The first issue of 1975 was an experiment for the post office, which unfortunately was not a great success. Responding to pressure the Post Office decided to issue Britain’s first charity stamp, something that had been common in other countries. The concept was that the price of a 4 1/2p stamp would be raised to 6p and the extra 1 1/2p would be donated to the supported charity.

An organisation called the Charity Stamp Fund was set up and the trustees were selected by the National Council of Social Services and Charities working in the health and the handicapped, and a range of disabled charities were earmarked to benefit from the proceeds of the premium charged on the stamp.

The stamp was printed in Azure and Blue with all over phosphor designed by Phillip Sharland, and featured a depiction of an invalid in a wheelchair. The inscription on the stamp read “4 1/2p + 1 1/2p for health and handicapped charities.” Not surprisingly, the over complicated inscription and the badly managed publicity campaign meant that the stamp had mixed reactions!

The problem with the publicity was the fact that it was advertised badly. The Charities themselves advertised it with relative success within their members, although they did not advertise widely enough to the general public. The Post office did their usual form of advertising, which led to a lot of confusion with people believing that postal rates had been raised.

According to figures from the Post Office, it is stated that over 30 million stamps were printed, although records show just over 5 million were sold. The premium on these sales raised £84,000 for the charity, but the experiment had been costly for the post office and they deducted their costs of £31,000 from the total. It drew some bad publicity from charities involved who blamed the post office for poor management of the project, and eventually the Post Office made a further contribution of £4,000. The net balance of £57,000 was paid to the Charity Stamp Fund, who distributed the money to charities. They had expected the proceeds to be in excess of £200,000 so many charities were left out. The whole event was not good publicity for the Post Office!

The next issue arrived on the 19th February. It continued the British Paintings theme and celebrated the bicentenary of the birth of J.M.W Turner. The paintings chosen were from the collections in the British Museum and the Tate Gallery.

The 4 1/2p showed “Peace – Burial at Sea”, 5 1/2p “Snowstorm – Steamer off a Harbour’s Mouth”, 8p “The Arsenal – Venice” and the 10p “St. Laurent.”

The stamps were designed by Stuart Rose and were available in all the usual forms. Sales are believed to be in the region of 70 million.

The next issue was on the 23rd April and was issued to commemorate the European Architectural Heritage Year. This stamp issue marks the culmination of a three year campaign promoted by the Council of Europe, designed to awaken interest in our common architectural heritage.

There were two 7p values, printed se-tenant throughout the sheet. The first depicted Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, designed by Robert Adams in 1791, and the second depicts The Row’s, Chester, a medieval double storied shopping street. The 8p depicts the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Based at Flamsteed House and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it was designed as habitation for the first Astronomer Royal rather than just an observatory. The 10p Depicts St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, a perfect example of medieval church architecture. The 12p shows the only modern building chosen for the set, The National Theatre based on the South Bank. Designed by Denys Lasdun, it contains three separate auditoriums, the largest being the Lyttleton Theatre which opened on March 16th 1976.

The next issue arrived on the 11th June and was issued on the occasion of the Bicentenary of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Centenary of the Royal Yachting Association and other club anniversaries. The stamps were designed to span the spectrum of sailing from dinghies and racing keel boats to cruising yachts and modern multihulls.

The 7p depicted Sailing Dinghies, 8p Racing Keel Boats, 10p Cruising Yachts and the 12p Multihulls. All stamps were designed by Andrew Restall.

This was also the first stamp issue for which Harrisons combined photogravure with recess printing, achieving this with their new Jumelle machine. This was not a success though, as unfortunately at this time a dispute was raging in the printing trade, and in consequence difficulties arose over manning the machinery, due to the difference between “recess staff” and “photogravure staff.” A substantial part of the printing was lost, especially of the 12p, which was completely sold out within days, but the quality of the printing also suffered. This applied particularly to the recess printing in black of the outlines, waves and rigging where loss of ink frequently occurred, and a side effect of this was that some black lines could be removed from stamps with the use of a rubber. This means that minor varieties of the recess printed black colour are not constant. Nearly 28 million stamps were issued but due to the problems, less than 2.5 million were of the 12p value.

Public Railways was the subject of the next issue, released on 13th August, designed by Brian Craker. It celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the inauguration of the first public steam railway, the Stockton to Darlington line, on which Stephenson’s “Locomotion” was first used. This could haul a 90 ton train up to a speed of 15 mph, and was the subject of the 7p stamp. The 8p depicted the Abbotsford Engine, designed by Dugald Drummond, which became one of the North British Railways Waverly Class and could attain a speed of 80 mph. The 10p shows the Caerphilly Castle, one of the Great Western Railway’s Castle Class and was designed by C.B Collett to pull the heavier trains. The 12p shows British Rails High Speed Train, which went into service in 1975 and is designed to reach speeds of 125 mph.

The stamps were available in all the usual forms as well as in a souvenir pack which included a fully illustrated history of the railways with a set of stamps contained in a plastic wallet on the cover.

A single stamp took the place of the next issue, released on 3rd September, to commemorate the 62nd Inter Parliamentary Union Conference. It was a 12p stamp depicting the palace of Westminster designed by Richard Downer.

The Inter parliamentary Union was founded in 1889 by an Englishman William Cremer and a Frenchman Frederick Passey, who both shared an enthusiasm for the ideal of peace through international arbitration. The last time the annual conference was held in London was in 1957 when a commemorative stamp was issued, a variation on an existing Wilding stamp. Roughly 5.5 million stamps were sold.

The next set was issued on 22nd October, and was in honour of the Bicentenary of the Birth of Jane Austin.

The 8 1/2p depicts “Emma and Mr Woodhouse” from Emma, 10p “Catherine Moorland” from Northanger Abbey, 11p “Mr Darcy” from Pride and Prejudice and the 13p “Mary and Henry Crawford” from Mansfield Park.

Interestingly, Jane Austin was the second woman ever to be commemorated on a stamp, excluding royalty, the first being Florence Nightingale back in 1970.

The final issue of the year was the Christmas stamps, released on 26th November. This was the second Christmas issue depicting angels and musical instruments, designed by Richard Downer. The first appeared in 1972 designed by Sally Stiff.

The 6 1/2p depicts and Angel with Harp and Lute, 8 1/2p Angel with Mandolin, 11p Angel with Horn and the 13p Angel with Trumpet.

This issue was unique in respect of the phosphor on the 8 1/2p value where it is mixed with the light turquoise green ink used for the background colour. It reacts bright green under an ultra violet lamp. This was an experiment by the Post Office which had mixed results with the sorting staff.

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