What is a Bishop Mark

What travels around the world but remains in a corner? A postage stamp and its postmark, of course. Today we receive a letter in the mail and we look at the postmark and see when it was posted and why it took so long to get here. But as with the postage stamp, this practice had to have been started somewhere, some how, even though today we take it for granted.

In 1660, Henry Bishop was made Postmaster General of England. This was actually a new position. He had previously had issues with the English royalty and his estate was taken away from him, but all was forgiven and he took the new post of Postmaster General.

At the time there were many complaints of delays in the post, just like today, but unlike today when the cancel clearly shows the date sent, at that time there was no such indication. Henry decided to do something about it.

The first type of British postmark was introduced the following year, in 1661, at the London Chief Office. Henry claimed:

"A stamp is invented, that is putt upon every letter shewing the day of the moneth that every letter comes to this office, so that no letter Carryer may dare to detayne a letter from post to post; which, before, was usual." ~Mercurius Publicus

Translated into simple English, the Bishop Mark, as it became known, was a stamp (a cancel) displaying the day and month of any letter that passed through the post office, meaning letters sent and letters received.

At first the mark was only used in London, usually in black ink and placed on the back of the letter. The original London Bishop Mark consisted of a small circle, bisected horizontally, with the month abbreviated to two letters, in the upper half and the day of the month in the lower half. Initially it was common practice to use the letter “I” instead of a “J” so that affected January, June and July.

• January ☞ IA
• February ☞ FE
• March ☞ MA (also seen as MR)
• April ☞ AP
• May ☞ MA
• June ☞ IV (to differentiate with July)
• July ☞ IU (also seen as IY)
• August ☞ AU
• September ☞ SE
• October ☞ OC
• November ☞ NO
• December  ☞ DE

During the 18th Century the format was changed and the month was displayed in the lower half.

1780 Wrapper sent from Ely with London 29/NO Bishop Mark for 29 November

As the Bishop Mark was also intended for incoming mail, the Foreign section of the General Post introduced a Bishop Mark in 1684. This was different from the English (London) Bishop Mark in that the month was in the lower half.

The use of the Bishop Mark soon spread to Dublin, (Ireland) and then to Edinburgh, (Scotland). When the Scottish Post began to implement the Bishop Mark, they placed the month in the lower part and were known to also use red cancels.

In exhibiting, in Thematics, Bishop Marks open up an opportunity as there is no year displayed. So when you need to refer to a day in the year which happens every year, you can use a cool pre-philatelic item with a Bishop Mark. As an example if you want to talk about Christmas Day, you can have a Bishop Mark of 25 December.

Henry is credited as being the inventor of the first postmark used on mail. Strangely he was only in office until 1663. The design of the Bishop Mark did change over the centuries and I am not going to list them. This is just an introduction for those who have never heard of it. Thank you Henry.