Straits Settlements
An exceptionally rare colonial passport from 1940.
Colonial passports are historically interesting and collectible as well, a reminder of a past & culture that does not exist anymore and not of a proud one. Yet, they are an important reminder of our history, one that has to be learned and not forgotten.
Though colonial passports were never a core part of my passion & collection, I must say that in time, I have begun to appreciate them more, slowly changing my opinion on them and star to collect the odd sample that would fit my main line of interest: World War Two and the Holocaust, welcoming the odd example that would fall into these 2 historically important areas of our past.
The document in this article is a rare example, a superb British colonial passport dating from 1940, a Straits Settlements document.
In 1826 the British established in the Far East, under the East India Company, a group of territories/colonies that consisted of Penang, Singapore, Malacca, Dinding, Christmas Island, Cocos Island, Labuan off the cost of Borneo (all these were added to form the colony in time – with changes being made in 1886 & 1907). After WW2, in 1946, the colony was dissolved with Singapore becoming an independent entity about 20 years later (the colony was brutally occupied by Japan during World War II).
The passport:
British passport number 19386 was issued on June 27th 1940 to Mr. Richard Hudd, a commercial pilot working for the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), obtaining his license already back in 1937. His passport is extensively used, all pages, to Africa and the Middles East during the war, and extended several times as well afterwards, allowing him to resume his commercial piloting to the Far East as well once hostilities ceased following the end of the war. We can locate entries for the Sudan, Nigeria, Union of South Africa, Egypt, Lebanon & Syria, Iraq and more (special consular ID for Turkey was also attached to the passport here).
BOAC pilots flew for the RAF and the allied cause and were part of the cargo-flying-system on board Flying boats operating from South Africa, Durban. These operations took the planes to Lisbon via West Africa (Lagos) and the Sudan to Egypt & north to Turkey as well. Their flight routes were dubbed at the “Horseshoe route”, which had Cairo at its center: stretchering out from South Africa-Egypt-Iraq-India-Sydney. The route to Australia was cancelled once Japan entered the war and the route was shortened to its end destination of Calcutta by 1942. His passport entries bearing the above mentioned locations confirm this as well.
I will let you decide yourself the importance and rarity of this document by attaching some images of this rarity.
Thank you for reading “Our Passports”.
