather event. I suspect, if I wanted to, I could find additional reports. But, that might be distracting us from the original intent of this Postal History Sunday!
So, let's look again at the folded letter we were discussing.
Via Southampton
Now we go back to the map showing how mail traveled from the United Kingdom to China at this time. Let me draw your attention to the blue line that leaves from Southampton and goes by sea - around France, Portugal and Spain until it lands at Malta. This route is referenced on the second letter where the words "via Southampton" is written at the top left. You could think of this as the 'slow boat' to China because it took much longer to go from the UK to Malta by boat.
Via Marseilles
The faster alternative is was to cross the English Channel to France and take French railways to Marseilles. Once at Marseilles, a steamship would take the letter the rest of the way to Malta (that's the red line that goes from Dover to Marseilles and then Malta).
In
short - if you wanted to save some money - it looks like you could pay 8
cents fewer for your letter at the expense of 7 days more travel time.
If only it were that simple!
What would you say if I told you that paying 8 cents more did NOT guarantee you a faster delivery of the mail?
Let's look at the chart below again - pay particular attention to Malta's schedule:
Essentially, if you wanted your letter to go via British mail to the countries in the Far East, it was important for you to get it to Malta on the 15th or the 30th/31st of the month. If your letter got there on the 16th, it was just going to sit there until the next mail departure on the 31st! Similarly, if it arrived on the 1st, it would wait until the 15th to depart Malta.
If you lived in the United States - it was simpler just to look at the schedule the British put out for mail departures "to India and the Far East." Four times a month, London/Southampton would make up mails to go to China - the 4th, 10th, 20th and 26th. If you know that mail crossing the Atlantic typically took around 12 days, your cut off dates would be (approximately) the 8th (to leave by Southampton), 14th (to leave via Marseilles), 22nd/23rd (Southampton) and 28th/29th (Marseilles).
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| Letter #1 |
The first letter left New York on the 25th of the month - so if you wanted to get to Malta on the 15th of the next month, you had to take the letter via Marseilles and pay 8 more cents. If you failed to do this, then your letter would be delayed by at least a week for the next mailing before it even left London, which is the same as a two weeks delay at Malta, regardless of the route it took.
So, really, the sender of the first letter was paying 8 cents to get an item to its destination TWO WEEKS earlier. If we're talking about letters that took two months to get to their destination, that meant it could be four months before a person received a reply to an important question. Perhaps paying 8 cents to make that turnaround as short as possible was worth it?!
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| Letter #2 |
The second letter was mailed on July 18th with an arrival in London/Southampton on the 30th. Well, gosh golly gee! The next mail in the UK to China left via Southampton. So, you might as well pay 8 cents fewer, because the extra money will gain you nothing other than a false belief that you will get faster service.
Of course, things were always changing and increased demand for rapid mail services and trade routes necessitated changes over time. In fact, there were options to send letters to China via French mail and there were times French mail steamers would carry mail in the Mediterranean and in the Far East using different schedules, increasing the options for a mailer.
Plenty for future Postal History Sundays!
The topic of mail between the United States and Asia in the 1800s is a complex and interesting subject. I will readily admit that there is still much more I could write about and more I could learn. Perhaps we'll take another run at this topic in the future! So, if that interests you and you have questions - send them my way and I'll see what I can do with a future entry. Remember, questions can be simple or they can wade into the complexities.
You can even say - "I don't get it, could you try again?" After all, it is Postal History Sunday - and we're all about learning something new. If I didn't find the right words this time, maybe I can learn the right ones next time.
Have a great remainder of your day and a fine week to come.
