Queensland Receiving Office Cancellations article

Queensland Receiving Office Cancellations article by H. M. Campbell which appeared in Gibbons Stamp Monthly May 1967, pp. 148-150 

This aspect of Queensland Postal History has been somewhat neglected in the past, probably because of the scarcity of material, and probably, too, because the cancellations themselves have not the attraction of the numeral cancellations. At all events, the only published reference to the subject I can find is a short article by our old friend, the late Harry Porter, which appeared in Stamp Collecting for July 24th, 1953, under the title of "Queensland Pen Cancels".

Receiving Offices (or Receiving Houses) were the lowest grade of postal establishment, being set up in populated areas where the volume of business transacted did not warrant the establishment of a post office of a higher grade, but where the distance from a post office made it desirable to provide some postal facilities for the inhabitants. The persons in charge received no salary, though they may have received commission on the sale of stamps. Apart from selling stamps, they also accepted letters for transmission to the nearest post office, and in Queensland many of them also accepted parcels.

Receiving Offices existed in other places as well as in Queensland, but in most cases they were comparatively few in comparison with the number of official post offices. In Queensland, however, they far outnumbered the latter: at the end of 1901, for example, there were 443 Post Offices and 852 Receiving Offices. This preponderance is probably due to the scattering of the population over a wider area than in most countries. The diversity of mineral resources found in Queensland may have had something to do with this.

In most cases Receiving Offices were not issued with official obliterating stamps, and this applied in Queensland. In many cases the stamps on letters and other correspondence were not cancelled at all until they reached a post office, but if it was desirable that they be cancelled in some manner, it was necessary to resort to unofficial means. The most common way was to use pen and ink, the name of the office and usually the date being written on the stamp.

Another less common method was to make use of a rubber stamp which probably was normally used for other purposes.

Counting them all up, quite a varied selection of Queensland Receiving Office cancellations has been found - larger than for any other Australian State- but only a small fraction of those that should theoretically exist, if all or even a small proportion of the Receiving Offices cancelled the stamps in some manner, so determined hunting should bring further results. Most of those found date from about 1902 onwards, so it is possible that examination of stamps of the 1890's might result in new finds.

It so happens that the majority of the manuscript names found come from the coastal strip between Maryborough and Rockhampton or its near hinterland. Most of the letters bearing these, therefore, on their way to Brisbane or beyond would have been carried on the North Coast Railway, and in fact a number of them bear T.P.O. cancellations of that Railway in addition to the manuscript cancellations. This led Porter to the theory that the concentration of manuscript cancellations in this area might have had some connexion with the opening of T.P.O.'s on this line, and that there might have been some official instruction regarding their use. I doubt, however, whether there was any direct connexion between the two facts, but probably the completion of a through rail connexion between Brisbane and Gladstone in 1897 (extended to Rockhampton in 1903) led to rapid development of this area in the early 1900's. The development consisted in many cases of the establishment of small mining communities which might or might not be permanent, so most of them were originally served by Receiving Offices, some of which later became Post Offices.

Of course, many of the Receiving Office cancellations are unidentifiable on a single stamp, or even on a cover without an enclosure, consisting as many do of initials and date, or date only. The initials are no doubt those of the official in charge, but it is virtually impossible to track these down, even though lists survive of Post and Receiving Offices with the names of those in charge. The main reason is that if the official concerned held another Government position, such as in the telegraph or railway service, their actual names were not given.

Taking all the evidence into consideration, there do not appear to have been any rules governing the cancelling of stamps at Receiving Offices, and all one can do is to list those that are known, building up from the original Porter list of manuscript cancellations, and adding a new section for rubber stamps. 

In addition to these easily identifiable cancellations, there is another group not so easily identified:

(1) I have a stamp (dated 2/6/97) on which the name appears to be "Orm "This may be Ormiston near Cleveland.

(2) I have two stamps with Wha . I have not been able to locate any Queensland place-name beginning with these letters.

(3) Two intersecting diagonal lines. Porter had this on a cover from Cumonju (Gin Gin district), with the name and date (2/9/02) written beside the stamp. A similar device could have been used at other Receiving Offices.

(4) Date only (18/12/03). I have a cover with this, overstamped with the Mossman c.d.s. The only Receiving Office I have been able to locate in this district is Weatherboards, but it cannot be taken as a certain identification.

(5) "L.A. (or J.A.)-9/11/04", over- stamped at Dirranbandi, 18/11/04. Here again, this is on cover, but without the enclosure it is not possible to track down the point of origin. The initials are no doubt the initials of the Officer in Charge. (6) "J.W.C. (or J.M.C.)-11/9/99". The Officer in Charge at Rosalie Plains, near Jondaryan, was J. M. Chesney, but it is only a possibility that these were his initials.

(7) "R.V.", without date. If this was short for the name of the office, it could be Range View, near Jondaryan but it is more likely to be the officer's initials.

Rubber Stamp Cancellations

There are fewer of these than the manuscript cancellations, probably because, not being an official post office issue, such stamps would only be available if they had been prepared for some purpose other than postal. The two most frequently met are somewhat similar in make-up, consisting of a triple horizontal oval, two outer and one inner, and the outermost has a saw-tooth indentation all round.

They are:

BINGERA PLANTATION. Name at top, "QUEENSLAND" at foot, and within the inner oval a dotted line with the date in manuscript (4/2/01 or 8/3/01). Stamp in violet. TOOLOOA. Name at top, "GLADSTONE LINE (Queensland)" at foot, and date within inner oval (in this case part of the stamp). Dates known: 7 Apr 1904 and another about the same period. Stamp in violet.

Another oval stamp, but without the outermost indented oval, is: MOUNT JACOB. Name at top, "QUEENSLAND" at foot, and date within the inner oval. One example seen, with date 16 FEB 1900. Stamp in blue.

I have another rubber stamp, not so easily identifiable, consisting of the letters "A.R." within a cartouche, i.e. a frame of two horizontal parallel lines, joined at the ends by curved lines, in black. If the initials "A.R." stand for the name of the office, it could be Acacia Ridge, but they are more likely to be those of the officer in charge. If so, they may be the initials of Miss A. Remington, a selector, who was the officer in charge of the Receiving Office known as Remington, on the North Coast Railway. Being on a piece, there are no transit markings that might help.

Another unidentifiable mark I have come across is a series of concentric circles, such as might be made with the end of a round ebony ruler. I have two examples on pieces, but no indication of origin.

There are also cases of post office seals being used (none unfortunately sufficiently clear to identify the office of origin), but these are more likely to have been used in an emergency or in error at an official post office than at a Receiving Office. I rather doubt if the latter were provided with seals, as other postal instruments were not provided.

Enough has been said to show that there is a lot to interest one in this somewhat neglected field of Queensland postal history, and also much to be still discovered.

Addenda

With reference to the above article, I have recently acquired a Receiving Office cancellation which has not been previously reported. This is on a 1904 registered cover to Hobart, Tasmania, and emanates from Parson's Point, in the Gladstone district. It is a single-line rubber stamp cancellation, with the name in small sloping sans-serif capitals, and is struck in violet. There are two diagonal strikes in a pair of Id. Queens, and a further strike on the cover.