Philatelic mythology

Stamp of approval

Prestonian Lecturer for 2022 John Hawkins addresses the philatelic mythology around the so-called Masonic Peace stamp

Anyone who has taken the tour of Freemasons’ Hall is likely to have been given the opportunity by the guide to purchase, for a modest sum, an example of the so-called threepence (3d) ‘Masonic’ Peace stamp. Unfortunately, the mythology that has grown up around it relating to its Masonic signifi cance is largely just that.

On 11 June 1946, two Victory stamps were issued by the General Post Offi ce (GPO) to commemorate the end of the Second World War and the commencement of reconstruction. The fi rst suggestion that such an issue be made for propaganda purposes had occurred, somewhat prematurely as it turned out, in 1941, and the idea was revisited in 1943 and 1944. By that time, there seems to have been a governmental decision that when victory was achieved it should be celebrated in a low-key way not by a new issue, but by a special cancellation stamp, i.e. postmark. The idea of a special issue would not disappear, however, and from late 1944 the GPO began to receive unsolicited designs for Victory or Peace stamps and there was a clear public demand, at least among the philatelic community. The New Zealand Post Offi ce placed orders for Peace stamps with three British printers and other Commonwealth countries soon followed suit. Gradually, and belatedly, the GPO began to bow to the inevitable.

In January 1946, preparations for an issue on an accelerated timescale began in earnest, although at this stage it was not even clear what the denominations should be, partly complicated by the fact that it was quite possible that inland postage rates would be adjusted in the forthcoming budget. The fi nal decision was that there should be two denominations – 2½d and 3d – and that they should be made double the standard size (0.86in x 1.51in) with the theme ‘peace and reconstruction’ rather than ‘military victory’. This recommendation was put to the Cabinet by the Postmaster General (PMG) and Prime Minister in February, and was approved subject to the inclusion of the King’s head on both stamps, one of the options considered having been to omit this on one or both.

For issues such as this, the practice of the GPO was to seek recommendations regarding the suitability of potential designers – the three bodies initially approached being the Royal Fine Art Commission (RFAC), the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland (RFACS) and the Council of Industrial Design (CoID). A fi nal list was drawn up of 20 designers, including the in-house teams of three printing fi rms, all of whom were approached in late February. By the due date of 11 March, 11 invitees responded with 20 diff erent designs, which were then reviewed by an internal committee. Of these, nine were considered suitable, six suitable if modifi ed and fi ve unsuitable. Two of the designs considered as suitable if modifi ed (nos. 10 and 12) and one considered unsuitable (no. 11) had been submitted by Alan Reynolds Stone.

Reynolds Stone, CBE, RDI, was born 13 March 1909 at Eton College, where both his father and grandfather were assistant masters. He was descended from the artist Joshua Reynolds. After education at Eton and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in history in 1930, he undertook a two-year apprenticeship at the Cambridge University Press, including a secondment to the Wessex Press under the typographer and designer Eric Gill. He then spent two years working at printing fi rm Barnicott and Pearce in Taunton, Somerset. During this four-year period, he came to realise that his forte was not printing, per se, but design in general and wood engraving in particular. He spent the rest of his life, with a break for war service in the RAF from 1941 to 1945, working as a freelance designer, specialising in book decoration, but also producing advertising material, armorials, banknotes and postage stamps. His work was commissioned by many public bodies, including the Arts Council, the British Council, the National Trust and HM Stationery Offi ce. In 1965, he designed and executed the Winston Churchill Memorial in Westminster Abbey.

King George VI had fi nal approval of the 1946 Victory Stamps

THREE OF A KIND

Three designs by Alan Reynolds Stone for the Victory issue were described and ranked by the committee as:

No. 10

Trowel, compasses and square; dove; ornamental ‘flourish’ forms border. CoID/ RFACS 1st choice.

No. 11

Trowel, etc; dove; London ruins and rebuilding.

No. 12

As 10 minus dove; trowel, etc more prominent. CoID second choice.

Stone’s design No. 10 was therefore the first choice for two of the three organisations (the CoID and the RFACS) who had been asked to review the designs.

Following consultations with the CoID, the RFACS and the Post Office Advisory Council (POAC), it was decided that colour essays (trials) should be produced of three designs for submission to King George VI, including Stone’s design 10, which he was asked to modify slightly in terms of its lettering and a lightening of the King’s head. On 29 March, the three designs were submitted to the King, with alternative essays for each in blue and violet. There were two 2½d designs, by Edmund Dulac and HL Palmer, an employee of Harrison & Co, the printers, as well as Stone’s 3d design. On 1 April, the PMG was informed that the King had approved the Palmer and Stone designs, the latter subject to an improvement to the dove’s tail and a curtailment of the flourish surrounding the central design. It was decided that the 2½d should be printed in blue and the 3d in violet.

Stone was reputedly disappointed not to have had his 2½d chosen, since he had gone to considerable trouble in redrawing the value tab to his own satisfaction, and possibly also because he would have been aware that the lower denomination would have wider circulation. Palmer and Stone each received 125 guineas for their designs, in addition to the 25 guineas paid to all those who contributed one or more designs.

Stone was not a Freemason, but he would have been aware that King George VI was and, although his design would first have to pass the committee stage, this may have encouraged him to incorporate emblems that might be considered to have Masonic significance, in particular the trowel, the square and compasses and the dove of peace. The trowel shown next to a wall is symbolic of rebuilding, the dove is a symbol of peace and the square and compasses have appeared regularly as a decoration in books on architecture and building since at least the 16th century. Also, as pointed out many years ago by the late Terry Haunch, a former Librarian and Curator of Grand Lodge, the square and compasses are not depicted in the way they would be if the intention of the symbolism were Masonic.

Moreover, on close examination of the three original designs, it is quite clear that the symbolism was never intended to be specifically Masonic. Although Masonic tools are sometimes shown as superimposed, as in designs 11 and 12 (for example on Chinese exportware porcelain from the 18th century), the absence of the level and plumb rule and the inclusion of what is clearly a hammer rather than a maul is strongly suggestive of their practical rather than speculative significance. In design 11 the compasses are absent. The king may have liked the 3d design because of its Masonic connotations, but this can be no more than speculation and, since there was only one 3d design, he had relatively little choice but to give his approval.

The issue on 11 June was accompanied by a press release, a radio talk by the PMG on the preceding evening and an address by the PMG to the Imperial Press Conference at Grosvenor House on the day itself. Almost immediately, it was spotted that certain stamps had a defect, the olive branch having seven ‘berries’ (actually olives), rather than six. They also existed in some of the 2½d stamps, the ship having three portholes rather than two. Opinion was divided on the Stone design and the Masonic elements were noted as early as 14 June when a correspondent of the Darwen News suggested that Stone’s design ‘represented the nightmares of the president of a racing pigeon club after a hectic night out at his masonic lodge’. A later embellishment in Gibbons Stamp Monthly suggested that the calligraphic flourish was ‘plotting the course of the returning reveller’.

It also became apparent subsequently that the CoID had assumed that a single design would have been chosen for both stamps (with different colours) and that if they had realised there were to be two, they would strongly have recommended Stone’s for the 2½d issue. One of the CoID committee members, Sir Sydney Cockerell, also expressed his displeasure in The Times (25 June 1946) and wrote privately to the PMG that he had excellent authority for believing gossip that the King had been forced to accept the Palmer design for the 2½d despite the aesthetic objections of the Queen.

No record has been found of either the King or the artist having been asked about the Masonic significance of the stamp, if any, but the elements of its design have given hours of pleasure to speculators in Masonic iconography and a few pounds of profit to the tour guides at Freemasons’ Hall. I have my example before me as I write.