Snail mail is one thing, but usually it doesn’t take a century to arrive.
A letter sent in 1916 has finally made its way to its intended address in South London — more than a century after it was sent.
“We noticed that the year on it was ’16. So we thought it was 2016,” resident Finlay Glen, who was living at the address to which the historic letter was mailed, told CNN. “Then we noticed that the stamp was a king rather than a queen, so we felt that it couldn’t have been 2016.”
The letter arrived a few years ago, but Glen, 27, said he only recently took it to the local historical society. He said if the letter turns out to have some “serious historical significance” he’d be happy for the historical society to keep it; otherwise, he and his girlfriend would like to hold onto it.
Although initially Glen and his girlfriend didn’t want to open the letter — noting it’s a crime to open mail that’s not addressed to you — once they realized how old the letter was, they figured it would be OK.
The stamp on the envelope featured King George V, was worth 1 pence, and was sent in the middle of the first World War more than a decade before Queen Elizabeth II was born.
Glen took the letter to a local magazine, the Norwood Review, where editor and local historian Stephen Oxford said he was “delighted” by it.
According to Oxford, the letter was written to “my dear Katie,” who was a local woman married to Oswald Marsh, a “highly regarded stamp dealer who was often called as an expert witness in cases of stamp fraud.”
The letter, however, was written by a friend of Katie’s — Christabel Mennel, the daughter of tea merchant Henry Tuke Mennel — who was on holiday in Bath, writing: “I’ve been most miserable here with a very heavy cold.”
Oxford said he thinks the letter may have been “lost sitting in a dark corner in the Sydenham sorting office and only recently discovered.” He also noted it was postmarked “Sydenham,” which is in southeast London.
“I was amazed,” he said of the late arrival.
A spokesperson from the Royal Mail said in a statement that he doesn’t know why the letter had such a delayed travel time,
“Incidents like this happen very occasionally, and we are uncertain what has happened in this incident,” he said. “We appreciate that people will be intrigued by the history of this letter from 1916, but have no further information on what might have happened.”