Telegraph stamps of Great Britain. Until recently, only the Post Office telegraphs were well known. This is changing but the printed information is still out of date. I hope to gather further information and present it here. This site has been expanding. Click here for a site-map.

Back to HOME
General Telegraph	Electric Telegraph	Submarine	British Telegraph	English & Irish	British & Irish	London District	UK Electric	S.E.R.	L.C. & D.R.
Bonelli's	Universal Tel.	National Telephone	Army Telegraphs 1	Army Telegraphs 2	Railway	Post Office	Unusual	Unexpected	Contributions

Postal Triangular markings.

There are triangular postal markings that were intended for use with the cheaper "Printed Matter Rate". Whilst some have just the post office number, others have a code that could be derived from old telegraphic codes.
The triangles are still postal.
The codes could also be simply made up, with any correspondence with the telegraph codes being coincidental. However Curt Fernau (PDF) states that the codes were the old Telegraph Codes.
He may be citing Brumell on that, but Brumell mostly collated information from others. I do not have an original source for the information.

Here is an interesting example that has some clues to help identify the location used.
The front has a simple 974 in triangle with a 1929 PUC stamp.
This is from a stamp dealer trying to sell sme Papal States reprints. He gives his address as 37 Lorne St., Lytham Lancs.
My Brummel listing of "British Post Office Numbers 1844-1906" (1979 reprint) is a bit out of date, but for what it's worth it gives Lytham as G88 and 974 as being Sedbergh, Yorkshire.
Lytham and Sedbergh are a little over 60 miles apart, so it is possible he lived in Sedbergh and had his office in worked in Lytham. According to J.T. Whitney, types 10/193 and 194 were (used on printed papers ?)
So he may have made periodical bulk mailings from Sedbergh. As far as actual telegraph numbers is concerned, 974 was Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, about 83 miles from Lytham.
I think Post Offices are more likely to use Post Office numbers and Railay stations would probably tell him to use the Post Office.
 

The ones with just letters, or letters and numbers are a bit more interesting. J.T. Whitney, shows types 9/112 on page 131, but says nothing about the usage of such cancels.
They are mostly found on ½d stamps, but sometimes 1d and I have an example on a 1½d, so again probably used on printed papers ?
I will show the different ones that I have :

?AU	Bedford Street ?	BGH ?	BIJ ?	BM - Birmingham ?	BR - Brighton

CBV ?	CE ?	EDO ?	EDO larger ?	EGP? - Edinburgh, Lynedoch Place	EH? - Edinburgh

?FH ?	GD ?	GFT ?	LV - Liverpool ?	LX - ?	MR - Manchester

MTP (Mount Pleasant) - 37	MTP (Mount Pleasant) - 44	ND ? (Northern District Office)	NGU	NH	NHH?

NT	NW	PE - Peterborough ?	RO	SC	SF

SM-28 - negative	SM (Saint Martin's Place) - 52 ?	SM-65	SM-66	SM-67 ?	SM-81 ?

SM (Saint Martin's Place) - 82	SM-84	SM-84	SM-85	SM-86 ?	SM-91

SM (Saint Martin's Place) - 92	SM-95	SM-96	SM-104	SM-108	SM-111

SM-113	SM-114	SM-115	SM-116	SM-117	SM-117

SM-118	SM-119	STM	SX	W.C. (West Central District Office)	WC

W.C.	WC	W.D (Western District Office)	WIP	WRL	WV

Note that many telegraph stations would have "downline" stations connected locally. In such cases the downline stations could be contected directly using the "node" code plus their index number.
Saint Martin's Place (SM above) had a downline of over 100.

Curt N. Fernau gives information on these triangles, and a list for London Offices on pages 21/2.

Letters Post Office BF Bedford Street BED Bedford Street BFH Battersea BLS Bow Street BPN Brixton Hill CAS Camberwell Green CH+ Charing Cross CHx Charing Cross CIW Clapham Common EAL Earl's Court EC East Central EDO Eastern District Office FB Foreign Branch Chief Office FS Foreign Section Chief Office IS Inland Section Chief Office KE King Edward Street ML Mark Lane MRK Manor Park MTP Mount Pleasant

Letters Post Office ND Northern District Office NHD Norwood NW North Western District Office PAM Paddington/Spring Street PBH Peckham SH ? not identified SM Saint Martin's Place SW South Western District S Southern District Office SE South Eastern District Office SSS Stoke Newington W Western District Office WAM West Brompton WC West Central District Office WD Western District Office WKB West Kensington WNL Woodford Green W.1 Western District Office

However the codes were just a convenience and could be made more informative. Curt showed these examples: Additional codes could be added. Curt cited Brumell for the following : C collected in time for day mail train CL collected in time for night mail train L too late (for transmission the same day) O quantity delivered for posting: over 5000 items U quantity delivered for posting: under 5000 items

According to F. Hugh Vallency, 1950, the following codes were used in Irish Triangle Postmarks :

Comparing this with information from Post Office Circulars showed little overlap, but no disagreements, so I used this to update the table below.

Old style Telegraph Codes using Letters.

While looking at the Post Office Circulars, I couldn't help noticing all of the references to codes for the various Post Office Telegraph stations, including a few Railway Stations.
It implied that the Railway Telegraphs were a separate system to the Post Office System, though presumably they merged at some point if the Post Office was given a monopoly on telegraphs.
For what it's worth, I thought I would list the ones mentioned (more than I expected, but probably nowhere near the total).

England/Wales   Scotland   Ireland

Comments, criticisms, information or suggestions are always welcome.

Please include the word 'Telegraphs' in the subject.

Last updated 2nd. June 2025

©Copyright Steve Panting 2012/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25 except where stated.
Permission is hereby granted to copy material for which the copyright is owned by myself, on condition that any data is not altered and this website is given credit.