This example of a WLS-P09 Type I “Soldiers of the Queen” design has been postally used April 17, 1902 with a duplex cancel from Vancouver to E. Hutchinson Esq, Box 595, Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands paying the UPU postcard rate with a pair of 1¢ QV Numeral no. 76.
While not a Boer War usage, this J.C. Wilson patriotic postcard is an interesting example of the feelings within Canada late in the Boer War.
A scarce destination, with an interesting note on the reverse, along with the May 7, 1902 Honolulu receiver cancellation. The note states:
Vancouver B.C.
17 Apr/02
Canada is getting ready another contingent for South Africa. If there’s any patriotic Britishers in Honolulu they had better come here and join.
W.J.W.
In Kenneth Rowe’s The Postal History of the Canadian Contingents Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902, he notes that recruiting began on April 15, 1902, two days before this postcard was sent, for four regiments of 509 men each. These regiments were to be known as:
3rd Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles
4th Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles
5th Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles
6th Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles
The newly formed regiments departed from Halifax to South Africa on May 8th, May 17th and May 23rd, 1902.