http://www.stampandcoin.co.uk FEBRUARY 2016 67ST HELENAmore than 1,000 ships a year arrived
and departed.
Garrisons of troops stationed on
St Helena to meet potential threats
from France led to much letter
writing; but high postage costs
proved a hardship until a prepaid
concessionary rate of 1d per letter
was granted in 1795 on mail sent
and received by service personnel.
Following Napoleon’s escape from
Elba and his defeat at Waterloo in
1815, he was promised exile in theUnited States. Instead the British
kidnapped him to St Helena. A post
office administered from the Cape
of Good Hope opened to handle
military mail generated by troops
guarding the defeated Emperor. The
highest value in the 1953 set (10s
black and yellow-orange) illustrates
what is probably the best-knownbuilding on St Helena: Longwood
House, where Napoleon lived and
died in exiled luxury. Queen Victoria
gave the building to France in 1840
shortly after Napoleon’s body was
returned home.Crown Colony
St Helena became a Crown Colony
in 1834, with Ascension and Tristan
da Cunha added later to form
the British Overseas Territory of
St Helena, Ascension and Tristan
da Cunha. The three islands have
a shared postal history in that
Ascension’s first stamps were St
Helena issues overprinted in 1922.
A similar introduction to postage
stamp issuing occurred in 1952
when Tristan de Cunha also used St
Helena overprints.
St Helena’s first stamp, the
imperforate 6d, was introduced from
1856, and joined seven years later by
1d and 4d imperforates introduced
to cover the 1d newspaper and
soldiers’ letter rates, and the 4d
ship letter rate. Meanwhile the first
perforate 6d value had appeared in- Private ship letters may have
been carried earlier; but the first
regular mail packet service dates
from 1854, when a rate of 6d per
half ounce was charged for letters
to Britain. The packet rates from
Great Britain to St Helena matched
the rates in the opposite direction:
6d per ½oz 1854-63; 1s 1863-76;
6d 1876-77; 1s 1877-83. There was
Right: 1890 envelope to
San Francisco endorsed
Per Mail Stmr. Via England
with 1887 3d pair and
marginal 1890 1½d
paying 7½d foreign rate,
tied by cork cancellation,
‘ST HELENA/NO 8/90’
datestamps and marked
1½d (British share),
backstamped London Dec.
3 transit CDS. The cover
fetched £550 in 20121894 Soldier’s 1d concessionary rate envelope to Oamaru, New Zealand, endorsed From/No.57098 Gr (Gunner) W Fitzgerald RA St Helena
and countersigned by commanding officer with his cachet ‘CAPTAIN R.A./COMMANDING ST HELENA DET R.A.,/ST. HELENA’, with 1890 1d
tied by cork cancellation and ‘ST HELENA/FE 19/94’ despatch datestamp, backstamped 17 April arrival. Sold for £1,100 in 2012Burned out by the Great Fire of London in 1666 many survivors made fresh
starts by sailing to St Helena, as shown on this 1d stamp from 1967p66-68 Empire.indd 67 21/12/2015 10:11