A Great War Study: The Centenary commemorative postage stamps 2014-2018

By Christopher B. Yardley

69 countries of the world commemorated the centenary of the Great Wat during 2014-2018, All the postage stamp images (!,178) are shown and where appropriate the author has added notes and an analysis of the subject matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher B Yardley
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780648667117

Book preview

Introduction

Why study the Great War on stamps?

"Postage stamps are a very political, territorially grounded and yet overlooked part of visual culture (Raento and Brunn, (2005) p. 9).

There is no doubt that the Great War, (as I prefer to call it) was a critical event of the Twentieth Century. I am even prepared to argue it was the first part of what will become known as the ‘30-year War of the Century’ as historians reassess World War 1 and 2 as an entity. Many books have been written to coincide with the Centenary and one can sense a change in the way history is perceived. For example, I see a move to accepting the Mordike assertion that the Dominions committed to develop fighting forces for a future war with Germany at the 1911 Imperial Conference in Germany. For Australians, Peter Cochrane makes the case for us to believe Australia went to war to support the ‘White Australia’ policy.

For approaching two centuries, the images on postage stamps have been used to convey messages from the government of the day to the general public. As early as 1969 Ekker wrote that stamps, as government documents with important content, should be accepted by scholars as legitimate primary source materials for research purposes (Ekker, 1969. p. 40). Postage stamps provide a means of communication between the issuing authority and members of the general public who buy and use. During the passage of mail, several people may be exposed to the message contained in and by the narrative of the stamp, be it visual or textual or a combination of both. For more than one hundred years the issuing authority has been an actual agency of government. Today, in the twenty-first century, the postal authority will be a state-owned enterprise reporting to a minister of government and is still seen as an official medium for the dissemination of messages from government. Since there is only a short window of exposure, the message must be carefully crafted. Thus, any Great War messages not only represent a government view but will inform about the way in which that history itself is viewed at that time, in that place. Michael Zsolt of Australia Post has told me he envisages a ‘three-second window of engagement’ to grab the attention of someone handling an envelope carrying an AusPost stamp. Clearly, therefore, the design – and the history – must instantly captivate if it is to be noticed at all.

The stamp is a time capsule. A capsule that exists forever, in collections and / or catalogues. The Great War centennial commemorative stamps tell the history of 100 years ago as the event is perceived today. The images are a reflection of how we see these events. Over the course of five years 2014-2018 history has re-shaped some of these stories, for example, the changing face of heroism from a concentration upon the ‘generals’ as the key players to the combat soldier who carried the burden of fighting.

The images of soldiers and the events of war have not always been popular over the 170 plus years of the postage stamp. Indeed, it was eighty years of nationalistic images, (a map, a flag, a portrait of a monarch), that graced the fiscal entity that purchased a future post office service. Australia Post, in the early guise of the New South Wales Government were early (1850) innovators to use meaningful images, landscapes, local animals for example. The Colonies were a long way from the prevailing conventions of (Mother) England and the prevailing image of the monarch.

Using text and image a modern postage stamp tells a story and perhaps even anticipates a response. What is more "A stamp will always convey a message that has world-wide integrity and validity". This comment was made by the Head of the Stamps and Collecting Unit of New Zealand Post to me during an interview in 2012.

50 years ago, most boys and girls made a start at stamp collecting. Not so these days. With rapidly decreasing revenues from mail deliveries postal authorities are looking to retain collectors’ interests, and attract casual buyers, by making more and more issues more attractive. In this paper I started looking at the dramatic increase in the number of stamps commemorating military historical events, from four countries; Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Ireland. The emphasis is upon the stamps issued as commemorative Great War issues after one hundred years. Continental Europe has not had a similar attitude towards these events – those military historical event stamps issued in Europe during 2014-2018 are discussed in this paper

The methodology used was developed during 2010-2013 when my thesis The representation of science and scientists on postage stamps was conducted at the Australian National University, (College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences). The book of the thesis, with the same title, has the catalogue number ISBN 9781925021783.

My Dad was demobbed from the Royal Air Force in 1946. He handed responsibility for the family stamp collection to me. An obligation I have enjoyed until this day. At the time our ‘stamp album’ was a pre-printed illustration of all of the world’s country issues dated 1939. The stamps were loose and more or less sorted to the correct section of the album.

The effect of ‘social media’ upon stamp production

Since the uptake of the Internet from 1993, (let’s say), the postal authorities have been called upon to carry less mail year on year. The accepted fall is about 10% per year. To date the number of mail items in the system has fallen to 50% of pre-Internet activity. The postal authorities, to raise postal revenues, have issued more stamps, and at higher service fee levels. They have explored different issuing policies, and this has led to a rise in the number of military history (and other popular themed stamps) that are being sold into the public.

As a child it was easy as every other boy, and several of the girls at school were also collectors Today it is quite different. Correspondence, if not verbal is largely conducted over the Internet. The postal authorities are strategising as to how to retain revenues from the existing mail system at a time when the quantity of mail has been halved from the early 1990s peak and is still falling. The postal authorities are putting up prices and issuing more and more stamps. But one has to ask if there are more and more stamp issues why do I not get letters with stamps on any more?

Labour costs have gone up. The post office no longer want to handle individual stamps, although they will, so the pre-payment fee for a mail service is printed onto plain paper at the point of sale at the counter or through a kiosk. Stamps are packaged into selections that encourage larger unit sales; in addition to single stamps new issues are ‘bundled’ into miniature sheets of more than one stamp, booklets and special booklets, (explaining the context of the stamp issue), and / or rolls of stamps.

The function of the stamp has not changed. It is a pre-payment for a mail service to carry an article from one location to another. When the article is accepted into the mail system it is cancelled – the pre-payment docket, (the stamp), is dated with a note of the source location. The stamp has been used.

I collect modern Great Britain, Australian, New Zealand and Irish (used) stamps although my budget, in retirement is limited. In the back of my mind 5 years ago I did wonder if I could maintain my hobby to the specialist level I had set myself? I was also thinking that the postal authorities were taking advantage of collectors with the proliferation of issues, formats, miniature sheets and prestige booklets. I enjoyed an in-depth discussion with the Head of Stamps of New Zealand Post, Ivor Masters, in 2012 and asked him how many stamps are printed for collectors. At the time he believed:

Table 2 : An estimate of how many postage stamps go into collections.

Source : Advice from NZ Post manager and author’s research.

If Ivor was correct we might now expect something like 75% of stamps go into collections. My guess is that the number is probably 85% plus. The only stamps I get on envelopes are from NZ stamp dealers – except for cards at birthdays and Christmas.

I had already looked into published figures relating to my hobby. Royal Mail Year Books (annual collections ) state the number of copies they are printing each year. The number is declining.

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Figure 1 : The declining numbers of Annual Yearbooks printed by Royal Mail.

Source : Statement within each Yearbook (annual collection) 2001-2018.

Context

My previous research has proven a move by the world’s postal authority to enhance their stamp images since the mid-1990s by including a context to the subjects they are using as stamp images. This is related to the increasing availability of the designer and also the person looking at the stamp to look up context via the Internet.

Describing and evaluating context depends upon the experience and attitude of the person viewing the stamp image. There is more to evaluating the message on the postage stamp as to whether it is telling a known, real-world story or is challenging the viewer to take an action as a result of that message.

I have taken a digital copy of stamps, outside of my main collecting interest, from two sources; and . This latter is a 2002 initiative of the Universal Postal Union to encourage stamp collecting. A good number of countries support the scheme. My personal preference is to collect ‘used’ stamps, they have fulfilled their destiny in conveying mail, for the appropriate fee through the system, and become an historical artefact now that they have been cancelled upon the start of their journey. I believe that an un-used stamp is merely a fiscal device – but a device still capable of delivering the message the designer wished to convey at the time of design.

The published plan for the centenary of the Great War commemorations for Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain are shown in the table below. Ireland did not forecast how it would commemorate the Great War. It has followed a conventional approach with a series of (similar) Great War images over five years and a long set (of 24 images) that focus upon the Easter Rising of 1916, which led eventually to the 1949 independence of the Republic of Ireland.

The three Anglo-countries also issued complementary stamps during the study period and these are discussed in the text; the Great War commemoratives and then the additional commemorations, country by country.

I also include Great War commemoratives from the British Commonwealth countries and Europe, these stamps are not generally part of a defined series, but follow a standard theme of celebrating anniversaries, in this case during 1914-1918.

Defining images; a mirror or a lens?

I was given a very valuable tip during my early research into understanding messages on stamps. Phillip Parker, then Head of Stamp Design with Royal Mail told me he viewed every new design as to whether it was a ‘mirror’ / a reflection (of reality) or a ‘lens’ demanding that the viewer consider the message and potentially take action as a result of reading that message. It is a valuable tool for the individual in reading the message he wants to see but has less value when trying to analyse how a group of people react to a stamp image. Each individual brings an unique perspective to the image.

Military history on postage stamps prior to the Great War Centenary

Table 3 below illustrates how more stamps and more stamps showing military history images have increased over 4 decades for three countries.

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Figure 3 : The growth in the total number of stamps, and ‘military history’ stamps issued since the1980s.

Source : Author’s research.

The postal authorities look at ‘anniversaries’ as a prompt as to their future publishing programme. In a year such as 2015, for example Great Britain has chosen to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo (200 years), the Great War (events of 100 years past), The Battle of Britain (70 years / World War II), celebrating 200 years of service to Britain of the Gurkha Regiment.

The decade of the 2010s still has two years to run, but the trend towards more stamps being issued decade upon decade is clear. The apparent anomaly with Australian graph is caused by the number of sports stamps that Australia Post decided to issue. Stamps with 130 different images were issued for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006, one event - 130 images.

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Figure 4 : The growth in the percentage of ‘military history’ stamps issued since the 1980s - Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain.

Source : Author’s research

I put forward the theory that Great Britain has an established guideline of historical anniversaries of around 4% that it has changed to accommodate the Great War (century), and WWII commemorations (70 years), causing the percentage to rise to 7%. Australia and New Zealand postal authorities seem not to have such a defined policy.

Initially the postal authorities of the world were operated by government, with the Postmaster General a respected member of cabinet. Indeed, at the outbreak of the Great War Australia’s revenues were reliant upon customs’ duties and the postal services. Today the postal services are run as private enterprises with a requirement to make money. We have seen, decade on decade, the increase in the actual number of stamps being issued, (for three countries at least), and the influence of military history images / stories / messages on those totals. The postal authorities will continue to issue stamp themes that sell. And what makes