Today’s Auction House Artefact are some intriguing postage stamps (stamps are big money on the auction scene, it seems) that unravels a really interesting local history story of their own. But these aren’t Royal Mail Stamps, they are Circular Delivery Company stamps.

The Circular Delivery Companies where short lived attempts to flout the Royal Main’s postal monopoly, between 1865 and 1869. They were the brainchild of one Robert Brydone, a 33 year old Edinburgh printer and publisher. Robert was the son of James Brydone, an established printer and engraver with a good reputation around town. The family premises were on Elder Street, just off St. Andrew Square.

The Brydone family house was at the respectable address of 27 Dundas Street. Robert seems to have been on the move a bit as he goes from 5 Hope Park Terrace in Newington to 25 Gayfield Square between 1865-1866 and then is no longer in town by 1867 (more on that later).

The Brydones published railway timetables amongst other things;

1865 finds Robert Brydone as the manager of the Edinburgh & Leith Parcel Delivery Co., based at 4 North St. Andrew Street. Now the site of Edinburgh bus station and just around the corner from the family printing works on Elder Street. These parcel delivery companies were nothing new, they did exactly what the name suggested and moved priority parcels around town – and began charging by issuing stamps (which could be printed at the Brydone family works). The Edinburgh & Leith Parcel Delivery Co. had been founded in 1856 by Robert Ferguson, a merchant in the Kirkgate of Leith and ran “light parcel delivery vans” twice a day between the respective burghs to and from 9 different stops.

Robert’s brainwave was to exploit his delivery network to undercut the Royal Mail’s postage monopoly in the city. This was a curious 360° turn of events, as the very first postage network within the City had been set up by a private entrepreneur – “Indian Peter” Williamson – in the 1780s before being bought out by he Royal Mail. Brydone set up the Edinburgh & Leith Circular Delivery Co. to provide prepaid delivery for the booming market in “circulars”, magazines, newspapers etc. The Brydone presses already made the stamps for the parcel company so it was natural they should make the circular stamps too, from designs by George Oliver, engraver and die maker, of Edinburgh. None of these ideas were on their own novel, all Robert did was bring them together, and have the gumption to take on the might of the Royal Mail.

Brydone was directly targeting the legally protected revenue of the General Post Office here; they weren’t so interested in the parcels business. He also had his stamps perforated and gummed so they could be issued prepaid, a direct infringement of the GPO’s patents. But for whatever reason, the GPO decided to do nothing while the practice was restricted to just Edinburgh and Leith. Brydone issued stamps to the value of 1/4d (farthing), ha’penny, 3/4d and 1d., with the rates being 1/4d for circulars, 1/2d for newspapers and 3/4-1d for books.

The business seems to have boomed initially, with their stamps cancelled by an elegant R. B. & Co. monogram.

Had Brydone been content to leave it there he might have got away with it, indeed he had taken legal advice from the Lord Advocate who had shared this opinion with him, but he over-reached himself and decided to grow the concept by setting up similar Circular Delivery Companies across the whole country. Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow all got companies, as did Liverpool. Each got their own stamps, to a similar design inspired by the civic crest of each city.

Brydone also began to face competition himself – you can’t keep a good idea down and soon found himself up against his neighbour at Dundas Street, the stationer and printer Robert Clark, whose press was directly over the road from Byrdones’ at 15 Elder Street.

So now Brydone faced competition at home, form the lawyers of the Royal Mail who were not content at all for him to undercut their business across the country, and also from a third direction; Forgery. Philately was the new pass-time for the aspiring Victorian gentleman of leisure and the novel and relatively uncommon Circular stamps found themselves in huge demand (a similar thing happened with the short lived regional coinage of “Provincial Tokens”.)

Forgeries of Brydone’s stamps became common and before long Robert was declared bankrupt in 1866. His father James took on the business, moving it to the family’s Elder Street premises, and issuing new stamps to match; I assume that the removal of the price and perforations was to satisfy the Royal Mail’s lawyers.

The Philately website says it is “unlikely” that many (or any) of the offshoot stamps were ever used for delivery, instead they remained valuable collectables. Robert Brydone was not one to be kept down however, and moved to London in 1866. He founded the London Circular Delivery Company to carry on his ideas, merging with the Metropolitan Circular Delivery Company in 1867 to form the London & Metropolitan Circular Delivery Company.

Brydone’s next move was the National Circular Delivery Company, which would act to connect the provincial Companies and form the basis of a national delivery network to undercut the GPO. While they did not feature the monarch’s likeness, these stamps had a very thinly altered version of the Royal Coat of Arms and were a direct challenge and affront to the Royal Mail.

Enough was enough, and the GPO took the London & Metropolitan CDC to court in August 1867, a case which they quickly and comprehensively won. Within a month, all the other CDCs were closed down too, some having never got further than having their stamps printed.

The parcel delivery companies carried on, but the GPO got its monopoly on the prepaid collection and delivery of letters and printed materials back. But Brydone’s basic idea was sound and in demand, and in 1870 the Royal Mail bowed to demand and introduced the “red bantam” stamp, a reduced rate stamp for the delivery of circulars and papers.

Brydone still wouldn’t give up though, and his various companies were in court again in 1868 and again in 1869 for attempts to restart their practices by getting around the letter but not the spirit of the law (.e.g by not using prepaid stamps). Again they lost and again Brydone tried again. He registered the Circular Delivery Company Limited in 1869 and was taken to court yet again before they had even got off the ground. The GPO made it clear that they would not tolerate any form of competition, and this time it seemed to work. The railways, however saw their opportunity and very carefully got in on the act too. They restricted their practice to newspapers and parcel delivery and by not offering a door-to-door service; you picked up your items from the station. Thre’s a huge page of very beautiful railway delivery stamps on this website.

Perhaps it was the death of James Brydone in 1869 that dried up Robert’s sources of funding. Robert himself died a few years later back in Edinburgh, at 10 Comely Bank, aged only 41, from phthisis (TB of the lungs) with his brother by his side. Obviously not financially ruined, but a widower.

He may have died relatively quietly and in obscurity but for a short time, Brydone genuinely shook the establishment. The original local delivery disruptor! His main legacy is one of interesting and collectible stamps which seem to have been heavily forged in their time.