The essential book on Barbados Britannia stamps was first released back in 2014 and was the culmination of years of work and research by M. Fitz Roett. This was the first time anyone had tried to pull together all the available information on the Barbados Britannia series.
The stamps ran from from 1852 to 1890, during which time they had two different printers, Perkins Bacon and De La Rue, were issued in a range of colours, perforations and watermarks which made for a large number of varieties, errors and oddities that even today, are still being discovered.
In 2021, sadly Fitz passed away, and some months later in 2022, Peter Ford, the then Publications Secretary of the British West Indies Study Circle spoke to Fitz’s widow and asked permission to update the book. She agreed to this project as a lasting testament to his work in the field of Barbados Britannia stamps.
Peter set about the task, however, he suffered a huge stroke in January 2023 and died in April of that year, at which point the manuscript disappeared.
Despite a search of his computer and home, no sign was found of this new edition, which he had been discussing with people for some months. I had even sent him several emails with new material to be included.
In February this year, I was looking for an old file on an even older laptop I have and when I opened it I found it was sluggish due to a very big file slowing it down. You’ve guess it, it was the missing manuscript.
It seems that Peter sent me a copy shortly after our October 2022 meeting where we had discussed the project, but he did so on WeTransfer so there was no record of it on email, nor any notes to say he’s sent it to me. For my part I had downloaded it and thought ‘I’ll have a look at that later…’ but never actually did, as a busy modern life with over 1000 emails coming in every week meant that it was forgotten within days.
Anyway, having discovered it I sent it immediately to the new Publications Secretary Paul Farrimond, and we set about updating it as there was a lot more information and material that had appeared in the public domain, along with covers and stamps at auction, since Peter had been working on it.
The result is that we have a brand new, fully updated and in some places, completely revised and rewritten book that reflects the current state of knowledge about these fascinating stamps. And as I write this we have already started a ‘revisions’ spreadsheet as some collectors who have bought this have already been in touch with even more items we didn’t know about!
The book is available from Pennymead and is extraordinarily well priced at just £15, so there’s no excuse for any collector of these stamps not to own a copy.
And for those of you who like these stamps, here’s an item I purchased earlier this year from eBay, for not much money, which I knew because of my work on the book was an exceptional item. What I didn’t realise until I got it in my hands was that this is the largest known used multiple of SG67, which is the very first ½d stamp printed for Barbados by De La Rue, anywhere on cover or piece.
This book really is an essential read for anyone who collects the stamps and postal history of Barbados, and I would urge you to buy a copy today.