When King Edward VII came to the throne on 22nd January 1901, the contract between De La Rue and the Inland Revenue for printing stamps had nearly ten years still to run. Discussions about designs started almost immediately and De La Rue produced a series of paste-ups, incorporating the new King’s head into the existing Queen Victoria designs. In the event only the ¹/₂d, 1d, 2 ¹/₂d, and 6d values emerged with completely new designs, the remainder closely resembling their 1887 predecessors. From about 1908 it was decided to replace certain bio-coloured values with mono-coloured stamps and this process was still going on when the king died on 6th May 1910.

At about that time De La Rue were given formal notice of termination of the 1899 contract and were informed that they had failed to win the tender for further supplies. The new contractors, Harrison & Sons, took over from De La Rue on 11th January 1911. The new King George V stamps were not then ready and in April 1911 it became apparent that the stock of King Edward stamps would be insufficient to tide them over. Arrangements were made for printings to be taken from the King Edward plates but Harrisons did not have the necessary machines for printing Bio-coloured stamps and could only print the mono-coloured ones so the remainder were printed at Somerset House. These are known as the King Edward VII provisional printings. They did not entirely cease until June 1913.

At the time of the King’s accession the contract of the supply of all paper for British postage stamps, dated 1897, was with R.D Turner & Co. of Roughway Mill, Tonbridge and still had four years left to run. In 1904 it was renewed for a further period of seven years to October 1911. Although Turners did not get the subsequent paper contract for King George V stamps they continued to supply the Inland Revenue with Imperial Crown watermarked paper up to the end of the provisional values.

Printing was controlled by the Inland Revenue at every stage, even when done at Somerset House. The first step was for the Accounts Branch to issue the printers with a “Warrant” in money terms in units of mill sheets. Thus a warrant for £200,000 in sheets of 480 at £4 per sheet of the 2d value meant 100,000 sheets of 240. The printers were supplied with the precise quantity of paper needed and when invoicing for stamps supplied had to account for all paper wasted.

Printing of the 1/2d and 1d was continuous and warrants were issued for them, but for the other values it was usual for warrants to represent about one year’s supply. They were numbered consecutively and dated. The number of printings of each value and their approximate dates are known. It is not, however, possibly to identify every printing by shade or ink.

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