I’m not a serious post card collector, but I’m fascinated by the way people in the late nineteenth century used post cards much in the way we use text messages and emails, and occasionally, when I’ve some spare cash I’ll scan the various auction sites for ones that look potentially interesting and one I’ve come across recently is one from 1886 addressed to a Miss Tripp in Malvern – Malvern is now an upmarket inner city suburb of Melbourne and by 1886 would have been connected to the city by train (1879).

The fact it was addressed simply to Miss Tripp, suggests that she was well enough known for the postie to deliver her mail without much in the way of an address – no house or street name, just the name of the suburb.

The simplest thing seemed to be to search for “Miss Tripp Malvern 1886”.

This didn’t produce a lot but what it did produce was quite interesting – there was a Miss F. Tripp of Prahran (Prahran is the next suburb over from Malvern) who in 1868 was acknowledged by Ferdinand von Mueller for contributing seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Victoria) and a Margaret Oliver Tripp who was the principal of Toorak College in the 1890’s.

Previously Margaret is mentioned in a newspaper report from 1876 about a prowler being apprehended at a girl’s boarding school run by her mother, Elizabeth Tripp, in Malvern Road Prahran.

Delving a little deeper though it all falls apart – there appears to have been an extended family of Tripps living in Prahran at the time, so given the lack of an initial we’re reduced to handwaving, but perhaps the message will give us a clue

The message starts ‘Dear Miss T‘, which is slightly annoying, because while it suggests the correspondents know each other quite well, still doesn’t give us a first name or initial.

The message is quite simple – a Miss Chance, clearly known to both of them has returned, and they would like to meet up if at all possible, and if she caught the bus it would drop her in Latrobe St where her correspondent would meet her at the school room at 7 O’clock. (There were no trams in Malvern until 1910, so it would have been a bus or train ride to the city)

Exactly where the schoolroom referred to is is a bit of a mystery, but there was a ragged school – a school for street children – at 145 La Trobe St in Melbourne in the 1880’s.

So does the name of her correspondent give us a clue?

Not really. While the surname, Workman, is relatively uncommon, the first name, which looks a little like Isabelle is not totally legible.

So a blank. The mention of a schoolroom suggests that it might be addressed to one of the Toorak college Tripps, or I could be delusional. However, the card does show how people did use postcards for quick and simple messages, and also, just how much tacit knowledge there is in a message between two people who know each other …