Page 10 - Delcampe Collections classiques EN-006

Stamps

Mail for India

the Waghorn agency in Paris, 1837-1839

By Robert Abensur of the Academy of Philately

In 1836, Lieutenant Thomas Fletcher Waghorn (1800- the Nile and the desert between Cairo and Suez.
1850) set up a fast, efficient transport company In Paris, Waghorn’s representative is the bookseller
for connections, passengers and goods between Galignani, located in rue Vivienne. This, the oldest
Alexandria and Suez. Its agents in Europe, Egypt, In- English bookshop in Paris, is a real club offering the
dia and the Far East market its services. In particular, most varied services: refreshments in a charming
they affix the well-known “Care of Mr. Waghorn...” to garden, reading rooms, newspapers, library, recruit-
letters, as well as a registration number and often the ment of personnel, and so on. The bookshop still
duties payable by the sender. Then the letter is delive- exists, but it moved to rue de Rivoli in 1856. Until 1895
red to the official post office and to the Mediterranean it published a daily newspaper, the first in English in
or Red Sea steamers, depending on where the letter Paris, Galignani’s Messenger. On 1 December 1837,
has come from. With this pass, the letters are picked Waghorn announced the opening of his agency in the
up by Waghorn’s representatives in Alexandria or Suez bookshop, giving his rates and making it possible to
and travel through Egypt via the Mahmoudieh Canal, send letters to India through him by first paying for his

“Care of Mr Waghorn Alexandria» seal with registration number 67 from February on an 1839 letter from Paris to Calcutta.
The Paris seal, eminently recognisable thanks to its cursive characters, can today only be found on a few letters.

10 Delcampe Magazine