An envelope sent to Huddersfield from Africa in 1900 by a British soldier during the Boer War is now expected to sell for between £200 and £250 at an auction.

The envelope was sent to Thomas Barron, of 32 Ravensthorpe Road, Dalton, from Kuruman in what is now South Africa by Private Frank Lewin, of the 8th Battalion,23rd (Lancashire) Company, Imperial Yeomanry.

Thomas Barron was a patent agent before he joined the army and so was Hull-born Private Lewin.

Pte Lewin’s letter – originally inside the envelope coming up for sale - is now missing,so it is not known why he wrote to Mr Barron.

Pte Lewin was in his early 20s when he sent the letter to Huddersfield ,while Mr Barron was in his mid 30s.

There is no postage stamp on the envelope and the words “on active service” in the top left hand corner of the envelope may explain why. As a soldier serving abroad, Pte Lewin may have been exempted from postal charges.

Incredibly, the envelope took less than a month to make its tortuous 6,000 mile journey by sea from war-torn southern Africa to Britain. It was posted on October 2,1900, and reached London on October 27.

Pte Lewin survived the horrors of the Boer War and ,in 1911, he was living in Halifax, just three miles from Sowerby Bridge where his Huddersfield friend, Thomas Barron, and Mr Barron’s wife, Annie, were born.

According to the 1901 Census, Mr and Mrs Barron had two daughters named Elsie and Mary.

The Huddersfield envelope is postmarked ‘Kuruman’ so Private Lewin may have helped re-capture that African town which Boer forces besieged between November 13,1899,and January 1,1900.

The Boers held onto the town until June 24,1900, before it was re-captured by British troops.

The Huddersfield envelope is among more than 400 rare Boer War envelopes and stamps lovingly assembled by the late Harry Birkhead who, until his death last year, was honorary life president of the Philatelic Federation of South Africa.

Mr Birkhead’s collection, of which the Huddersfield envelope is part, is expected to fetch around £170,000 at Spink in Bloomsbury, London, on March 12.

Spink say : “Mr Birkhead formed the finest and most comprehensive collection of mail relating to the sieges of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and the local or ‘town’ stamp issues of the war ever brought together.”

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