'Where there’s a will, there’s a way': London 1837
These letters graciously have been shared with the Victorian Web by Eunice and Ron Shanahan; they have been taken from their website.
The letters give an insight into the daily lives and concerns of 'ordinary'
people without whom history would not exist. The letters are a wonderful example
of how much history may be gleaned from such sources.
This letter has only two postal markings,
-
the London circular evening duty date stamp AU 3 1837. This was of the type
in use from 1830-1840 which had serif letters, and the code letter (in this
case a W) at the top, and the year in full, in a curve at the bottom, and
- a charge mark of ‘7’, seven pence, the amount charged
for carrying the letter a distance of between 30 and 50 miles – Odiham
is 41 miles from London. I am surprised that it did not have a backstamp
of any kind as usually a town name stamp will give an indication of the route.
Odiham is half way between Aldershot and Basingstoke, so it would have
been interesting to know how the mail would have been transported from London.
The writer has used every scrap of the paper, but has not resorted to ‘crossing’ his
lines, so that it is really easy to read, allowing for the fact that almost
no punctuation is used.
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