Rolly Martin Country: The Countess of Dufferin, Postcards x5

At the top of the postmark, you can barely make out GT Ry. According to its serial number, the postcard below was published in 1910 - although the photo may have been taken earlier. Lords Mills is northeast of Brockville.

The postcards below all show the CPR station at Winnipeg.

It is interesting to see how postcards were used for everyday messages. A telegram would be more cumbersome to arrange and costlier to send. A long distance telephone call would have been extremely expensive - to the point of being unthinkable. I marvel at how postcards used locally for routine messages often showed photo subjects which were so far away.

Finding the correct name for the historical writing utensil used below was interesting.

When roller bearings were developed, it seems that the old brass bearings were retro-actively renamed plain bearings - prior to that, they were probably just called ... 'bearings' ... maybe 'brasses'.

... Similarly, a fountain pen - an instrument composed of a nib fed from a refillable reservoir (or a disposable plastic cartridge) was a new technology which superseded a ... 'pen'.

... The 'pen' was 'a stick with a nib' which held ink by surface tension. During a writing session, it was continually dipped into a bottle of ink. Before that, people would cut a large feather's shaft (the quill or calamus) on an angle and dip that into a bottle of ink.

This first type of mass-produced 'pen' with a metal nib - as used below - is now often referred to as a calligraphy dip pen.

When we were taught cursive writing in Montreal in the mid-1960s (around Grade 4), we used fountain pens with plastic ink cartridges. Pressing down on the pen would spread the tines of the nib to make a thicker line. Often downstrokes are wide and lateral strokes are thin. Ballpoint pens were a great improvement and a great relief - once we had completed our fountain pen phase!

I don't remember seeing a 'pen' being used like this on a postcard before. You can see how Mabel is in a rush to complete her message. In her phrase 'short of men at the shops' ... her nib dries out and she goes back with a freshly-dipped pen to cross the 't' in 'short'.

Communicating this kind of haste through calligraphy must violate all kinds of Victorian-era rules of etiquette - but the stamp shows King Edward VII, so get over it! (He died during the same year the postcard was sent - in May of 1910.)

Mabel (the sender) has probably been told to send this message by Jack. She is probably not happy about being caught in the middle. Gressie's father evidently wants his house painted now. I think Gressie is an old Scottish familiar version of 'Grace' ... from what I could find.

* * *

In every way, the underlying subject of this post was the epitome of Victorian grace.

Her spouse would probably generously pay someone to paint your house..

But first, some postcards showing a locomotive ...

The very small circular marking at the top-centre indicates this card was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

* * *

from: Manitoba Historical Atlas; Warkentin & Ruggles; 1970; Historical & Scientific Society of Manitoba.

The underlying events of this post take place (1876, 1877) when the Canadian Pacific Railway (often then referred to as the Canada Pacific Railway) was still a government enterprise. Canadian politics had been rocked by the Pacific Scandal. Sir John A Macdonald had lost power in 1873 and would not return as Prime Minister until 1878.

Notice that the map above shows the CPR avoiding Cactus Plain and 'extensive plains, more or less barren'. This would be Palliser's Triangle in the southwest corner of the map.

* * *

The Earl of Dufferin - the Governor General - and his spouse (the former Hariot Georgina Rowan-Hamilton) 'Hariot Dufferin' travelled to British Columbia in 1876. The caricature below summarizes the events and agitation against the federal government as the promised Pacific railway had still not been built during the regime of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie.

Dufferin was a skilled and accomplished diplomat and helped to calm the waters. He was really an exceptional public servant who put service to Canada first. In a larger context, he was serving the British Empire and his future assignments reflected this unselfish devotion to duty.

from: A Caricature History of Canadian Politics; JW Bengough; 1886; The Grip (reprint 1974).

Back in those days, wooden arches decorated with greenery, and messages of welcome in large letters, were often built over the main streets on which visiting dignitaries would pass. This was frequently done when heirs to the throne visited Canadian cities. In this particular case, Frame 11 shows 'Vancouver puts up an arch' ... and this wording is what the Governor General Lord Dufferin was confronted with when he came to visit and make peace.

* * *

In 1877, Dufferin and his spouse travelled to visit Manitoba and the surrounding area. To read through the account of their trip, one is impressed with the inconveniences and discomfort they met on these trips through wilderness Canada. Representing more than themselves, they consistently rose to the occasion and put service before self.

The people they met, the travel, the settlements, the isolation, the food, and the customs described during this type of old pre-railway cross-Canada trip really give one a sense of what the Canadian wilderness had been like for hundreds of years. And how it was being changed forever.

Hariot Dufferin's letters home, including her account of the Manitoba trip, were published years later in 1891 as a book. You can get an idea of how this couple approached their duty in the following few pages.

Page 365 and Page 367 can be considered primary historical documents for their description of Hariot Dufferin's contacts with CPR hardware.

It is very difficult to keep up with the dates of all the title changes these two experienced during their careers. Apparently, a marchioness is the spouse of a marquess. The anglicized word is pronounced something like 'Martian-ness'.