General Discussion

I have received the following enquiry:

I have a few questions about British WWI censorship of military mail. The cover in the image has a signature in red (bottom-left below the “Passed by Censor” handstamp).

I have seen a similar signature but it was rubber stamped on the cover.

Does the signature mean that the letter was self-censored by the officer mailing it, before it was handstamped by a military censor?

Or, was it signed by junior officer that censored the letter before a military censor added the handstamp?

Where can I find more information about this signature?

I have responded to the person making the enquiry as follows:

You ask “Does the signature mean that the letter was self-censored by the officer mailing it, before it was handstamped by a military censor?“ .  That I cannot answer as there are no details as to who the sender is.

Mail is censored by the officer designated by the unit as their unit censor and he would hold the censor handstamp – I am not aware of other officers censoring unit mail before it is passed to the authorised censor.  I am aware that officers were authorised to self-censor their own mail.

You ask “Where can I find more information about this signature?“.  Without being able to decipher the censoring officers name is it not possible to find out any more information on the censor.  If we know his name (and possibly rank and or unit) then it may be possible for one of our members to access various issues of the Army List to identify the person (rank, corps/regiment etc).

The censor cachet is known as a Type CM6 and looks as though it is numbered 5061 – we have members who are currently researching WW1 censor numbers and if any has a recording for that number I’ll ask them for details which may be prove helpful.

The postmark looks like ARMY POST OFFICE / 3 dated 24 DE 17 – used by Base Army Post Office 3 in Boulogne, France. (recorded used JY 15 to AP 20)