Somerset & Bristol Postal History

These first couple of sheets haven't been written up yet but they all relate to the payment of Council Rates, starting with 1960 (May and October) ...

... then 1961 and 1966.  Sent as Printed Matter, the rate was 2d from ast June 1956, going up to 2½d on 1st October 1961 and 3d on 17th May 1965 ....

... and finally 1965 and 1967.   The top cover has the inside of the dater inverted and has the time inserted but no year (the year can be deduced from the contents).

Here are the contents of the May 1960 rates cover, and the receipt for payment of £4 - 1s - 4d.

Four different PAID daters  for unified machine cancels are known for Weston-super-Mare, two of which are only known by a single example.  Here are the two common ones.

 

When Ilminster Council sent out the Rate demands they prepaid the postage, with PAID marks used to indicate this.  The following three sheets show a progression from 1954 to 1965, starting with a couple of different Krag PAID marks from 1954 and 1955.  The top example is "ILMINSTER", the second "ILMINSTER.SOM".

In 1956 and 1957 "PAID" handstamps were used.

Then from 1959 Unified machine PAID marks were used - I don't know what was used in 1958 !  As you can see below the cost of the postage increased over time.