The British post offices in China were a system of

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

s set up by the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in various

treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

s of China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a consequence of the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the ...

of 29 August 1842, Great Britain opened five consular postal agencies on 16 April 1844. Another five were opened later. *

Amoy Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong' ...

(1844), Cancelled "A1" 1866–1885; "D27" from 1876 to 1885 * Canton (1844), Cancelled "C1" 1866–1885 *

Foochow Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute t ...

(1844), Cancelled "F1" 1866–1885 *

Ningpo Ningbo (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sa ...

(1844), Cancelled "N1" 1866–1885 *

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

(1844), Cancelled "S1" 1866–1885 *

Swatow Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...

(1861), Cancelled "S2" 1866–1885 *

Hankow Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers whe ...

(1872), Cancelled "D29" 1879–1885 * Kiungchow (1873), Cancelled "D28" 1876–1885 *

Tientsin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

(1882) *

Chefoo Yantai, formerly known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of the Bohai Strait, Yantai borders Qingdao on the ...

(1903) Initially letters were simply bagged in these cities and carried to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, where they were cancelled "B62"; later (1860s/70s) each office received its own postmarking devices.

Postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s of Hong Kong were used from 1862 on, but after 1 January 1917 the Hong Kong stamps were

overprint An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a Postage stamp, postage or revenue stamp, postal stationery, banknote or Ticket (admission), ticket after it has been Printing, printed. Post offices most often use ...

ed "CHINA". The initial overprinting including 16 values ranging from 1 cent to 10 dollars; from 1922 on, an additional 10 values with the Multiple Script CA watermark were also overprinted. All of the offices were closed on 30 November 1922 with the exception of those of the Leased Territory of Weihaiwei (Port Edward and Liu Kung Tau) which closed on October 1, 1930. Weihaiwei was occupied on 24 May 1898, and mail franked with the Weihaiwei local was carried to Chefoo by Cornébé and Co. for onward processing. This lasted until the Chinese Liu Kung Tau Post Office was opened in March 1899, and it was in turn replaced by a British post office on 1 September 1899. A second British Post Office was opened at Port Edward in 1904. Hong Kong stamps overprinted CHINA continued in use in both offices until the settlement was given up on 1 October 1930. Weihaiwei also had its own revenue stamps.

British Railway Administration

On 20 April 1901 Chinese c stamps were overprinted B.R.A. / 5 / Five Cents for use by the British Railway Administration in the North China Railway. The stamp was in use for only 30 days and it was used for the collection of the 5c late letter fee. The late fee was abolished on 20 May 1901 and the stamp withdrawn. These stamps exist both with black overprinted characters and green overprinted characters.

Sources

* Stanley Gibbons Ltd: various catalogues *

Robson Lowe John Harry Robson Lowe (7 January 1905, London – 19 August 1997, Bournemouth) was an English professional philatelist, stamp dealer and stamp auctioneer. Life and career Lowe is regarded by philatelists as the father of postal history, ha ...

, ''The Encyclopedia of British Empire Postage Stamps'', Vol. 3, Pt. 3, London, Robson Lowe Ltd., 1949. Reprinted as Volume 40 of ''Billig's Philatelic Handbook'', pp. 468–477.
AskPhil – Glossary of Stamp Collecting Terms

The China Overprints
* Wellsted, Rossiter, and Flower, ''The Stamp Atlas'' (Facts on File, 1986), pp. 257–258
Hong Kong Study Circle

British Railway Administration

Sources

Further reading