In the final meeting of 2021, on 16th December, John Scott FRPSL put on a very interesting display and gave an illustrated talk on the subject of the Evolution of Decorative Writing Paper.

The talk was streamed live onto YouTube, and the video recording of the presentation is available from this website page (Meeting Videos above) for RPSL Members Only.

From ancient times the Citizens and Freemen of the City of London have constituted a body corporate known as the “Mayor and Commonality and Citizens of the City of London”. At its head is the Lord Mayor. The Court of Aldermen exercised jurisdiction over a variety of judicial and quasi-judicial matters and sat in what were called the “Justice Rooms”, situated in the Guildhall and Mansion House.

The jurisdiction and procedures of this court were codified under the “Mayor’s Court of London Procedure Act” of 1857. The fees payable to the Mayor’s Court belonged to the Corporation of the City of London. For a period starting in 1869, the fees were collected using adhesive stamps. These stamps were printed by Perkins, Bacon & Co., who were the printers of the 1d black and other adhesive stamps used in the United Kingdom and several colonies.

The presentation examines the stamps used by the Mayor’s Court, which were labelled “Justice Room” from 1869, “Mayor’s Court” from 1882, and “Guildhall Consultation Fee” from 1892. Included in the presentation are examples of proofs, colour trials, the many different overprints and perforations used over their long period of use, and their use on documents. The Justice Room stamps remained in use until at least the 1930s.

This event was held live via Zoom. The recorded event may be viewed here.

Grace started her collection on Peace from zero and by chance in 1985. Over the years the collection has grown, changed and matured but creating it has always been a rather random and very personal process. This is largely because apart from moral support from fellow collectors there have been few sources of help on what material to look for and how to find it. This improved with membership of the RPSL.

What she discovered over the years is that Peace is a broad subject and there is a wide variety of philatelic material to illustrate it. Her display cannot include all aspects, but it aims to give as wide an overview as possible, including post-war material, Peace as a name, Peace associated with other ideas and Alfred Nobel and the Peace Laureates. Grace deliberately uses as wide a variety of material as possible to interest all viewers who might not be too keen on thematics.

The display included four small exhibits (total five frames) but the main collection is ‘freestyle’, still handwritten on Senator Standard paper and follows no rules. Grace had originally prepared the display and presentation for the Society in May 2021, but this had to be delayed owing to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The video recording of the presentation that followed the display, which was also shown live via Zoom video conferencing to an international audience of 44 people across 9 countries, is available to view here.

This display by Michael Elliott FRPSL originally covered the wars between Finland and Russia that took place between 1939 and 1945, but it has been extended to start in 1900, in order to give the historical background to those later conflicts.

In 1900 Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Czar of Russia, and in the period known as Russification, Russia attempted to bring Finland more closely into Russia's fold. This led to considerable resistance, and resulted in the War for Independence, with Finland achieving its independence on 6th December 1917. There is some fascinating postal history from this period. Between January and May 1918, there was a Civil War in Finland between the Reds and Whites, with the Whites being the victors, mainly because of the leadership of Gustav Mannerheim, who featured greatly in the conflicts that followed.

The display then traces the forces mail through the period of Finland's three wars between 1939 and 1945, two of which were against Russia, namely the Winter War (29th November 1939 to 13th March 1940), and the Continuation War (25th June 1941 to 2nd September 1944), and the Lapland War with Germany (15th September 1944 to 24th January 1945). Postal history from the Kenttäpostia is fully represented. The Finns were ably supported by volunteers from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and to a lesser extent, Great Britain, and postal history from each of these is featured, including the Swedish forces postal service (Fältpost). One common thread running through the whole of the war period and coming forward from earlier history is the involvement of the Lotta Svärd, a women’s organisation whose existence is to assist the Finnish troops from behind the front line. They provided all sorts of services from catering to cleaning, communications to aircraft spotting, and also nursing. As they served with the troops, they were fully entitled to the use of the Kenttäpostia service and much of this is shown.

The video recording of the presentation that accompanied the display is available from this website page (Meeting Videos above) for RPSL Members Only.

This presentation by Gordon Hardy FRPSL looked at the history of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and the routes that the mail took both within Romania and internationally. It was organised into 4 parts, as follows:

• the development of mail routes to and from Romania, including the reasons routes changed - political, financial, technical, disease and sometimes simply the weather.
• the courier mails and how they developed between important cities such as Constantinople, Bucharest, London, St Petersburg, Rome, and Paris.
• the routes to and from Great Britain.
• routes to and from European countries.

This event was held live via Zoom. Click here to view the video recording of the event. The set of slides for this presentation may be viewed by clicking here.

After finding philately in Wiltshire in the late 1970s, Lesley Marley has subsequently reached the summit of thematic collecting worldwide.

Lesley was a founder member of the West of England Thematic Society, or WETS (which, given her eventual thematic focus, is very fitting) before beginning her voyage into deeper waters.

She was the first British winner of an international Large Gold for Thematics, and was placed first in the Champions' Class at the 2015 European Championship for Thematic Philately. She has captured awards of every shade, and continues to explore uncharted areas in her search for material to bolster her whales and whaling collection.

The display promises to be a marvellous opportunity to view a collection which has been competitively adjudged to be the best of its kind in the world. For those of you who have an interest in a genus of intelligent mammals which, after centuries of unbridled exploitation still faces the threat of extinction, you will not be disappointed.

Prakob Chirakiti RDP FRPSL came to London from Bangkok, Thailand and brought with him part of his Grand Prix-winning collection of the early stamp issues of what was formerly Siam.

The stamps and items of postal history were displayed at the Royal Philatelic Society London on the afternoon of Thursday 21st October 2021, and Prakob gave an illustrated talk on the subject.

The presentation was not only watched by an audience who gathered at the Society's premises and looked at the display, but it was also shared live with an international audience of 75 members using Zoom video conferencing.

The presentation began with the early stamps used to indicate that a subscriber had received their copy of the Siam Court news sheet and later the Government News. The stamps used for educational purposes within the Royal family in Siam were also shown, before Prakob turned his attention to the first true stamp issue of Siam, printed entirely in Siamese.

For reasons of brevity, Prakob completed his talk with the story of Siam's second stamp issue, which was produced once Siam joined the Universal Postal Union, although his display also included the third issue of stamps from Siam.

The video recording of the presentation is available here.

There was only one post office in Gambia until 1904, and this was established in 1858. The first postage stamps, in the iconic Cameo design, were issued in 1869. This presentation will provide an overview of the Colony’s postal services in the latter half of the 19th Century, illustrated with stamps, covers and postal stationery

This event was held live via Zoom, and a video recording is available here.

On 25th August 1830 riots broke out in Brussels, leading shortly thereafter to the London Conference, where the main European powers, Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, recognized the independence of the southern part of the Netherlands from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium.

From then on Belgium had its own postal system. This presentation described the decrees and conventions between Belgium and Spain from 1830 until the entry into the GPU of both countries.

This event was held live via Zoom. The video recording of the event is available from this website page (Meeting Videos above) for RPSL Members Only.

Stampless letters, paid for by the receiver, and private postal systems, were gradually phased out in the United States after the introduction of adhesive postage stamps, first issued by the U.S. government post office on 1st July 1847, in the denominations of 5¢ and 10¢, with the use of stamps made mandatory in 1855.

The first U.S. postage stamps were authorized by an act of Congress and approved on 3rd March 1847. The earliest known use of the Franklin 5¢ is 7th July 1847, and the earliest known use of the Washington 10¢ is 2nd July 1847. Remaining in postal circulation for only a few years, these issues were declared invalid for postage on 1st July 1851.

This presentation focused on how these first two stamps issued by the United States were used, both in the United States and for International mail.

This event was held live via Zoom, and the recording of the event may be viewed here.

In addition, the presentation slide show can be downloaded here.