British East Africa The Stamps and Their Usage, 1890-1902

Ensign of the Imperial British East Africa Company

This exhibit covers the four regular issues, turned over to the Crown as a . A stamp Specimen overprints, nine provisional issues, special shortage in 1890 resulted in the use of the stamps of printings for the UPU and postal usages of the . Further shortages resulted in the hanstamped stamps. (Overprinting of the anna value Queen and manuscript provisionals of 1891. Provisional Victoria stamps for use in and are stamps for double and triple weight letters were the subject of two separate exhibits.) issued in 1894. Another shortage of low value The Imperial British East Africa Company stamps in 1895 resulted in the TECR provisional was the first company holding a charter allowing issue. In July 1895 remaining IBEAC stamps were operation of a postal system, for both local and overprinted using a handstamp reading “British East international mail, to use their company name on the Africa” in three lines; the Protectorate Handstamp their stamps. They were also the first to create a Issue. The continuing shortages of stamps caused series of surcharged stamps with authorizing initials. the ‘On India’ and ‘On Zanzibar’ provisional issues Both of these led to the adoption of these practices and surcharges of some of these stamps to meet the by entities such as the British South Africa single weight letter rate of 2½ annas. Company and the Mozambique Company in 1892 The colony had no printing press and the and the surcharged Uganda typewritten stamps in overprinting for the local provisional issues was 1895. done either manually or in Zanzibar, complicating The Imperial British East Africa Company the process and allowing for a number of errors that (IBEAC) received a Royal Charter in 1888 and otherwise might have been prevented. started mail service at offices in and The British East Africa postal system, Lamu in May 1890 using a provisional issue, although amalgamated with Uganda in 1901, overprinted stamps of Great Britain (‘On GB’). continued use of its own stamps until 1903 when the IBEAC definitive stamps were issued later in 1890 East Africa and Uganda Protectorate Postal and used until July 1, 1895 when administration was Administration issued new stamps.

Frame Page(s) Frame Page(s) 1 1 Title 3 1-4 Protectorate Handstamp Issue (PH) 1 2 ‘On GB’ Provisional Issue 3 5 PH Surcharge 1 3-4 Indian stamps used in BEA 3 6-16 ‘On India’ Provisional Issue 1 5-16 IBEAC Definitive Issue 4 1-6 ‘On India’ Provisional Issue 2 1-6 IBEAC Definitive issue 4 7 ‘On India’ Surcharge 2 7-12 IBEAC 1891 Provisional Issues 4 8-16 ‘Small Queen’ Definitive Issue 2 13 1894 Provisional Issue 5 1-5 ‘Small Queen’ Definitive Issue 2 14 TECR 1895 Provisional Issue 5 6-10 ‘On Zanzibar’ Provisional Issues 2 15 Grace Period 5 11-13 ‘Large Queen’ Definitive issue 2 16 Protectorate Handstamp Issue 5 14-16 Special UPU Printings