Receiving mail a few days late is nothing new, but when it arrives more than a century later it is not so common. That’s what happened to Finlay Glen, a resident of Hamlet Road, in South London, who received an envelope over 100 years old.
The letter was written in February 1916 by Christabel Mennel while on holiday in Bath, and was addressed to Katie, wife of tycoon Oswald Marsh. The couple lived in the same house that now belongs to 27-year-old Finlay.
“We realized the year was 16 and thought it was 2016. Then we realized the seal had a king instead of a queen. It couldn’t be 2016”, explained the theater director to CNN.
In 1916, in the middle of World War I, George V, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, was the monarch of the United Kingdom and the figure on the envelope seal. The letter was sent a decade before the birth of the queen who had been on the throne for 70 years.
Finlay says he already received the letter a few years ago, but only now decided to take it to a history magazine to find out more information. “Once we realized it was very old, we thought it was okay to open the letter,” he added.
Finlay Glen took the letter to a history magazine for more information.
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In a statement sent to CNN, a spokesman for the Royal Mail company explains that these situations rarely happen and says he has no explanation for the fact that the letter arrived more than a century later.
“We are pleased to hear that people have been intrigued by the story of this 1916 letter, but we have no further information as to what may have happened,” he said.
In addition to the King George V stamp, the envelope also bears a postmark from Sydenham, South East London. Historian Stephen Oxford theorizes that the letter may have been lost in the post office’s handling and distribution center and only to have been found years later.
In the message to Katie, Christabel told how the days were going in Bath, in 1916. “I am very unhappy here and with a very bad cold”, it reads.