The Philatelist as Social Historian

In this entry, we will be looking at the social history (and a little postal history) behind this 1916 censored and taxed cover addressed to Alfred Binggeli in Albligen, Switzerland; a former municipality in the canton of Bern in Switzerland (merged with Wahlern on January 1, 2011, to create the municipality of Schwarzenburg). The cover is postmarked Wowan, Queensland, Australia.



Postal History

Before we examine the social aspects of this cover, some quick postal history elements...

Postage Due

The Binggeli cover was franked with an Australian 1914 KGV 1d red, which was the valid postage rate for letters sent from Australia to Great Britain and countries in the British Commonwealth until a ½d war tax was imposed in 1918. However, it underpaid the 2½d per ounce letter rate to 'other foreign countries' by 1½d, resulting in the cover being taxed 30c in Albligen, Switzerland; represented by the Swiss 1910 10c and 20c postage due stamps depicting the Swiss coat of arms and alpine roses, with numerals in red.

Unpaid or short paid international letters and postcards were taxed at double the amount of the deficient postage. This was paid by the addressee. To calculate the postage due between countries with different currencies, the conversions were based on a standard rate established by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) using the gold centime. Australia joined the UPU on October 1, 1907. Prior to 1921, the UPU rate for letters throughout the Union was set at 25 centimes for the foreign letter rate. In Australia, this was equivalent to 2½d; i.e. 1d = 10 centimes.

• Amount due in Australian pence: 1½d
• Double deficiency: 2 x 1½d = 3d
• Conversion of deficiency to gold centimes (1d = 10c): 30c
• Conversion to Swiss centimes (on par): 30c

Wowan Postmark

The earliest and latest recorded dates for the Wowan postmark are August 12, 1915, and January 16, 1968, respectively.

This information is found in the book "Queensland Steel Datestamps - Commonwealth Period" (2nd edition, 2017), by Terry Dell and David Price; available for free download at The Toowoomba Stamp Club website (https://www.toowoombastampclub.org/pubs.htm). An excerpt from this text for Wowan is shown below.


Wowan Post Office

Wowan is a rural town and locality in the Dawson Valley in Queensland, Australia; approximately 82 km (51 mi) from the city of Rockhampton. Wowan was established in 1912, and the post office opened in June 1915. The location is shown through this image from Google Maps:



Through the Australian newspaper archives at TROVE (https://trove.nla.gov.au/), the following excerpt, regarding the post office in Wowan, is quoted from The Capricornian newspaper of May 12, 1923.


This following picture, which also appeared in the same edition of The Capricornian shows how the J. Spyve General Store appeared at that time. The initial "J" refers to the store’s registered owner, Jane Spyve, née Kearney (d.1967). Using the Queensland Birth, Death, Marriage website (https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/), we can see that her husband was Herbert Spyve (1877-1946), and they were married October 12, 1898. Herbert and Jane had four children, George Maxwell (1899-1971), Dorothy (b.1901), Vivian Arthur (1903-1930), and Gertrude (Gerty) Olive (b.1912).



In the early hours of November 24, 1926, a fire destroyed the Spyve's store, as well as the neighboring Moore's Boarding House and Hosking's Auction Hall and Offices. Jane was away when it happened. Herbert and Vivian were sleeping on the verandah but were awoken by the noise of the fire. Fortunately however for the postal service, a new post office had been built and officially opened by the Member of the Australian Parliament for Capricornia, Francis Michael Forde, a year earlier on Saturday, October 31, 1925. Francis Forde would later serve as Australia's 15th Prime Minister in a caretaker capacity after the death of John Curtin, and is the shortest-serving prime minister in Australia's history (July 6-13, 1945).


Social History

Although the sender has not identified themselves on the cover, my research points to the sender as Alfred’s brother, Christian Binggeli, who was residing at Pheasant Creek, near Wowan, at this time.

To begin, we start with FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/), which yields a passenger manifest for the Aberdeen Liner Themistocles. The manifest shows that a Mr. C. Binggeli, a 23-year old farm hand, boarded the ship at Cape Town and was contracted to land at Brisbane.

The Themistocles, which arrived in Brisbane on August 11, 1913, had the distinction of being the first vessel on the Australian trade to be armed with guns for defense against hostile vessels. The photograph below, which appeared in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday August 2, 1913, was taken on the day the ship (and Christian) arrived in Sydney on August 1st. It shows members of the ship’s specially selected gun crew manning one of the 4.7 inch guns. As the guns had a strictly defensive role, they were fitted at the stern of the ship to fire on a pursuing enemy as the Themistocles made its escape.


Using the Australian National Archives (https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/), we find a digitized copy of Christian Binggeli’s 1920 application for naturalization, which gives us more information about him, and his activities since arriving in Australia. Describing himself as 5ft 6in in height, with brown hair and eyes, he was born November 26, 1889 at Albligen, in the Canton Berne, Switzerland (same address as the cover). The record also confirms his arrival in Brisbane from Cape Town aboard the Themistocles. 

Since his arrival in Australia, Christian resided at Springsure, in the Central Highlands Region of Queensland for two years, and "was at present and have been employed by Alexander McLaughlin and Clare Foot for one year at Springsure". He had been in Wowan for four years and six months at the time of his application on March 6, 1920.


Alexander McLaughlin and Clare Foot were well known station owners in the region. Alexander McLaughlin may refer to Alexander McLaughlin Sr. (1850-1928) or his son Alexander Carson McLaughlin (1885–1941). Clare Foot was Clare Leslie Randall Foot (1891-1980) who owned the property Rainmore. A photograph of Clare Foot comes down to us through an advertisement for the piles remedy "Rexona" which appeared The Bulletin on October 13, 1927; perhaps highlighting a health problem common to all cattlemen?




On June 23, 1914, Clare Foot married Isabel Caroline Funk (The Brisbane Courier, 15 July 1914). The Foot-Funk wedding would have been a major social event in the area and it is likely that Christian would have been in Springsure at the time.



Returning to Christian Binggeli, the letter pictured below was submitted by him as part of his naturalization application. The similarity in handwriting helps support with a high degree of certainty that the cover was from him.



In 1923, a profile of Christian Binggeli was part of an 18-page illustrated feature on Wowan titled "The Dawson Valley. Wowan, A Great Cotton Centre," published in the Saturday May 12 edition of the Rockhampton newspaper, The Capricornian.

The complete article has been transcribed below.


Christian was one of eight children born to to Niklaus Binggeli (1839-1919) and Margaritha Seiler (1855-1923). Margaritha was Niklaus’ second wife. His first, Barbara Imhof, had died in 1870, just 3 months after they married. Christian’s younger brother, Alfred, to whom our cover is addressed, was born in 1894. Although the contents of the cover are long gone, we can speculate that the cover carried news from Christian to his brother about his new life as a land owner and cotton farmer in Pheasant Creek. Perhaps the correspondence even encouraged his brother’s decision to emigrate, which he did in 1924.

Alfred Binggeli, his wife Elizabeth Anna Zuicher (b.1901), and his children, emigrated to Queensland in November 1924; the year following his mother’s death. While we do not have a record of his first years in Australia, on March 21, 1931, he placed a notice in the Queensland Times announcing his intention to apply for naturalization and identifying his place of residence as East Haldon, a rural locality near Gatton, approximately 90 km southwest of Brisbane. 

Alfred had been resident in Australia for six years at this point. The minimum required by the Nationality Act 1920 to apply for naturalization was five years. The placement of a notice in a newspaper announcing the applicant’s intention to seek naturalization was a mandatory requirement in order to give citizens the opportunity to bring forward any cause why the applicant should not be naturalized. The requirement was removed in the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1955.



By February 1932, Alfred’s naturalization was approved and his certificate issued May 6, 1932. Approved naturalizations were printed in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, as shown here for Alfred Binggeli in the May 19, 1932, edition.





Now, having the right to vote in Australian elections, we find Alfred and his wife Anna included on the electoral roles from 1934. His occupation, farmer. 



Alfred and Anna’s son, Alfred Albert Binggeli (usually referred to as Albert, presumably to avoid being confused for his father), had been born in 1922 in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1954 he was engaged to Ula Francis Lane (spelling "Una Frances" also seen), and is listed in the Electoral Rolls, like his father, as a farmer in East Haldon. He passed away on March 6, 1988. A daughter, Anna Elizabeth, was engaged to Noel Daniel Laing (1916-1948) in 1947. However, he died the following year before they were married. In Laing’s funeral notice, Anna (referred to as "Betty Binggali") is listed as his fiancé. From the Electoral Rolls, we are able to trace her movements in this period from a bar attendant in Brisbane to being employed as a cook at Mount Isa Mines in the 1950s.

Alfred passed away on September 22, 1984. His wife predeceased him on July 17, 1983. The sender of our cover, Christian Binggeli, died February 23, 1940, He lived in Pheasant Creek, Wowan, until the end (Morning Bulletin, 24 Feb 1940)