http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk JANUARY 2016 41KING GEORGE V MEMORIAL STAMP
for charity, a fact the GPO would
shortly have cause to consider.Stamps favoured by King
Most probably none of this press
comment would have affected the
GPO in the slightest, however, from
the incomplete records available,
it appears that during the next few
days confidential intimations were
received that the King George V
Jubilee Trust was to be converted
to a Memorial Fund, and that the
new King, Edward VIII, favoured
a special issue of 1½d stamps to
be sold at 2d, the surplus proceeds
going to the Fund. The Trust had
been set up the previous year to
mark the 25th anniversary of King
George’s accession; its object was to
provide recreational facilities for the
young and by 30 October, 1935, it
had raised £29,737 for this purpose
from the public service and armed
forces alone, £4,655 of it from
employees of the Post Office. As
Prince of Wales, Edward VIII had
played a large part in the inception
of the Trust, hence his interest in
the idea of a stamp which would
further both its avowed aims and his
father’s memory.
It is not recorded at what point
the new King’s desires were made
known, but a Stores Department
memorandum of 20 April records
that the DG was sufficiently
galvanised to telephone them around
midday on Saturday 25 January
with the request that the printers
Harrison & Sons Ltd be asked
to furnish designs at the earliest
possible moment.Production of essays
Harrisons’ staff produced a first
selection of essays on Monday
27th and fresh designs were made
available on 29 January and 5
February. Harrisons worked almost
continually from 25 January to 3
February, and intermittently between
4 and 20 March on ‘later alterations
and experiments for speedy
production’; most of the artwork was
done by Messrs Palmer and Baxter,
the former was probably HL Palmer,
who was responsible for the 1940
Stamp Centenary issue and the 2½d
of the 1946 Victory set.29 January, 1936. Blocks of four of the1½d value, produced by Harrison & Sons Ltd, with the ‘Vandyk’ head in slate and red-brown5 February, 1936. Four annotated blacks of four essays of the 1½d value with the ‘Vandyk’ head, and with ‘d’ added after the ‘1½’p40 KGV.indd 41 23/11/2015 14:32