Cape of Good Hope: Post Office Operations
One can get under the hood of the day to day operations of the Post Office through surviving correspondence between Postmasters as well as between the Post Office and Contractors or the Public.
I attach images of a folded letter from the Postmaster of Port Elizabeth to the General Postmaster in Cape Town. The write-up is shown in the attached pdf. This particular letter refers to a request by the Postmaster General to effect changes on the composition of mail bags, giving clues that even as late as 1876 routes were still being added and or changed. Any thoughts?
Can anyone that have similar official correspondence post some examples?
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Most of this correspondence was formalized and special pre-printed letter forms were used. The next example is for such a correspondence from Klaarstroom? spelled Klaas-Stroom on the double arc datestamp.
The postmaster of Klaarstroom, seems to have kept the darc stamp for his own correspondence, as by that time there was both a cds and a BONC allocated to the village. Klaarstroom was located near a stream and for a time an important center for wool production as the wool had to be washed before exported. With competition from Australia the wool industry declined. Now is a picturesque sleepy village.
In the notice the Postmaster is sending one letter and one wonders, how one letter was transmitted and the difficulties to do so in 1872. Probably went by a private contractor who could at the same time transport other goods and probably also passengers.
Any thoughts, suggestions?
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