PORTRAITS ON STAMPS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 8

PORTRAITS ON STAMPS

MEN WHO HAVE SEEN THEM. There are very few people who can boast that their portraits have appeared on postage stamps, and even an enthusiastic stamp collector might be stumped if he were asked who among the Englishmen of the present day, an<: outside the Royal Family, had achieved this honour. Actually, there are thre<—Rapah Sir Charles Brooke, whose portrait appears on the new issue of Sarawak postage stamps, out recently; Lord Baden-Powell, and the late Mr. James | David Bourchier (say the News-Chron- j icle). The Baden-Powell stamps were pre- ■ pared—without his knowledge—for in- i ternal postage in Mafeking during the ; siege in the South African War in 1899 ' 1900. Bourchier was at one time a : master at Eton, but found the post [ uncongenial. He entered journalism j and represented one of the Great i British daily newspapers in South-East- 1 ern Europe. He was able to rendci ' many important services to the Balkan 1 nations, and was soon one of the best- j known and most popular figures in Bui- I garia. As time went on he was almost idolised by the people among whom be lived. The stamps- bearing his portrait were their tribute to the man they considered “the best friend Bulgaria ever had. ” There have been similar tributes to Englishmen of a rather earlier period. Some years ago Greece issued stamps showing the head of Lord Byron, who died while helping the Greeks in their War of Independence against Turkey, i Another Greek issue commemorated Sir Edward Codrington, who defeated the Turks in the sea fight at Navarino in 1827. One of the strangest of all stories of portrait stamps, however, is that ol those which Mr. Charles Connell, post . master of New Brunswick, had printed in 18(50. He had his own portrait, on them.'. The stamps were never actually issued, but to-day these bits of paper, originally intended for sale at five cents, fetch about £5O each.