Capt. T.A. Smye

General postal history discussions on any topics we don't have a specific category for.
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Robinr
Posts: 155
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2010 6:00 pm

Capt. T.A. Smye

Post by Robinr »

Dear All,

I have been trying to find any kind of reference for Capt. T.A. Smye - a name that must be very familiar to anybody interested in maritime and airmail of the 1920's and 1930s. You'd think such a name might be unique, but it seems there were several of them! Or maybe just the one? Born in 1866, an army officer who relinquished his commission on account of ill health, but retained his rank, in 1920.

All the covers I have seen addressed to him were either to an APO of the British Army on the Rhine in the late 1920s (which doesn't square with him retiring earlier) or to his home in Gosport - throughout the 1930s.

And the addresses were invariably made with a rubber stamp in slightly purplish blue ink. The man must have been utterly dedicated to collecting covers with paquebot cachets, since it seemed as though every ship that sailed in the 1930s carried covers addressed to "The Renowned" collector.

What an incredible collection he must have had. And presumably it eventually was sold and broken up, and the hundreds, if not thousands of covers scattered throughout collections everywhere.

Can anybody pass on a link to any information about the man? Who, what, where, when he was? Any little clue would be interesting, not just to me but I'm sure to many members.

Cheers, Robin R.
censormark
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:00 pm

Re: Capt. T.A. Smye

Post by censormark »

The Oct1918 Army List, at column 817b, lists Capt TA Smye as a temporary Assistant Commissary of Ordnance. The quarterly Army List of July 1918 shows him to be Thomas Arthur Smye, a Warrant Officer in receipt of a pension wef 12Jan1912, late Army Ordnance Corps. It seems therefore he was either recalled or volunteered for wartime service and got a temporary commission. He was still listed as a pensioned Warrant Officer in the 1933 Army List.
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