QEII Registered Envelopes of the Tudor Rose Design
Introduction
BackgroundThe Tudor Rose embossed design featuring the head of Queen Elizabeth II for the postal stationery of Great Britain was used for Registered Envelopes, Post Office Envelopes and Stamped to Order Envelopes, Paper & Postcards. The artist was Cecil Walter Thomas CBE FRBS (1885-1976), who had a long and successful career as a sculptor. His other commissions included designs for British Elizabethan coins and the Crawford Medal for the Royal Philatelic Society London.
Scope
The story of the design and use of all Tudor Rose stationery is too large to be covered in depth in five frames, so this exhibit has been restricted to just Registered Envelopes - and then mostly restricted to essays, proofs, specimens and unused examples. A small number of important used envelopes are included where relevant. The first envelopes were issued in November 1954, being superseded from 1970 with the introduction of the Machin design.
This exhibit benefits from including material from Cecil Thomas' personal archive, which has been preserved in its entirety after being acquired from the Thomas family. All of this material is unique as similar items are not held in the Postal Museum, or in the Royal Philatelic Collection.
All envelopes printed for the Post Office were made by McCorquodale & Co Ltd who were based in Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, England. Specimen envelopes have come on to the market from the printers' archive; such material is unique in private hands.
Treatment
The exhibit is divided into three sections:
1. An initial study of the embossed design used for all values [Page 1].
2. The Postage and Registration dies [Page 4]. There were seven issued values, plus two for which essays were produced but not used. These are covered in chronological order, which is also in increasing denomination order.
3. The Registration only dies [Page 54]. These were intended for use on overseas and/or forces mail which generally needed additional postage.
Items of specific importance have been highlighted with a red caption.
References
Huggins A.K., British Postal Stationery, GBPS, 1971
Samuel M. & Huggins A.K., Specimen Stamps and Stationery of Great Britain, GBPS, 1980
Huggins A.K. & Baker C., Collect British Postal Stationery, GBPS & PSS, 2007
Gledhill J.M., British and Islands Postal Stationery Provisionals, GBOS, 2017
Post Office Archives
Note: winner of a Gold Medal at Spring Stampex 2019