A Royal Visit…And A Special Cover!

The Isle of Man Post Office is pleased to present this special commemorative cover to mark the visit of His Royal Highness Prince Charles & The Duchess of Cornwall to the Isle of Man.

On 26th April 2012 the Isle of Man played host to two very special Royal visitors – His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall – who were on a whistle stop tour as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Despite the wet and windy weather, the visit was an overwhelming success and Royal fans and schoolchildren crowded the streets where the couple visited. Their first port of call was the National Sports Centre in Douglas where His Royal Highness started a four-lap outdoor race for members of the ‘Team Royal London 360 Isle of Man Cycling Club’ among crowds of children from Manor Park School who waved Manx flags in support of the competitors and the VIP guests. Once the race was completed, Their Royal Highnesses met local residents World Champion cyclist Peter Kennaugh and scratch race World Champion Ben Swift along with members of the cycling club and parents of young cyclists.

The couple then headed west to Peel where clusters of onlookers gathered to get a glimpse of them, wave their Manx flags and hope for the chance to shake hands with a member of the Royal Family. At the House of Manannan, a museum which guides visitors through the Island’s rich Celtic, Viking and Maritime past, Their Royal Highnesses spoke to local food producers including the Apple Orphanage Co, Green Mann Spring, Ellerslie Rapeseed Oil, Isle of Man Creamery, Laxey Glen Flour Mills and Ramsey Bakery. They viewed first-hand the stunning selection of produce which is created using Manx resources to create high quality local foods. Also at the reception were young farmers, from all sectors of the industry, along with representatives from the local Prince’s Trust, the Manx Wildlife Trust and the Manx Osteoporosis Society. The Prince is Patron of The Wildlife Trusts and the Duchess of Cornwall is Patron of the National Osteoporosis Society.

Following the House of Manannan, events moved quayside where The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall were introduced to the crew of ‘Vital Spark’, a replica Viking longship which will be taking part in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on 3rd June. There was also an opportunity to meet local fishermen before attending the launch of the regeneration of the Isle of Man Food Park, touring a sustainable scallop processing facility and unveiling a plaque to mark the start of the redevelopment. Their final visit led them to Peel Lifeboat Station to meet Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers, Coastguards and members of the emergency services. The RNLI is particularly important to the Island as its founder Sir William Hillary was a former resident.

Despite the Island’s inclement weather on the day, the visit still brought out, in force, the Royal fans and schoolchildren who thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Royal couple in such a momentous year for the British Royal Family. The Island looks forward to the next time it’s greeted with such prestigious guests.

The Charles & Camilla Royal Visit Commemorative Cover, a stunning keepsake from the day which includes a filler card featuring text and a selection of photographs from the visit, is priced at £10 (QB96). Please visit our website at www.iomstamps.com to find out more about our stamps and products and how to purchase them.

William Hoggatt – Almost a Manxman

Hoggatt Set

The issue date for this collection is Feb 20th 2012.You can now pre order the collection here.  Please see the terms and conditions for pre ordering here. The collection will be available to order on our eBay Store from Monday 13th February 2012. Please also note that items will be dispatched from the issue date onwards. The Isle of Man Post Office is pleased to present a set of five stamps which feature the artwork of William Hoggatt (1879 – 1961).  Alan Kelly of Mannin Collections writes: William Hoggatt was born 1st September 1879 at 10 Garnett Street, Lancaster, son of James Hoggatt, a joiner, and Margaret Ann Hoggatt née Stalker. Hoggatt was educated in Lancaster, where his artistic talent won him a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, London, which he declined on the grounds that ‘he wanted to work freely’. He then worked as an apprentice for a local firm of stained-glass manufacturers, but also continued his art studies at the Storey Institute, Lancaster. Whilst there Herbert L. Storey, the son of the founder of the Institute, noticed the quality of Hoggatt’s work and paid for him to study art at the L’Academie Julian, Paris, from 1901-1903, under Jean Paul Laurens.

Hoggatt First Day Cover

On his return to England, Hoggatt rented a cottage at Caton, near Lancaster, and started to paint full-time. In 1906 he worked for a period of time at the Tate Gallery, London, and whilst there met a young man called Leonard Archer who invited Hoggatt to stay at his home at Chalfont St. Giles. It was there he met Leonard’s sister, Dazine, and by the time Hoggatt left she had agreed to marry him. Both their parents were opposed to the intended marriage so the couple decided to elope to the Isle of Man – a place Hoggatt had heard much about in Lancaster. Early in 1907 he arrived in the Island and moved into ‘Glendown’, Port St. Mary. He then sent for Dazine and shortly after her arrival they were married on 20th April, 1907 at Kirk Christ, Rushen.

Hoggatt Stamp Sheet

Working in oils, watercolours and pastels Hoggatt spent the next fifty-four years painting scenes throughout the Island. He exhibited from 1904 at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute, Royal Cambrian Academy, Glasgow Institute and at many other art institutions, including overseas. In 1925 he was elected a full member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and was later a member of the Liverpool Academy and the Royal British Colonial Society of Artists. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Hampstead Art Gallery, London in 1920 entitled Tone Harmonies and contained sixty of his paintings of the Island. Most of the pictures were sold at the exhibition, including six which were purchased by a collector from South Africa. After this exhibition Hoggatt started to receive the recognition he deserved and his work was reproduced in all the leading art journals, including The Studio and The Connoisseur. The Studio magazine said of him – ‘William Hoggatt has chosen the artistic solitude of an Island full of natural beauty. His work shows a constant passionate striving for the wonders of light, colour, texture and the whole overpowering poetry of landscape’.

Hoggatt Presentation Pack

HM Queen Elizabeth II – Diamond Jubilee 1952-2012

HM Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee First Day Cover

We are  pleased to present a set of six stamps to commemorate the Queen’s reign.

The issue date for this collection is Feb 6th 2012.You can now pre order the collection here.  Please see the terms and conditions for pre ordering here. The collection will be available to order on our eBay Store from Monday 30th January 2012. Please also note that items will be dispatched from the issue date onwards. Please be aware the issue date for the miniature sheet is on HM Queen’s birthday, 21st April 2012.

Each year one of the themes of the Christmas message to the Nation and the Commonwealth is a reflection of events during the year, we are pleased to include extracts from some of the broadcasts.

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubiliee Miniture Sheet

58 Pence Stamp
This photograph of the Queen was taken when she attended a film premiere in 1955. That year her Christmas Message, broadcast live from her study at Sandringham, focused on the Commonwealth.

She said: ‘Great opportunities lie before us. Indeed a large part of the world looks to the Commonwealth for a lead. We have already gone far towards discovering for ourselves how different nations, from North and South, from East and West, can live together in friendly brotherhood, pooling the resources of each for the benefit of all. Every one of us can also help in this great adventure, for just as the Commonwealth is made up of different nations, so those nations are made up of individuals. The greater the enterprise the more important our personal contribution.’

£1.10 Stamp
When this official photograph was taken of the Queen in 1968, she had already visited Brazil and Chile. It was the year in which civil rights leader Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis and the Queen focused her Christmas broadcast from Buckingham Palace on the theme of brotherhood.
She said: ‘Christmas is a Christian festival, which celebrates the birth of the Prince of Peace. At times it is almost hidden by the merry making and tinsel, but the essential message of Christmas is still that we all belong to the great brotherhood of man. This idea is not limited to the Christian faith. Philosophers and prophets have concluded that peace is better than war, love is better than hate and that mankind can only find progress in friendship and co-operation. Many ideas are being questioned today, but these great truths will continue to shine out as the light of hope in the darkness of intolerance and inhumanity.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Presentation Pack

38 Pence Stamp
Taken in 1979, the international Year of the Child, when thousands of refugees fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, this picture features the Queen on horseback during the Trooping of the Colour. That year she visited Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana and Zambia.
In her Christmas message she said: ‘This year people all over the world have been asked to give particular thought to the special needs of sick and handicapped children, to the hungry and homeless and to those in trouble or distress wherever they may be found. It is an unhappy coincidence that political and economic forces have made this an exceptionally difficult and tragic year for many families and children in several parts of the world – but particularly in South East Asia. The situation has created a desperately serious challenge and I am glad to know that so many people of the Commonwealth have responded with wonderful generosity and kindness.’

68 Pence Stamp
In 1982, the year of the Falklands War, the Queen undertook two Commonwealth tours – of Canada, Australia and the Pacific. She is photographed here in Tuvalu where she and Prince Philip were borne aloft in ceremonial litters. That year her Christmas message marked the 50th anniversary of the first yuletide broadcast and was filmed for the first time in the library at Windsor Castle.
She said: ‘The poet John Donne said: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” That is the message of the Commonwealth and it is also the Christian message. Christ attached supreme importance to the individual and he amazed the world in which he lived by making it clear that the unfortunate and the underprivileged had an equal place in the Kingdom of Heaven with the rich and powerful. But he also taught that man must do his best to live in harmony with man and to love his neighbours.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Single Stamps

37 Pence Stamp
This portrait was taken by photographer Terry O’Neill in 1990, the year that the Queen celebrated her mother’s 90th birthday and the christening of her youngest grandchild. But the threat of war in the Gulf dominated her Christmas message as she paid tribute to servicemen around the world.
She said: ‘I want, therefore, to say thank you today to the men and women who, day in and day out, carry on their daily life in difficult and dangerous circumstances. By just getting on with the job, they are getting the better of those who want to harm our way of life. Let us think of them this Christmas, wherever they are in the world, and pray that their resolution remains undiminished. It is they and their kind who, by resisting the bully and the tyrant, ensure that we live in the sort of world in which we can celebrate this season safely with our families.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II -Diamond Jubilee 1952 - 2012 Souvenir Sheet

£1.82 Stamp
The Queen stayed closer to home in 2008 – the year her son, Prince Charles, celebrated his 60th birthday – visiting Slovenia and Slovakia. She is photographed at the Derby at Epsom racecourse that summer, one of her favourite events of the season. That year her Christmas message was reflective.

She said: ‘In this 90th year since the end of the First World War, the last survivors recently commemorated the service and enormous sacrifice of their own generation. Their successors in theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan are still to be found in harm’s way in the service of others. For their loved ones, the worry will never cease until they are safely home. In such times as these we can all learn some lessons from the past. We might begin to see things in a new perspective. And certainly, we begin to ask ourselves where it is that we can find lasting happiness. Over the years, those who have seemed to me to be the most happy, contented and fulfilled have always been the people who have lived the most outgoing and unselfish lives; the kind of people who are generous with their talents or their time. I think we have a huge amount to learn from individuals such as these.’

HM Queen Elizabeth II - Diamond Jubilee Sheet Set