A superb, highly unusual 1934 British Courier’s Passport issued at Budapest 

to Colonel F. N. Mason-MacFarlane, then British Military Attaché, for travel to Switzerland and return.

This is not an ordinary civilian passport, but a striking official diplomatic / military courier document bearing the red British Royal Arms, bilingual English and French text, official Budapest stamp and manuscript authorisation.

Courier passports had to be surrendered on return with the despatches and this explains the reason for their scarcity. The passport is signed by Patrick Ramsay, British Minister and Consul-General at Budapest.

Mason-MacFarlane was no minor figure: he later became Lieutenant-General Sir Frank Noel Mason-MacFarlane, Governor of Gibraltar during the Second World War and one of the more colourful British intelligence-linked military officers of the pre-war period. When serving as Military Attaché to Nazi Germany he advocated that Britain should assassinate Hitler. His service included other Military Attaché posts in Central Europe including Moscow, and he became Head of Military Intelligence with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939-40.

A scarce item that should appeal to several collecting markets: British Empire ephemera, diplomatic documents, WWII militaria, passport collecting, royal arms stationery, military intelligence history, Gibraltar history and named-officer archive material.

Provenance: The document is part of an historical family-retained archive with strong military associations, linking several notable British Army families of the late nineteenth and early-mid twentieth centuries.

The archive was discovered by the vendor, preserved among a collection of papers found in a Second World War officer’s footlocker associated with Lieutenant-General Sir (Frank) Noel Mason-MacFarlane (1889–1953). The papers appear to have descended through the Mason-MacFarlane family to Noel’s son Ian Will Mason-MacFarlane and Ian’s wife Muriel Paterson Hall, known as Mona, who was born in Galashiels, Scotland, in 1923 and died in 2016.

The collection includes a handwritten note dated 14 July 1969, written by Mona Hall on headed paper from The Hawthorns, Galashiels, Selkirkshire. In it, she thanks the Director General of the Imperial War Museum for acknowledging receipt of the private papers, photographic material, and film records of the late Lieutenant-General Sir Frank Noel Mason-MacFarlane.

Condition: original folded paper with a little toning, fold lines and light handling wear. Please study the images carefully as they form part of the description. The selling price includes full insurance cover for loss or damage.