Presidency Guide
Madras Presidency Postal History
The Madras Presidency covered southern India, from the Coromandel Coast to the Western Ghats. Its postal system is notable for the Receiving Houses — sub-offices where letters were collected before being forwarded to the main post office — and for the variety of its early datestamp designs.
The Madras GPO
The Madras GPO was the hub of the southern postal network. It produced a remarkable range of handstamps — early straight-line marks from the 1770s, oval and circular datestamps, Ship Letter stamps, and the distinctive Receiving House marks (prefixed MX in the Giles catalogue). Madras also handled Ship Despatch and Ship Receipt mail for vessels crossing the Bay of Bengal.
Receiving Houses and MX marks
A distinctive feature of the Madras postal system was its network of Receiving Houses — collection points where the public could deposit letters for the main post office. In the Giles catalogue, these are numbered with the prefix MX (e.g. MX 1, MX 2). The Receiving House marks are oval or circular, and they carry the name of the locality or a number identifying the sub-office.
These marks are of particular interest to collectors because they document the last-mile collection of mail in southern India — a level of postal infrastructure rarely visible in the surviving markings of Bengal or Bombay.
Major Madras offices
- Bangalore — Military cantonment with a range of early handstamps
- Trichinopoly — Important southern station with distinctive datestamps
- Ootacamund — Hill station in the Nilgiris with scarce early marks
- Masulipatam — Coastal town with early Company-era postal markings
- Secunderabad — Major military cantonment in the Deccan
- Cannanore — Malabar coast office with distinctive handstamps
Recorded markings
This site records 598 handstamps from 154 Madras offices. Browse them all on the Madras Presidency page.