Stamp_&_Coin_Mart_2016_01_

40 JANUARY 2016

http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk

Eighty years ago this month, the nation was in mourning following the news of King

George V’s death. A keen philatelist during his lifetime, the King had influenced the

issue and design of many British stamps, and as the official GPO records reveal, his

son and heir wished for one final stamp to honour the ‘collector king’

GB Stamps

A letter had appeared that

morning in the Times, proposing a

special issue of the 1½d definitive

with the addition of a black border;

the writer referred to the growing

foreign practice of issuing memorial

or mourning stamps and suggested

that such an issue would be all the

more striking as a tribute to the late

King precisely because there was

no precedent for it in the stamps of

Britain or the Empire.

Correspondence continued in

the paper for the next three weeks,

largely in favour of a memorial issue;

suggestions included a printing of

the 1½d in black instead of the

normal red-brown, and special

stamps variously based on the

colonial Jubilee design of 1935 and

the 1840 Penny Black. Reference was

made to the German stamp issued on

the death of President Hindenburg

in August 1934; another very recent

example not mentioned, but of

which the GPO cannot have been

unaware, was the much admired

issue of mourning stamps for Queen

Astrid of Belgium in December

1935, which would eventually be a

model for the Royal Silver Wedding

issue of April 1948. The Belgian

stamps had included a surcharge

Mourning the Collector King

Major GC Tryon MP, the Postmaster

General: ‘The question of the issue of

mourning stamps has been raised in the

newspapers, but there is no precedent

for this being done, and it might give

rise to many practical difficulties.’

K

ing George V died

on 20 January, 1936,

at the beginning of

a tumultuous period

for the royal family,

widely known as the year of the

three kings. Edward VIII’s eventual

abdication led to the accession of his

brother Albert, regally titled George

VI, in December of that same year

and by May 1937 both Edward and

George VI had appeared as monarch

on British stamps.

The British public and the post

office officials, of course, had no

idea of what lay ahead and as the

news of George V’s death spread,

the GPO were debating whether to

continue releasing new photogravure

definitives bearing the late King’s head.

Meanwhile, stories in the press centred

on the idea of a mourning stamp.

On the 22nd the Director General

(DG), Sir Donald Banks, wrote to

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Above: 27 January,

1936. Blocks of 1½d
      values, in purple and
      black, being trial
      mourning colours, by
      Harrison & Sons Ltd

29 January, 1936. Blocks of 1½d value in a chalky grey-lilac and in black, printed on uncoated paper in two different depths of etch

p40 KGV.indd 40 23/11/2015 14:32