British Library Philatelic Collections

British Library Philatelic Collections
A primary object in the Collections is this unique proof sheet of one-penny revenue stamps for America submitted for approval to the Commissioners of Stamps by the engraver, dated 10 May 1765.
Housed at	British Library
Curators	David Beech, Paul Skinner

The British Library Philatelic Collections is the national philatelic collection of the United Kingdom with over 8 million items from around the world. It was established in 1891 as part of the British Museum Library, later to become the British Library, with the collection of Thomas Tapling. In addition to bequests and continuing donations, the library received consistent deposits by the Crown Agency and has become a primary research collection for British Empire and international history. The collections contain a wide range of artefacts in addition to postage stamps, from newspaper stamps to a press used to print the first British postage stamps.

The first notable philatelic donation was in 1890 by Hubert Haes of two albums of postage stamps collected by himself and Walter Van Noorden. It was donated with the request that the British Museum library (now the British Library) would create a philatelic collection.

The following year the Collections were established with the bequest of the Tapling Collection. The probate value of the Tapling Collection was set at £12,000 but on arrival Richard Garnett (Assistant Keeper of Printed Books) estimated their value at more than £50,000 and described the bequest as the most valuable gift since the Grenville Library in 1847.

In 1900 the Crown Agents for the Colonies sent three albums of postage stamps made on their order for colonial governments and then sent specimens of all future stamps commissioned.

In 1913, the Crawford Library was received which forms the cornerstone of the British Library's philatelic literature collection, containing about 4500 works. The Crawford Library was donated by the Earl of Crawford in his Will and was the foremost collection of philatelic books in the world at the time.

In 1944 Mrs A. Cunningham donated her father's collection (Edward Mosley) of African stamps and in 1949 Mrs. Clement Williams donated her late brother's collection (H. L'Estrange Ewen) of railway letter stamps, valued at £10,000. After being offered in 1942 but delayed due to the Collections being in secure war storage, in 1951 it was announced that Mrs Augustine Fitzgerald had donated an extensive air mail collection. The Mosley and Fitzgerald collections were valued at the time at £30,000.