Page 53 - Bulletin 9 2005

39

THE HISTORY OF POSTAL SERVICES AT KALK BAY

Michael Walker

Introduction

This article focuses primarily on the first 50 years of postal services in Kalk Bay, from
1847, when the postal authorities first recognized the need for a postal service and a

Deputy Postmaster was appointed, until 1895, by which time post-cart deliveries had
been replaced and the first fully-fledged post office with Postmaster had been

established. But reference is also made to later events.

The Post-cart Era

The Simon's Town-Cape Town mail route was well established by the time the postal
authorities decided to appoint a Deputy Postmaster at Kalk Bay in October 1847. This

decision was most likely influenced by two factors: firstly, the local population was

becoming more numerous and sophisticated and comprised not just simple fisherfolk
who could neither read nor write and, secondly, the appointment in 1847 of local hotelier

and livery stable proprietor, James Melville, as Contractor-of-Mails. He may well have
advised the Postmaster-General that there was definite need for mail collection and

distribution in the little village of Kalk Bay. With the appointment of a Deputy

Postmaster at Kalk Bay the Melville post-cart would now stop at Kalk Bay every
Tuesday and Friday on its way from Cape Town to Simon's Town, and deliver mail to

the Deputy Postmaster from whom it would then be collected by local residents. The
post-cart would call the following day en route back to Cape Town to collect mail from

the Deputy Postmaster. (Fig. 2.1)

In 1846 Mr. J. Norbett was the Contractor-of-Mails, but the following year he lost the

contract to James Melville who took the contract over from 2 July 1847. Melville

operated his post-carts from stables in Plein Street, Cape Town. In 1848 The Cape