Indian Ship Letters 1814 - 1819

Geoffrey Eibl-Kaye

25 March 2004

The East India Company was involved in carrying Mails between England and India until 1854. It made no charge and received no Government remuneration for this service. This did not mean that the British Post Office did not meddle in, or attempt to control the Indian Mails, nor that relationships were harmonious.

The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, as it later became known but is more commonly referred to as The Honourable Company or The East India Company, was granted its foundation charter by Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600. This gave it a monopoly of all English - subsequently British - trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. Any other English ships trading to Asia could be prosecuted in the English courts as interlopers. By the middle of the eighteenth century the Company was in increasing difficulties with debt and had to be rescued by the Government. This led to Pitt's India Act of August 1784 and the creation of the Board of Control to oversee the political and diplomatic activities of the Company. The President of the Board was a member of the Government. When the Company's charter was renewed in 1813 its monopoly was limited to the China trade, throwing the whole of British India open to private enterprise. In 1833 the China monopoly was abolished and a year later the Company stopped trading. From then until the administration of India was taken over by the Crown in 1858 the Company's role was to govern India and collect revenues.

The Company's monopoly on trade with India meant that the mails between England and India could be carried only on the Company's vessels or occasionally on the Navy's ships. Some mails did travel to England on foreign vessels via their home country. The Company had been in the habit of making no charge for carrying mail between Britain and India. This applied equally to the mail of private individuals, the Government and the Post Office. It would receive mail from all over the country to be forwarded to India, bags would be sent from the Post Office and Government Departments and there was even a posting box at its offices in Leadenhall Street. Mails brought from India were generally passed to the Post Office and were subject to the normal ship letter charges levied by the Post Office and any inland postage - a situation that appeared to please everybody. Unlike the mails to other major countries the Post Office did not operate a Packet Mail to India. The reason had always been one of cost because of the great distance. In one respect free transit was a real benefit, but the use of Indiamen which were designed to carry freight rather than for speed did mean that the mails were slow, taking between 170 and 230 days and at times even longer. To the Post Office there was the advantage of dealing with only one private carrier to India. With the loss of the monopoly in 1813 any ship could carry the mails.

The display illustrates the mails between India and Great Britain between 1780 and about 1880. This cut-off essentially represents the point at which the service entered the modern preflight era. From this point there was some improvement in speed and reduction in rates but the service was materially the same until Airmails.

The text of the lecture is in the April and May issues of the London Philatelist. It deals with a much shorter period 1814 - 1819 and is primarily concerned with the negotiations of the Post Office with the East India Company, the Admiralty and private ship owners.

The only route for ships to India was via the Cape of Good Hope until the Suez Canal was opened in 1869. The majority of mail continued to go via the Cape until 1830. From the early 1800's there was a growing demand for a faster mail service, which had not improved since the middle of the previous century. These demands lead to experiments with a sea route through the Mediterranean, overland across Egypt to the Red Sea, and then by sea to India. At first mail from India via Suez was landed at Falmouth. Once the rail link between London and Southampton was completed, Southampton became the port of landing for all Indian mails.

Later, various overland routes to the Channel ports through Europe shortened the sea route from Egypt.

The following two covers are representative of Ship Letters and Withdrawn Ship Letters carried under the Act 54 George III Cap 169 of 1814, the so-called Withdrawn Ship Letter Act. Ship letters travelled in Post Office Bags and were prepaid at one half of the Packet rate. There was no packet to India so a notional packet rate was assume, namely the rate to Brazil. Withdrawn Ship Letters had to be presented to the PO in London or an Out Port and one third the packet rate paid. The PO stamped the letter and handed it back to the sender, who then arranged for it to travel on the vessel of choice. The act was very unpopular and was appealed against by the Chambers of Commerce in most large cities, and the East India Company. It was repealed after nine months with the introduction of a Packet service to India. This was no more popular and was repealed in 1819.

A letter from Inverness to India being carried as a Ship Letter in the Post Office bag. The postage on ship letters is half the packet rate. The notional packet rate is 4s 1d, half of which (rounded up) plus the turnpike tax is 2s 1½d, the rate charged.

This letter is from the same correspondent in Inverness as the ship letter above. It has however been sent as a Withdrawn Ship Letter. The postage for a single letter is one-third the notional Packet rate. Since there is no Packet to India the rate to Brazil is taken. This gives 3s 6d based on 2s 7d Packet rate from Falmouth plus the postage from London of 1s less 1d. One third of which is 1s 2d. This letter is rated as a double letter hence 2s 4d.

The two covers below show a packet letter to India from England and one from India.

Packet Letter from London to Madras paying the packet rate of 3/6d

The POST PAID in a rounded rectangle was applied in Madras with the double letter packet rate of 7s marked at the side. The INDIA/PACKET LETTER/PAID TO/LONDON mark was probably applied in London. Only four examples are known of which one was used on a letter from Calcutta. In England a charge of 2s 2d, plus ½d turnpike tax, was made for the 396 miles to Edinburgh