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The British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of its newest handbook, a biography that tells the very interesting story of one man’s involvement with the development of air mail services in western Canada in the 1920s and 30s.
‘No Englishmen Need Apply’, Gordon Mallett. 160 pages, 8.5 x 11, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-897391-59-4 (Colour), 978-1-897391-60-0 (B&W). Published by the British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS). Stock # B4h043.1.1 (Colour) - $C99.00; B4h043.1 (Black & White) - $C49.95
No Englishmen Need Apply is a detailed study of the career of Major R. W. (Walter) Hale with the Canada Post Office Department and the events that led to him becoming widely known as the flying postal inspector. The British émigré’s early life adventures and military service in both World Wars also receive mention. Special attention is paid to the active role he played in the inauguration of air mail service throughout his adopted country’s vast northlands, most particularly the Great Bear Lake region and the ‘Mackenzie River corridor’ (the Athabaska/Slave/Mackenzie waterway linking Fort McMurray and Aklavik).
By the end of his lengthy career District Postal Superintendent Hale had logged more than seven hundred hours in the air, often flying to far-northern outposts in hazardous winter weather. He flew with many of the pioneer aviators including legendary bush pilots W. R. “Wop” May, C. H. “Punch” Dickins and G.W.G. (Grant) McConachie. Their signatures appear alongside his on a number of air mail covers illustrated in the book.
The biography’s storyline is presented in two formats: a 160-page text and photo narrative supported by material taken from primary references, and a parallel account recorded on a companion DVD. [Note: The DVD content is formatted for use in a computer, not a television VCR.] The signed covers and the human interest stories linked to their carriage are the main focus of the study. Reference numbers in the narrative direct the reader to supporting textual and pictorial material in the Appendices and Additional Notes sections and on the disc. The rationale for the choice of the biography’s unusual title is explained. Foremost among the more than 300 files on the disc are scans of vintage photographs in an album entitled Mackenzie River District Air Mail Service that Hale assembled in the mid-1930s. Scans of the biographer’s collection of Hale-signed covers are also included.
Gordon Mallett’s interest in philately and aviation dates back to his youth when he was an enthusiastic stamp collector. One day his father showed him a number of black-and-white snapshots he had taken of pioneer air mail pilot W. R. “Wop” May perched atop his Lougheed Vega monoplane, CF-AAL. Gordon was soon reading everything he could find about early aviation. These interests heightened in his adult years and by the early 1980s he had become an avid aerophilatelist. Gordon's three Aerophilatelic exhibits, “Canada’s Love Affair with Katherine Stinson", "Birdboy and Birdgirl in Japan” and “Three Weeks in December 1928”, also focus largely on the human interest side of philately and aviation. He is actively involved in the Canadian Aerophilatelic Society (CAS) and will be part of a joint BNAPS Airmail Study Group-CAS seminar at BNAPEX 2010 in Victoria.
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 The British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of its newest handbook, ‘A History of Cross-Border Postal Communication between Canada and the United States of America 1761 - 1875’, by Dorothy Sanderson and Malcolm Montgomery
‘A History of Cross-Border Postal Communication between Canada and the United States of America 1761 - 1875’, Dorothy Sanderson and Malcolm Montgomery. 410 pages, 8.5 x 11, 2010. ISBN: 978-1-897391-57-0 (Colour), 978-1-897391-58-7 (B&W). Published by the British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS). Stock # B4h042.1.1 (Colour) - $C175.00; B4h042.1 (Black & White) - $C62.95
In 1998 a photocopied version of Dorothy Sanderson’s exhibit, ‘Cross-Border Mail: Canada - United States of America 1800-1860’, was released as Volume 7 in the BNAPS Exhibit Series. With the advent of more affordable colour printing and improvements in home computer applications, Dorothy considered that it might be possible to re-publish the exhibit, enhanced with more recent acquisitions in the form of a postal history book, this time with colour illustrations. She approached her friend and colleague, Malcolm Montgomery, with her idea and he agreed to help with the preparation, including scanning her collection. BNAPS’ newest book, ‘A History of Cross-Border Postal Communication between Canada and the United States of America 1761 - 1875’, is the result.
While mail between Canada and the United States has been addressed before, for example in the Boggs and Jephcott, Greene & Young books, and also in several published collections, the history of cross-border mail and authorities for the information that accompanied the illustrations has often been neglected.
With his background in TransAtlantic postal history, Malcolm recognized this and persuaded Dorothy that the new book would be much more worthwhile if it included sections explaining the postal history of the services, with detailed references, to complement the notes that had accompanied her original collection. Over time the original project expanded to cover the cross-border mails of Canada, the Maritime Provinces, Newfoundland and British Columbia.
Sadly, Dorothy passed away in 2006, not long after the work was started. Malcolm has carried on with the project and BNAPS is very pleased to announce the release of ‘A History of Cross-Border Postal Communication between Canada and the United States Of America - 1761 – 1875’. It is believed to be the first book to treat the history of cross-border mail as a subject in its own right, encompassing all BNA provinces and covering:
- the history of border relations between the Canada and the United States (with detailed sources, where known);
- an examination of the border itself, how it changed and developed;
- the routes along and across the border;
- the exchange offices;
- the postal rates of all the nations and provinces involved, to 1875;
- the postal marks employed on both sides of the border;
- a preliminary survey of the express companies (to encourage a more comprehensive study);
- cross-border elements important to trans-Atlantic mail and inter-Provincial mails
The volume’s colour illustrations include extracts from contemporary maps showing the routes, accurate reproductions of the pertinent postal markings, and over 220 colour plates illustrating covers drawn from a number of different collections. A further 73 pages of Appendices contain the original text of extracts from treaties and other papers of relevance to borders.
The late Dorothy Sanderson became a physician in the days when British women were not expected to have careers in medicine beyond nursing or administration. Widely travelled, she had varied interests including wildflowers, theatre and cinema, classical music and books, particularly about art, but also history, biography and every kind of fiction. As a small girl, she graduated from recovering handbills and fliers from her neighbours’ letter-boxes to full fledged philately. She was most famous and will be best remembered for her stamp and postal history collections, her presentations and competition entries. Dorothy was a member of many philatelic societies including the Royal of London, the Postal History Society (GB), the Society of Postal Historians, the Disinfected Mail Study Group and the Canadian Philatelic Society of Great Britain. Overseas, she belonged to the Postal History Society of Canada and the British North America Philatelic Society. She attended meetings regularly and usually displayed parts of her many collections: Medicine on Stamps, Hampshire Postal History, Canadian Stamps and, most famously, the postal history of Canada, the Maritime Provinces, trans-Atlantic mails and Cross-Border - the last probably her favourite.
Dorothy won many awards for her collections in the United Kingdom and around the world. She died 26 January 2006 after a stroke. She had made many friends through her work and her diverse interests; she was a very accomplished woman who will be remembered for a long time.
Malcolm Montgomery is a retired British Army officer who served in the Middlesex Regiment, with tours of duty during his latter years in the Army at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and the Ministry of Defence, identifying the users’ requirements for computer support in Command and control. For his Army service to his country he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire. While a schoolboy in Austria, where he lived when his father was stationed there, Malcolm formed a collection of stamps, first Austrian, and then Canadian. Later in life the stamps of Canada took over as his main interest until he realized that, on an Army Officer’s salary, he would never complete the collection. Instead he began to study postal history, mainly the postal history of the trans-Atlantic services between the United Kingdom and British North America. His interest led to his becoming the Editor of the newsletter of the TransAtlantic Mail Study Group of BNAPS during the 1900s. It also led to his meeting Dorothy Sanderson, and his involvement in preparing ‘A History of Cross-Border Postal Communication between Canada and the United States Of America - 1761 – 1875’.
Malcolm says that the book is “likely the first written by somebody who does not collect” the material covered. Anyone reading the volume will find it difficult to believe that statement.
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