The letter, written in February 1916, reached the addressee with a delay of more than 100 years.

An envelope bearing the postmark of Bath and the seal of the United Kingdom George V arrived at Finlay Glen’s apartment in Rowan Hamlet, Crystal Palace in 2021.

“Obviously we were both surprised and baffled as to how this could have happened more than 100 years later,” he explained.

Indeed, Royal Mail had no explanation, stating that it “does not know what happened in this case.”

The letter was sent two years before food rationing was introduced during World War I, and King George V had already been on the British throne for five years.

While it is a legal offense to open someone else’s mail, in this case the director who received the letter felt it was “fair” to open it when he realized it was from 1916, not 2016.

“If I committed a crime, I can only apologize,” the 27-year-old said.

“My dear Katie…”

The letter was addressed to “my dear Cathy,” the wife of local stamp dealer Oswald Marsh, according to Stephen Oxford, editor-in-chief of the Norwood Review, a quarterly local history magazine.

Marsh was a well-known stamp dealer and was often called as an expert witness in stamp fraud cases.

The letter was sent by Marsh family friend Christabel Mennell, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant, while on holiday in Bath.

In the letter, Mennell stated that she felt “ashamed after what I said” and that she felt “lousy here with a bad cold”.

“It’s unusual and actually fascinating in the way that it gives us a sense of the local history and the people who lived in Norwood, which was a very popular place for the upper middle class in the late 1800s,” notes Oxford.

“This is an amazing part of their family history that came out of nowhere. If they want, they can come here,” said Finley Glenn, when asked what he would do if relatives of the sender or recipient showed up.

However, as a spokesman for the British Post said, “Incidents like this happen from time to time and we are not sure what happened in this case. We have no further information about what could have happened.”

Source: BBC