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Smith Elder & Co Precancel

I do not know who instigated things, but in 1865, Smith, Elder & Co., East India agents, bankers and publishers, became the first company in Britain to use a precancel.
Parmenter lists this as a Foreign Branch Newspaper Precancel which could well be the case, though I have not seen any other explicit reference to it being for foreign mail.

Here it is used on embossed stamps with 'Advertising Collars' of Smith Elder & Co. and Grindlay & Co. !?

Grindlay & Co., were the publishers of Home News which was posted to India (from 7/1/47) and Australia (from 1852) until issue 2370 on 30/12/98.
Their circulation peaked at around 15,000 in 1862.

In addition to this, Tim Burgess shows a picture of a H.S.King precancel on a 1d Grindlay & Co., embossed stamp! This is reproduced below with kind permission.

This usage needs explanation, did Smith Elder & Co., do the printing for Grindlay & Co. ? and why King who was out of the publishing business other than distributing stock-exchange listings?).
It may be relevant that Grindlay had two books published by Smith Elder & Co in the 1830's.

Smith, Elder Precancel A similar NPB cancellation. Parmenter attributed to Stitt Dibden

'S' on 1d Smith,Elder 25/4/66 'S' on 2d Smith,Elder 24/4/66 'S' on 3d Smith,Elder 19/4/66 'S' on 4d Smith,Elder 6/10/68 'S' on 2d Home News 9/12/65 'S' on 3d Home News 16/11/69 'K' on 1d Home News 16/7/76 ? A weekly periodical for English readers containing Indian news entitled 'Homeward Mail' was started In 1855 by George Smith (founder of Smith, Elder & Co.). By 1871 this was being distributed in England by H.S.King & Co The 4d above is interesting as it appears to have the name of "Smith, Elder & Co" crossed out !

There is an interesting letter from Charles Darwin to Smith Elder & Co dated 1863 that among other things, requested some copies of their stamps.

Dates:

I have a somewhat modest collection of these so far, but it may be helpful to list the examples I have (plus a couple seen):

From the data, these precancels stopped and the 'King Precancel' started
about the same time as the GPU came into effect in Britain. How much of this is coincidence?

Comments, criticisms, information or suggestions are always welcome.

Please include the word 'Precancels' in the subject.

Last updated 20th April 2019

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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.