Postage stamps and postal history of Aden
Encyclopedia
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
. Aden's location made it a popular exchange port for mail
Mail
Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...
passing between places around the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
and Europe. Mail is known to exist from June 15, 1839, although a regular postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
was not appointed until 1857.
Stamps of British India
Aden used postage stampPostage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s of British India until it became a crown colony
Crown colony
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....
on April 1, 1937. Although these stamps carried no special identification they may be recognised through the use of the number 124 in postal cancellations, which was assigned to Aden as part of the Indian postal number system.
First stamps
Once Aden became a crown colony it received a series of pictorial stamps inscribed "Aden".George VI
In 1939, a new issue of stamps included a portrait of King George VIGeorge VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
, but the sultans in Hadhramaut
Hadhramaut
Hadhramaut, Hadhramout, Hadramawt or Ḥaḍramūt is the formerly independent Qu'aiti state and sultanate encompassing a historical region of the south Arabian Peninsula along the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea, extending eastwards from Yemen to the borders of the Dhofar region of Oman...
(whose territories had been under the British Aden Protectorate
Aden Protectorate
The Aden Protectorate was a British protectorate in southern Arabia which evolved in the hinterland of Aden following the acquisition of that port by Britain in 1839 as an anti-piracy station, and it continued until the 1960s. For administrative purposes it was divided into the Western...
since the 1880s) objected to this, and so the British government issued separate stamps in 1942, but with the additional inscriptions Kathiri State of Seiyun
Kathiri
Kathiri was a sultanate in the Hadhramaut region of the southern Arabian Peninsula, in what is now officially considered part of Yemen and the Dhofar region of Oman....
and Qu'aiti State of Shihr and Mukalla
Qu'aiti
Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut (Arabic: (الدولة القعيطية الحضرمية) or the Qu'aiti Sultanate of Shihr and Mukalla (Arabic:سلطنة الشحر والمكلاا ), was a sultanate in the...
(later Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut
Qu'aiti
Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut Qu'aiti , officially the Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut (Arabic: (الدولة القعيطية الحضرمية) or the Qu'aiti Sultanate of Shihr and Mukalla (Arabic:سلطنة الشحر والمكلاا ), was a sultanate in the...
), plus portraits of the respective sultans. All of these types were valid in Aden and the Aden Protectorate.
Revenue stamps
Aden used revenue stampRevenue stamp
A revenue stamp, tax stamp or fiscal stamp is a adhesive label used to collect taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things...
s of India overprinted ADEN.
Sources
- Stanley Gibbons Ltd: various catalogues
- Encyclopaedia of Postal History
- Rossiter, StuartStuart RossiterPercival "Stuart" Bryce Rossiter was a renowned British philatelist and postal historian who wrote extensively about British postal history and postage stamps of British colonies in Africa and was actively involved in numerous philatelic institutions...
& John Flower. The Stamp Atlas. London: Macdonald, 1986. ISBN 0356108627
Further reading
- Brown, Gary. Catalogue of a Display: Aden Postal History to 1914 given to The Royal Philatelic Society of London April 28, 2011. Melbourne: Gary Brown, 2011.
- Proud, Edward BTed ProudEdward Wilfrid Baxby Proud is a pioneering British postal historian and philatelic writer who in 2008 was invited to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists....
. & R. W. Pratt. Postage stamps and postal history of Aden. Proud-Bailey Co. Ltd., 1985. ISBN 1872465005 - Proud, Edward. The Postal History of Aden and Somaliland Protectorate. Proud-Bailey Co. Ltd., 2005. ISBN 1872465412