Stamp_&_Coin_Mart_2016_01_

42 JANUARY 2016

http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk

GB Stamps

Problems of ‘charity’ stamps

While the design of the stamps was

in hand, the legal and financial

implications of a charity issue

was further explored. There was

undoubtedly some precedent for it,

as in 1890 the celebrations of the

Penny Post Jubilee had been marked

by the GPO with two limited

issues of commemorative stamped

stationery to raise money for the

Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund.

There had been no official objection

and the Inland Revenue had been a

party to the proceedings throughout,

yet when a 1924 proposal for the sale

of British Empire Exhibition stamps

to benefit the Edward VII Hospital

Fund for London was made, a

Treasury spokesperson claimed the

idea was ‘wholly unsound and likely

to lead to considerable abuse.’

When the problem was studied

afresh in 1936, however, different

circumstances prevailed; there was a

general desire to honour the memory

of a recently deceased and greatly

respected King, the charity element

proposed for the memorial stamp was

much more modest (only a third of

the postage) and above all parliament

was no longer seen as hostile. On 31

January, the postal administrations

of Belgium, Switzerland, Germany,

Denmark and Norway were asked for

details of their experience of using

charity stamps.

Memorial proposal rejected

This then was the situation on the

eve of the meeting with the Jubilee

Trust on 5 February, by which time

most of the memorial stamp essays

prepared by Harrisons’ would have

been ready for inspection. Prospects

appeared favourable for a memorial

stamp issue as outlined by the new

King, and the ensuing course of

events by which this failed to come

about is not easily reconstructed

from the GPO files.

What seems to have happened is

that at some point subsequent to

the 5 February meeting, the King

received essays from the Postmaster

General (PMG) and found none

of the designs acceptable. The next

recorded meeting of the Trust was

to be on 12 March, and it was

possibly in connection with this that

Harrisons’ staff were called upon to

March 1936. Five trial

designs of the 1½d value

based on the ‘Vandyk’

head, with various border

designs, produced by

Harrison & Sons Ltd.

28 January, 1936. Postcard bearing the ½d and 1d stamps with unoffi cial hand-painted black borders by artist J Walker. This card

passed through the postal system, despite being defaced and technically invalid. The cancellation bears the date 28 January, 1936,

the day of the monarch’s funeral

Sepia scene from a 1936 postcard depicting the laying-in-state of ‘His beloved Majesty King George V’

p40 KGV.indd 42 23/11/2015 14:32