ST LUCIA STEAM CONVEYANCE LTD.

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aukepalmhof
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ST LUCIA STEAM CONVEYANCE LTD.

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:52 pm

The stamps shows a barque rigged vessel if she depict a ship of the company I do not believe so, the company used two ships for the coastal service at St Lucia, and I do not believe for the coastal service she were using a large sailing vessel like a barque rigged vessel. I have been many times in St Lucia loading bananas but all the distances between the few ports on the island are very short and situated on the south and west side of the island. More suitable was a schooner rigged vessel, or a small steamboat, schooner rigged.

Below is given what I found on the internet on the company.

In 1866 a small steam ship, the PENELOPE captained by Thomas Shugg, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to St. Lucia. Shugg obtained an annual subsidy of £150 for the upkeep of his ship which he used to convey passengers and goods along the west coast of the island between Gros Islet and Vieux Fort. In return for this subsidy he carried the mails free of charge.

The PENELOPE was wrecked in 1868 and Shugg died later that year. His service was sorely missed, as there were few roads over the mountainous interior of the island, making overland travel very difficult. The St. Lucia Steam Conveyance Company Ltd. was formed in 1869 to continue Shugg’s work, was given an annual subsidy of £250 and obtained two ships, the AIDE in 1870 and the CREOLE in 1873.

In late 1871 the company began to produce postage stamps for internal use on St. Lucia. There were two types of the first issue. The stamps were either plain white with a blue frame or of plain blue wove paper and were issued imperforate.

These were struck before use to validate the stamps with the Company’s seal, a double ring circular shape bearing the Company’s name between the double ring. An impression of approximately one half of the Company’s seal appeared on the face of each stamp. The stamps were cancelled with an ink cross. The stamps were undenominated but were probably of a one penny value, being the local post office rate for letters at that time.

The second issue probably appeared sometime in 1872. These stamps were lithographed in Paris in 1 penny, 3 penny and 6 penny denominations and were again issued imperforate. These were cancelled with an oval stamp, similar to the Company seal used to validate the first issue.

An Ordinance dated 28 October 1887 stated that “the Company shall not carry any letter except letters sent through the Post Offices, or consignee letters to be delivered along with goods to which they refer”. The St Lucia Steam Conveyance Company Ltd. went into liquidation in 1890.

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=51791


Another website gives that the imperforate stamps were of a sailing ship design and remind one of a miniature versions of Captain Webb match box label. The sailing ship on the stamp certainly does not depict the PENELOPE, AIDE or CREOLE which were all steamships.
The site has also some more info on the early stamps.

http://www.bwisc.org/Bulletins/b168_199603.pdf

St Lucia 1972 5c/50c sg 335/38, scott ?
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