Railway Air Services - Liverpool

In 1930 after some searching Liverpool council levelled an area in Speke and granted a private use license on 16 June 1930. The airport was expanded towards the River Mersey and to 350 acres. A public use license was granted on 16 June 1933. The airport was officially opened on July 1, 1933. The first airline to fly out of Speke was the Midland and Scottish Air Ferries who provided a link service to Maylands Airport in Essex as a collaboration with Hillman Airways who flew out of Maylands to Paris. RAS started there on May 7th, 1934 and other airlines followed. It is best known for its art deco terminal building and hangars open in 1939. The current Speke airport uses different runways and terminal and is in a completely new area.

Railway Air Services Liverpool on the 20th August

Liverpool was part of the North to South-West group going Liverpool-Birmingham-Cardiff-Teignmouth-Plymouth. On the 20th August 1934 it was the only route to have a full service in both directions. Mail to Teignmouth went to Plymouth and back to Teignmouth by rail. All other routes were flown on the first day. From the 21st Teignmouth was cut out of the route and mail went to Plymouth as on the first day. All mail sent on the 21st was second flight, where there was again a full service. Liverpool was the starting point for the route run by GWR and essentially the same as their service of the previous year, with an extension to Liverpool. A summary of the flights from Liverpool is as follows. Flown 20th - Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth (Field states Teignmouth, which is incorrect) Flown 21st - Southampton, Cowes (Field and Redgrove disagree, Field thinks they were part flown to Bristol and forwarded by train and boat on the 20th) Part flown - Teignmouth (Field disagrees), London. Surface only - Glasgow, Belfast, Isle of Man, Manchester.

Timetable Changes

27th May 1935 - Route re-opened with Nottingham replacing Liverpool as the Northern Terminal. Denbury was added for Teignmouth, Newton Abbot and Torquay. 25th May 1936 - Route re-opened. The Nottingham destination was abandoned, and the route became Plymouth - Haldon (3- hour request) - Cardiff - Weston-Super-Mare -Bristol

Flown covers

Liverpool to Cardiff Flown 20th August

Liverpool to Plymouth Flown 20th August

1st November 1934

On the November 1st 1934 an entirely new timetable came into operation. For the first time Liverpool was put into regular aerial communication with Scotland and Ireland and for the first time, mail was flown from Liverpool direct to London (Croydon). The planes ceased to call at Birmingham and Manchester. The plane coming from Glasgow arrived at Liverpool at 11.10 am and departed at 11.30 am. The plane coming from Croydon arrived at Liverpool at 11.45 am and left Liverpool for Belfast and Glasgow at 12.05 pm. Most of the stages had been flown before, the new stages from Liverpool being Belfast, Glasgow and London.

On the 23rd August Railway letters were introduced once more. For a 3d fee mail could be sent as a railway letter. There a purple square cachet for this purpose with a circular RAS cachet inside and 3d paid. These two envelopes are sent to the dealer John S Davis and are all railway letters and are sent to the two new direct destinations from Liverpool - Belfast andLondon. They all have Liverpool Lime Street cachets and First Flight cachets. The cover on the left is sent from Birmingham to Liverpool and has the Snow Hill cachet which is rarely seen on RAS covers, being most associated with GWR in 1933. The envelope underneath is a test letter sent from Liverpool to Belfast. It is addressed to the RAS offices at Belfast and is then returned to the RAS offices in London where no doubt it was checked to ensure correct delivery.

New contract 2nd December 1935

From the 2nd December the RAS again had the contract for the London to Glasgow route. These are a couple of examples of covers sent from Liverpool on that date. Both envelopes have receiving cachets. One in green and the other is black. Certainly, the receiving cachet at Victoria Terminus is much tidier and more attractive.

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