Messages on Postal Stationery Cards

Illustrated here is a printed 'compliments of the Season' new Year greeting card from 'Dr. AND Mrs.J. B. Knobel' with two roughly cut photographs, one of Church Square Pretoria and one of President Kruger, the former with manuscript message in black ink “Nachtmaal, Revd. Bosmans .Ch[urch]" *

Neither the stationery card half penny stamp nor the additional half penny disselboom adhesive have been overprinted “V.R.I.”. There is an additional one penny stamp overprinted “V.R.I.”. The card is addressed to the Cape Colony, the stamps are cancelled by two strikes of the panel-type (Mathews Type 16aI Segmented Inner Circle (“Underground”) datestamp inscribed “PRETORIA / TRANSVAAL / 20.DEC. 00 9- - AM.” †

Dr. Knobel together with three other doctors visited Present Kruger following the Jameson Raid and suggested that there should be an ambulance with medical support to attend to the injured in any future conflicts. Kruger agreed, and funds were allocated to finance the scheme. The Pretoria Ambulance Corps operated from Pretoria Street and during the South African War was run by volunteers. The New York Times of 4^th March, 1900 reported that the Red Cross society of the Republic was in Pretoria under the direction of Dr. J. B. Knobel and offers of money or material could be addressed to him there.

The “United” Transvaal Directory for 1910 records that Dr. Knobel was a Medical Practitioner in Middelburg and in Pretoria at Schoeman Street.

* ‘Nachtmaal’ in the Dutch Reformed tradition is an event in southern Africa. From at least the 1830s rural families travel, sometimes long journeys, to meet with others, in order to socialises, business, register marriages, and observe religious festivals. The photograph here illustrates Church Square, Pretoria.

† This datestamp is nowadays called ‘double circle, inner half moons’ - see The Transvaal Philatelist

Payne, B., and Visser, A., ZAR and Transvaal date-stamps until Union: a working catalogue:

Part 14, Pretoria, 220/15-32

Part 15, Pretoria Cantonments to Rustplaats, 221/31-48

Postscript:
I am not sure if these should be classified purely as “Illustrated postal stationery cards” or whether they should be catalogued separately.

References:
de Villiers, J.C., The Medical Aspect of the Anglo Boer War, 1899 – 1902, Military History Journal , Part 1, Vol 6 No. 2, December 1983.

Mathews I.B., (1986), Transvaal Philately, Cape Town, p.157.

Woolgar, J., (2003), Three halfpenny view cards, The Transvaal Philatelist, Vol.38, No.2 (146), pp.41-42.

The New York Times, 4^th March, 1900.

“United” Transvaal Directory 1910, comprising complete directories of ‘Johannesburg & Pretoria as well as other towns in the Transvaal’ [Introduction dated November 1909], Johannesburg & London.

Woolgar, J., (2012), Illustrated postal stationery card from Dr and Mrs J.B. Knobel, The Transvaal Philatelist, 182/67-68.