Correspondence - Postal History with Letters

#1 · October 17, 2025, 4:38 pm

Quote from Steve on October 17, 2025, 4:38 pm
Over the years I have bought postal history covers from dealers who never bothered to read their enclosed contents. To them what was important was the quick realisation of some cash from a mediocre cover showing stamps, good but not great postmarks with the bonus of content. While it is satisfying for a collector to find an interesting cover in good condition, a postal historian's delight is usually found in the letter's rates and routes. For the historian it is the letter inside and its promise of revealing unrecorded social history.

The following unsigned letter is from the correspondence of Percy Horsfall. His letters come up for sale from time to time. He is usually writing to a woman - and she to him. I have always thought she was his wife - but now I am not so sure.

1915. Entire. Rand Club Stationery. Cover from JOHANNESBURG 'JAN 11 1915' to CLAREMONT, CAPE '16 JAN 15'.
1d red King's Head cancelled 5 bar 'JOHANNESBURG SOUTH AFRICA' machine canceller.
Rerouted to "The Baths, Caledon".

Percy Horsfall (c. 1879–1920s) was one of Lord Alfred Milner’s so-called “bright young men” — the elite circle of often Oxford educated administrators and intellectuals who formed the 'Kindergarten', as Milner called it, during his tenure as High Commissioner for South Africa (1897–1905). Educated in England, Horsfall entered the Colonial Service and was posted to South Africa in the wake of the Boer War, where he became a minor and overlooked part of the administrative apparatus helping to build the new Union of South Africa (established 1910).

While capable and well-connected, Horsfall's letter suggests that he struggled with the dull, bureaucratic atmosphere of colonial life - something reflected in this vivid letter written in 1915 from the Rand Club, Johannesburg. His tone of exile and alienation - he refers to “this desolate land” and its "coarse and unrefined" leaders making him “feel like a wretched dwarf” - shows his distaste for South Africa's colonial social climate. The letter portrays him as a thoughtful, disillusioned man, missing European intellectual life and corresponding affectionately with a woman named Frances, possibly his wife, someone with whom he had previously spent happier times with in France. His reflections on French culture, politics, and the contrast with the colonial world reveal a personality that was both cosmopolitan and restless. Little is recorded about Horsfall after the First World War. It is believed he returned to Britain or possibly France. More letters like this survive. They may offer a rare insight into the mindset of an imperial servant in exile from his own culture.

Sitting in the Rand Club on Monday, 11th January 1915, Horsfall is writing in German to Miss F Baltimer in Claremont, Cape. He is using the Club's supplied stationery. Presumably Horsfall has been preoccupied with official matters relating to the start of WW1 and the outbreak of the Republican rebellion in South Africa. In exactly one month's time General Louis Botha will assume command of the Northern Force in Swakopmund on February 11, 1915, to lead the second phase of the German South West Africa campaign.

OCR (creating readable text from scan) and translation courtesy of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Dearest Lady, (possibly Frau or Fran),

At last, a few lines again before I go to the station. I have been here since Saturday and have therefore had no news from you. I hope that a letter is already waiting for me in Pretoria, showing me that you are well. You cannot imagine how much I long for news and for the sound of your voice. I meant to be back by one o’clock, but the meeting went on into the night and I missed the day. Since then, I have been busy with fortifications and offices — it is terribly difficult in these hot streets in the middle of Africa — and I always get headaches from it. You cannot imagine how people can manage to work in this heat.

Feuerstein says he no longer understands life at all. The idea of the Union is too powerful for everyone, and the air so oppressive. On Thursday there will be another meeting, and I shall probably have to come again. It is pleasant enough and understandable during the festivities, especially in the Club at Pretoria, but all this travelling back and forth makes me tired. Yesterday we spent the entire day working or preparing for the meeting. If one has not settled everything clearly and definitively beforehand, one can find no peace during the meeting. One thing is bad enough in any case - I am not surprised when (as our dear friend used to say) “la politique est une chose sérieuse”. (Fr. politics is a serious matter.)

It has now become a main part of our democratic system, within whose autonomy we are supposed to correct the obvious mistakes.
One must look on when one thinks of it. Today I looked through the French newspapers here in the club — Le Livre, La Vie Parisienne, etc. It is terribly funny: you know what they used to be like, but now they are hardly recognizable. Not a spark of wit in the entire paper, no humorous sketches! Everything is about war — depictions of battles, the experiences of English soldiers, heroic tales, descriptions of life during the war in Paris with an indescribable seriousness. No spontaneity anymore, no jokes, hardly any patriotism even — only a sort of duty.

I read one story and it was just the same. A lady, young and beautiful, was walking along the boulevard, followed by a well-dressed gentleman of about thirty. He repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to speak to her. Finally, she turned around and said: “N’insistez pas, monsieur; qui n’est pas bon pour le Service de la Patrie n’est pas bon pour les dames.” (Fr. Do not insist, sir; he who is not good for the service of the Fatherland is not good for the ladies.) I have read in all the English papers about the immense seriousness of the French, and never believed it. But now I see it is true - and, strangely, I find it rather endearing, for the French have so many charming ways.

The occupations of the old world — they have become for them a kind of rebirth as a nation. Strange; I think of our happy days in France, of our experiences, and of those that are yet to come. Are you happy about that, Frances? It helps me to stay content in these gloomy times and in this desolate land when I think of a more cheerful, more interesting, and richer society in Europe. The leaders here, in their daily life, are neither indifferent to sorrow nor to joy - they are simply coarse and unrefined. One feels here like a wretched dwarf.

Strange, in a few hours I must know how you are and when I may hope to be on my way to you. It is long to wait, but our being together will richly repay all the waiting. Tomorrow again, perhaps.

Take care of yourself, please, and remain loving.

Your faithful one,
A thousand tender kisses.

This illustration, above, comes courtesy of ChatGPT (OpenAI). It reimagines Horsfall’s world: the sweating civil servant, hat in hand, caught between longing and propriety as an elegant woman strolls ahead on a sunstruck Johannesburg afternoon.

If anyone else has letters from Percy Horsfall and or his wife, please share them with us.

Over the years I have bought postal history covers from dealers who never bothered to read their enclosed contents. To them what was important was the quick realisation of some cash from a mediocre cover showing stamps, good but not great postmarks with the bonus of content. While it is satisfying for a collector to find an interesting cover in good condition, a postal historian's delight is usually found in the letter's rates and routes. For the historian it is the letter inside and its promise of revealing unrecorded social history.

The following unsigned letter is from the correspondence of Percy Horsfall. His letters come up for sale from time to time. He is usually writing to a woman - and she to him. I have always thought she was his wife - but now I am not so sure.

1915. Entire. Rand Club Stationery. Cover from JOHANNESBURG 'JAN 11 1915' to CLAREMONT, CAPE '16 JAN 15'.
1d red King's Head cancelled 5 bar 'JOHANNESBURG SOUTH AFRICA' machine canceller.
Rerouted to "The Baths, Caledon".

Percy Horsfall (c. 1879–1920s) was one of Lord Alfred Milner’s so-called “bright young men” — the elite circle of often Oxford educated administrators and intellectuals who formed the 'Kindergarten', as Milner called it, during his tenure as High Commissioner for South Africa (1897–1905). Educated in England, Horsfall entered the Colonial Service and was posted to South Africa in the wake of the Boer War, where he became a minor and overlooked part of the administrative apparatus helping to build the new Union of South Africa (established 1910).

While capable and well-connected, Horsfall's letter suggests that he struggled with the dull, bureaucratic atmosphere of colonial life - something reflected in this vivid letter written in 1915 from the Rand Club, Johannesburg. His tone of exile and alienation - he refers to “this desolate land” and its "coarse and unrefined" leaders making him “feel like a wretched dwarf” - shows his distaste for South Africa's colonial social climate. The letter portrays him as a thoughtful, disillusioned man, missing European intellectual life and corresponding affectionately with a woman named Frances, possibly his wife, someone with whom he had previously spent happier times with in France. His reflections on French culture, politics, and the contrast with the colonial world reveal a personality that was both cosmopolitan and restless. Little is recorded about Horsfall after the First World War. It is believed he returned to Britain or possibly France. More letters like this survive. They may offer a rare insight into the mindset of an imperial servant in exile from his own culture.

Sitting in the Rand Club on Monday, 11th January 1915, Horsfall is writing in German to Miss F Baltimer in Claremont, Cape. He is using the Club's supplied stationery. Presumably Horsfall has been preoccupied with official matters relating to the start of WW1 and the outbreak of the Republican rebellion in South Africa. In exactly one month's time General Louis Botha will assume command of the Northern Force in Swakopmund on February 11, 1915, to lead the second phase of the German South West Africa campaign.

OCR (creating readable text from scan) and translation courtesy of ChatGPT (OpenAI).

Dearest Lady, (possibly Frau or Fran),

At last, a few lines again before I go to the station. I have been here since Saturday and have therefore had no news from you. I hope that a letter is already waiting for me in Pretoria, showing me that you are well. You cannot imagine how much I long for news and for the sound of your voice. I meant to be back by one o’clock, but the meeting went on into the night and I missed the day. Since then, I have been busy with fortifications and offices — it is terribly difficult in these hot streets in the middle of Africa — and I always get headaches from it. You cannot imagine how people can manage to work in this heat.

Feuerstein says he no longer understands life at all. The idea of the Union is too powerful for everyone, and the air so oppressive. On Thursday there will be another meeting, and I shall probably have to come again. It is pleasant enough and understandable during the festivities, especially in the Club at Pretoria, but all this travelling back and forth makes me tired. Yesterday we spent the entire day working or preparing for the meeting. If one has not settled everything clearly and definitively beforehand, one can find no peace during the meeting. One thing is bad enough in any case - I am not surprised when (as our dear friend used to say) “la politique est une chose sérieuse”. (Fr. politics is a serious matter.)

It has now become a main part of our democratic system, within whose autonomy we are supposed to correct the obvious mistakes.
One must look on when one thinks of it. Today I looked through the French newspapers here in the club — Le Livre, La Vie Parisienne, etc. It is terribly funny: you know what they used to be like, but now they are hardly recognizable. Not a spark of wit in the entire paper, no humorous sketches! Everything is about war — depictions of battles, the experiences of English soldiers, heroic tales, descriptions of life during the war in Paris with an indescribable seriousness. No spontaneity anymore, no jokes, hardly any patriotism even — only a sort of duty.

I read one story and it was just the same. A lady, young and beautiful, was walking along the boulevard, followed by a well-dressed gentleman of about thirty. He repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to speak to her. Finally, she turned around and said: “N’insistez pas, monsieur; qui n’est pas bon pour le Service de la Patrie n’est pas bon pour les dames.” (Fr. Do not insist, sir; he who is not good for the service of the Fatherland is not good for the ladies.) I have read in all the English papers about the immense seriousness of the French, and never believed it. But now I see it is true - and, strangely, I find it rather endearing, for the French have so many charming ways.

The occupations of the old world — they have become for them a kind of rebirth as a nation. Strange; I think of our happy days in France, of our experiences, and of those that are yet to come. Are you happy about that, Frances? It helps me to stay content in these gloomy times and in this desolate land when I think of a more cheerful, more interesting, and richer society in Europe. The leaders here, in their daily life, are neither indifferent to sorrow nor to joy - they are simply coarse and unrefined. One feels here like a wretched dwarf.

Strange, in a few hours I must know how you are and when I may hope to be on my way to you. It is long to wait, but our being together will richly repay all the waiting. Tomorrow again, perhaps.

Take care of yourself, please, and remain loving.

Your faithful one,
A thousand tender kisses.

This illustration, above, comes courtesy of ChatGPT (OpenAI). It reimagines Horsfall’s world: the sweating civil servant, hat in hand, caught between longing and propriety as an elegant woman strolls ahead on a sunstruck Johannesburg afternoon.

If anyone else has letters from Percy Horsfall and or his wife, please share them with us.