Archive picture from the British Postal Service.Getty
The letter was despatched from Bath to London in 1916 and had a seal from King George V, father of Elizabeth II The home it was addressed to was demolished way back and is now a tenement constructing The letter was misplaced in an workplace, now in rehabilitation and somebody will need to have positioned her within the solid, based on Royal Mail
When British theater director Finlay Glen opened the letterbox in his Crystal Palace house in London, he was shocked to see a letter and a Bath postmark with a date: “We thought it mentioned 2016, however then we noticed it had the King’s seal and we We realized it was from 1916, so we thought it might in all probability be okay to open it,” he defined, based on The Guardian. The one-cent stamp was from George V, father of the late Elizabeth II.
The letter was addressed to Katie Marsh, married to stamp vendor Oswald Marsh, and was despatched by her good friend Christabel Mennell, who was on vacation in Bath, based on analysis by Stephen Oxford, editor of The Norwood Review, a historical past journal. native. The letter begins like this: “My pricey Katie, would you assist me? I really feel fairly ashamed of myself…”.
Royal Mail, the UK postal service firm, says it’s nonetheless investigating what might have occurred. Stephen Oxford mentioned the letter was probably misplaced in a sorting workplace and by no means delivered. “I feel it was being transformed. They will need to have discovered this letter hidden someplace, maybe tucked behind a bit of furnishings or in a drawer” and somebody positioned it within the solid.
A letter misplaced within the publish in 1916 was lastly delivered to a London deal with greater than a century after being despatched from Bath.
Bearing a penny George V stamp it dropped by the letterbox of theater director Finlay Glen’s Crystal Palace flat.
Jeez..https://t.co/WpI43YGSuY
— NATHAN (@mbga_uk) February 17, 2023
The home to which the letter was addressed was demolished way back and is now a residential constructing. “I had no concept that so many individuals would discover it so attention-grabbing,” says Glen, 27, who lives along with his girlfriend Lucy at that deal with greater than a century later. “We tried to determine it out, though some elements are laborious to learn. We contacted the native historic society, as a result of I believed they might inform us in regards to the folks concerned.”
“Oswald Marsh is recorded in 1901 as residing in Crystal Palace as a lodger and stamp supplier. He was then 20 years previous and I think he was being financed by his father, who was a reasonably rich architect residing in Northern Ireland,” says Oxford. Oswald, who married Catherine in 1904, would turn into a extremely regarded stamp supplier who was typically referred to as as an skilled witness in stamp fraud instances after which moved from the place the letter was addressed to a grand Victorian home with close by stables.