Who's Who in Philately: Queen Victoria

Crowned queen before she was eighteen, it was early in her career as ruler of Britain that the agitation for adhesive postage stamps commenced. Roland Hill's scheme for postage stamps was opposed by many but the queen sided with him and approved his plan. The agitators, to further upset his plans, objected to the placing of the Queen's picture on the stamps as it would be, they argued, the greatest disrespect to Her Majesty to daily obliterate her picture by canteen, it was early in her career as Queen and she decided that her picture should appear Thus in 1840 appeared the now famous "penny black" bearing the image of the Queen and her picture was used thereafter on nearly all the postage stamps of the extensive British Empire for more than half a century. Sixty-three stamp issuing countries at on time or another used her picture on their postage stamps and no other person's face has appeared on so many stamps as that of Queen Victoria. Some of the stamps that bear her picture can be purchased for a penny while others cost thousands of dollars. The rare penny stamp of Mauritius of 1847 bears her likeness as does the Canada 12d of 1851 which, though not as rare as its rival of Mauritius, is a rare stamp.

On the stamps of Great Britain the Queen always remained young as she appeared in 1840, when the penny black was issued, but Canada changed their stamps and the latter issues of Canada, notably the beautiful maple leaf issue, shows her a venerable old lady as she appeared in her declining years.

On January 22, 1901, at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, this grand old lady passed away and the whole world mourned her departure. She was well entitled to the title of England's greatest queen and also perhaps the world's greatest woman.

Mrs. Nagalakshmi Tadakaluri, Philatelist.

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