Philately is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or reside only in museums.
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth century with the rapid growth of the postal service, as a stream of new stamps was produced by countries that sought to advertise their distinctiveness through their stamps.
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day.
The Penny Post is any one of several postal systems in which normal letters could be sent for one penny. Five such schemes existed in the United Kingdom while the United States initiated at least three such simple fixed rate postal arrangements.
The Mauritius "Post Office" stamps were issued by the British Colony Mauritius in September 1847, in two denominations: an orange-red one penny (1d) and a deep blue two pence (2d). Their name comes from the wording on the stamps reading "Post Office", which was soon changed in the next issue to "Post Paid". They are among the rarest postage stamps in the world.
The Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL) is the oldest philatelic society in the world. It was founded on 10 April 1869 as The Philatelic Society, London. The society runs a postal museum, the Spear Museum of Philatelic History, at its headquarters in the City of London.
The Postal Museum is a postal museum run by the Postal Heritage Trust. It began in 2004 as The British Postal Museum & Archive and opened in Central London as The Postal Museum on 28 July 2017.
Sir Edward Denny Bacon was a British philatelist who helped with the enlargement and mounting of collections possessed by rich collectors of his time and became the curator of the Royal Philatelic Collection between 1913 and 1938.
A postal museum is a museum dedicated to the display of objects relating to the postal service. A subcategory of postal museums are philatelic museums, which focus on philately and postage stamps.
The Roll of Distinguished Philatelists(RDP) is a philatelic award of international scale, created by the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain in 1921. The Roll consists of five pieces of parchment to which the signatories add their names.
Woodrow Wilson Hulme II was a philatelist noted for his work in advancing the appreciation of stamp collecting, especially by his work at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C.
Herbert L'Estrange Ewen (1876–1912) was a British stamp dealer and philatelist in Swanage, Dorset and later in Norwood, London who was an authority on railway stamps. According to Brian Birch, Ewen collected stamps at the age of ten and started his own firm, the H. L’Estrange Ewen company, on his thirteenth birthday.
David Richard Beech MBE was the curator of the British Library Philatelic Collections from 1983–2013. He is a fellow and past president of the Royal Philatelic Society London (RPSL). In 2013, it was announced that Beech was to receive the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award for outstanding lifetime accomplishments in the field of philately.
Mirosław Artur Bojanowicz was a Polish philatelist who settled in England after World War II and became a recognized expert on the stamps of Poland. He frequently served as a judge at international exhibitions and in 1966 was invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists; Bojanowicz was one of very few professional philatelists to be accorded this honour.
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 Tapling Collection of postage stamps was donated to the British Museum from the estate of Thomas Tapling in 1891.
The Universal Postal Union Collection is a deposit by the General Post Office (GPO) in the United Kingdom, under section 4 of the Public Records Act, of its duplicate Universal Postal Union collection of 93,448 stamps, covering the period from 1908.
The Crawford Library is a library of early books about philately formed between 1898 and 1913 by James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford. By the time of his death in 1913, Crawford was thought to have amassed the greatest philatelic library of his time. Today, the library is part of the British Library Philatelic Collections.
Janusz Marja Stefan Rogala Kaluski (1924–2010) was a sapper in the Polish Army who took part in the D-Day landings of World War II and who later won the Cross of Valour. In later life, Kaluski devoted himself to the philately of Poland, eventually becoming a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society London and donating his stamp collection of fifty years to the British Library Philatelic Collections in 2003.