New South Wales - Colonial: 1900-1917.
Official envelopes.


In addition to the delivery envelopes used to deliver telegrams, the Telegraph Department also required envelopes for ordinary correspondence.

These envelopes - all marked O.H.M.S. or On Her Majesty's Service (as Queen Victoria was the Monarch) - are interesting because of the designation of the name of the office. The names were summarised elsewhere.

The main designations were:

  1. Electric Telegraphs (pre-1893);
  2. Postal and Electric Telegraph Department (post-August 1893).

1. Electric Telegraphs.

When the Department was first created within Public Works under Captain Martindale, it was called the Electric Telegraph Department. When E.C. Cracknell was appointed as Superintendent in January 1858, it was referred to as Electric Telegraphs.

Official envelopes were therefore marked with either Electric Telegraph Department or Electric Telegraphs.

ETD
Printed during the 1880s.
O.H.M.S. envelope marked
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

Used 1 April 1897 from the Hunter's Hill Telegraph Station (well after being printed).

The additional printing of Telegraph Station is rare.

This envelope, being used post 1893, has been modified in manuscript to the changed Department name - although the decade has not been changed.

Size: 79 × 142 mm.

Printed on light grey paper.

Seal Embossed seal on the flap of the pre-1893 envelopes shown above and below.

Size: 23× 28 mm.


Elect Tels O.H.M.S. envelope marked
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS.

Used 14 November 1898 at Sydney. Very late usage.

Printed on light grey paper.

 

2. Postal and Electric Telegraph Department.

After August 1893, all correspondence - including envelopes - was altered to incorporate the new name.

P&TD On Her Majesty's Service envelope marked
Postal and Electric Telegraph Department.

Used 7 August 1895 for a Registered Correspondence.