Richard Thompson Reep

Richard Thompson Reep
File:Reep, Richard Thompson.jpg
Born	1807
Died	1894
Society Membership membership ESL Ordinary Fellow left 1855.01.03 resigned elected_ESL 1848.02.03

Notes

Office Notes

ESL Council 1852-53 member
ESL Council 1853-54 member
ESL Council 1854-55 member [retiring]

Notes From Elsewhere

Secretary of Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
London, 12 August 1859. Entire letter, 2 pp small quarto, on the engraved letterhead of the ‘Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, No 55, Moorgate Street, London’, from Richard Thompson Reep, Secretary of the RMSCPC, to R.W. Cameron, owner of the R.M. Cameron & Co. Shipping Line, New York; Reep’s message is a reply to Cameron’s enquiries about the new Panama Route to Australia, in particular the ‘contemplated contract for the conveyance of mails to Australia’ which is under current discussion in the House of Commons; address panel to outer side; original fold lines (with a couple of inconsequential tears); the letter is complete and legible.

Although the Panama Canal would not be opened until 1914, the carriage of mail, passengers and freight between the Atlantic and the Pacific had already been revolutionised in 1855 with the completion of the Panama Railroad. Referred to at the time as an ‘inter-oceanic railroad’, it traversed the narrow isthmus connecting the North and South American continents. The new Panama Route to Australia dramatically reduced the time it took for mails to reach Australia from England.
S