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 This is changing but the printed information is still out of date.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.

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This is an index, primarily into the latest information on British Private Telegraph Stamps and Stationery,
though there is related information.
This has grown out of the work of S. E. R. Hiscocks (1982)

Initially the prices quoted were Hiscocks' original 1982 prices in British Currency (£).
Prices are mostly updated now and the currency is selectable at the top of pages.

Text in Red indicates an open invitation/request for further information.
Scans of actual stamps are given at 300dpi with illustrations as far as possible to the same scale.
Click on blue-outlined images to see enlargements.

In most browsers now you can press Control-Plus to magnify your screen and Control-Minus to make it smaller.

For those interested in telegraph stamps of other parts of the world, I have made a start on that:

Rest of World

Stanley Gibbons lists Telegraph stamps issued by the Post Office but does not currently list stamps used
by the private predecessor companies. However that is soon to change and I am gratified that I have been part of that.

Steve Hiscocks wrote:
As in many developed countries the British telegraph system was started by the railway companies who were able to set up lines on their own land.
While these lines were initially for their own use the railway companies soon saw that money could be made by allowing public access. Success
was immediate and between 1846 and the early 1860s a dozen or more companies were set up to exploit these and later systems set up along
roads, etc. in 1868 an Act of Parliament (the Telegraph Act) was passed allowing the Postmaster-General to purchase the assets of the inland
telegraph companies and in 1869 and 1870 this was done.

Brief information on the stamp-issuing private companies is given above the corresponding listings and background information on the later, GPO,
telegraph stamps and on the military telegraph stamps will also be found in the appropriate sections.
I have gradually extended his work into areas precluded by the restrictions of a bound publication.

There has recently (2003) been a good book written by Peter Langmead and Alan Huggins entitled
"The Telegraph Stamps and Stationery of Great Britain 1851-1954".
This represents a long needed and welcome update on a subject previously covered only in out-of-print publications.

The book has sparked new interest in the subject and a lot of material previously considered 'Cinderella' or 'back of book' has appeared on the market.
This in turn has brought to light new information.
The book makes a good start, though it has many shortcomings:

Having said that, I have also been involved in the production of some printed publications as I know that not everyone uses the internet.

I would like to dynamically update information, using the power of the internet.
I welcome input, comments, criticisms, whatever you want to communicate.

If you have new information, please contact me with supporting scans (300dpi+) where relevant.

Free scanner/viewing/editing software can be found at Irfanview (for the novice) or Gimp (for the professional).
Please do NOT embed images in a pdf or word documents, they cannot be extracted without loss of quality.

For anyone interested, I also have sections on GB Precancels and the T.O. series .

The index at the top of each page shows the sections that the Telegraph part of my website is divided into.
Though history has never been one of my strong points, I feel a bit of background is warranted regarding these different companies.
The early days of the telegraphs is a time of fierce competition between companies as they sought to extend their reach and market share.

New companies formed, companies merged and companies disappeared.
Not all of them used stamps for accounting purposes, indeed some companies only provided the 'hardware'
leaving other companies to make use of them for profit. Here I will only try to show a brief family tree,
for a more in-depth treatment by someone much better equipped than I to do it, I recommend Distant Writing by (the late) Steven Roberts.
Another site worth a look is Atlantic-Cable.com.

Updates.

Yes, I know it may be a pain looking for updates in whatever interests you, but for me there may be many minor updates in well over 100, mostly foreign pages on this site.
It is imprictical to list all on a regular basis. But hey, if you have particular interests then why not get involved?
Involvement is a sure way to know what is going on.

Important latest changes.

Telegraph Companies Family Tree.

Click on images to go to web-page.

Information about these private telegraph companies is patchy, obscure and in many cases totally missing.

Partly this is because the Nationalisation of these companies was often met with hostility to the extent of destroying all records.
In some cases facts were distorted, or perhaps evidence created to make companies appear deserving of greater compensation. A lot of money was at stake.
Another problem is that priorities and preconceptions have changed over the years.

A far more extensive family tree of companies, regardless of stamp issuance, can be seen at The BT family tree.

I came across an interesting and well-written article written by W. S. Jevons in 1867 outlining the reasons for the Nationalisation of these Telegraph Companies on the. Online Library of Liberty.

BT plc currently holds many documents relating to the early history of the Telegraph Companies.
An overview of their archives can be seen in this pdf document.

In putting these pages together I have often encountered differences of opinion, contradictions and other anomalies. I try to put these right where I can,
Or simply state the discrepancy where I cannot. In many areas, direct evidence is scarce or non-existent and indirect evidence has to be resorted to.
I have been lucky enough to have now found a number of people who are interested in the subject and both willing and able to supply scans and information.
My heartfelt thanks go out to those people, and more contributions are always welcome.

Presentation card 190 x 240mm dated January 28th 1895, detailing 25 years of progress. Image, courtesy of Mike-Holt.com

Perforations.

In comparing the work of different authors one discrepancy I find over and over again is the perforation guage used.
Part of the reason is that material is scarce and writers often just copy information that they are not in a position to check.
Early writers may have seen a few examples and assumed they were all the same. But there is also the point that in the early days it was not considered important.

Langmead & Huggins (Page 8) Referring to the first perforator used on Electric Telegraph Company stamps in 1860 say :-
"The line of perforating pins on the machine was 23 in. long, and owing to the unequal spacing of the pins there can be between 14 and 15½ perforations per 2 cm depending on where the measurement is taken."
The number of perforations per 2 cm is the definition of the units used when quoting the gauge of perforations used for a stamp.

Under circumstances like these it is understandable that an author examining one example may quote Perf. 14 and another with a different example Perf.15
More enlightened later authors may give a range or just an average as their unwritten expectation is that the reader knows it to be highly variable.
Times change, machines improved and the new expectation became accurate quotation of the perforation. The old books, though scarce, are easier to obtain than the stamps.

The first perforating machines were what we call today 'line perforated', that is they simply had one line of perforations so that the sheet of stamps went through the machine twice,
once for the horizontal rows and once for the vertical columns. At the intersection holes did not line up.

GB Postage stamps on the other hand used "Comb-Perforation" where instead of a straight line of holes, the perforator was shaped rather like a comb :

with this, only one pass was needed through the perforator.


and the holes lined up.


Luckily 2cm is the width of the early GB postage stamps, so you don't need a perforation guage to distinguish between Perf. 16 and Perf. 14, just count them !
More on perforations.

The horizontal guage does not have to be the same as the vertical guage, you can get a "compound perf." of say 14 x 15.
The preparation of the paper for printing can make it rather abrasive. Perforator pins are subject to a lot of wear and can eventually produce some very ragged perforations.
Pins can also break, giving what are called "blind perfs.", see the Bonelli block below. Maintenance can be expensive and also reduces production.
Have a look at the stamps of South Eastern Railway for example, the perforations range from nicely clean-cut on low control-number examples,
to little better than a tear on stamps with a high control-number. Guaging can be problematic.

Watermarks.

In the early days this may have been nothing, a paper-makers imprint in a corner somewhere or the company name, once covering a sheet.
Many authors may describe a stamp issue as without watermark, whilst another having an example with part watermark will give a different opinion.

Comments, criticisms, information or suggestions are always welcome.

Please include the word 'Telegraphs' in the subject.

Last updated 20th. September 2023

©Copyright Steve Panting 2012/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23 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.