The 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Arts is marked by a set of stamps issued on June 5.
Royal Mail specially commissioned works of art by six current Royal Academicians, several of which give a personal impression of the organisation’s famous Summer Exhibition, which has been held every year since 1769.
Founded in 1768 by King George III, the RA is an independent, privately funded institution, with charitable status, led by eminent artists and architects, whose aim is to promote the visual arts.
Royal Mail has produced a miniature sheet of four stamps to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Prince Henry of Wales and Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19.
Announced only four days in advance, it will be issued on the day of the wedding, although this is a Saturday.
Royal Mail’s upcoming stamp issue, released on May 11, is devoted to Owls.
It features the five species of owl which live and breed regularly in Britain, by way of one se-tenant strip of five illustrating adults and another showing juveniles.
Usually hunting for small mammals at night, owls are among the most successful predators in the bird world, thanks to eyesight which excels in low-light conditions, acute hearing and the ability to fly almost silently.
A set of six stamps to be issued on April 17 will celebrate wildlife which has been successfully reintroduced into Britain following its extinction in the wild.
In the past two centuries it is estimated that more than 400 species of animals and plants have disappeared from the UK, usually due to the loss, degradation or fragmentation of their natural habitats.
Thanks to the efforts of conservationists, scientists and volunteers, however, a number of programmes have successfully reintroduced some to their former environments, where they are flourishing once more.
Royal Mail will celebrate the centenary of the Royal Air Force with a set of six counter-sheet stamps and a four-stamp miniature sheet on March 20.
Established on April 1, 1918, through the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (the air arm of the British Army) and the Royal Naval Air Service (the air arm of the Royal Navy), the RAF is the world’s oldest independent air force, in the sense that it is not controlled by another branch of the military.
It played major roles in winning World War I and World War II (not least in protecting Britain from invasion by Germany in 1940), in projecting British power during the Cold War, and in waging more recent conflicts such as the Falklands War, the Gulf War, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With the Votes for Women issue on February 15, Royal Mail will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which granted women the right to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time.
The campaign for women's suffrage had taken almost a century, with the first petitions presented in parliament in 1832 and 1966.
It gathered momentum towards the end of the 19th century with the establishment of two prominent pressure groups.
Royal Mail will issue a set of 15 stamps on January 23 featuring the popular television fantasy series Game Of Thrones.
It said the 10 gummed sheet stamps and five-stamp self-adhesive miniature sheet were produced ‘to celebrate the significant British contribution to the production of the award-winning drama series’.
Commissioned by the American television network HBO, co-created by the American producers David Benioff and Daniel Weiss, and based on novels by the American author George R R Martin, Game Of Thrones has been filmed to a large extent at Titanic Studios inBelfast, and partly on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and in other European countries.
The 70th anniversary of the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on November 20 is marked by the issue of a six-stamp miniature sheet entitled Royal Wedding: Platinum Anniversary.
It comprises black-and-white photographs of the couple taken during 1947: two on the day of their engagement, two on their wedding day and two while on honeymoon.
These are presented in se-tenant pairs of different values, while the sheet border features a detail of the wedding gown designed by Norman Hartnell.
Royal Mail’s Christmas issue, released on November 7, has two distinct elements, as it did in 2013.
A set of eight has various depictions of the Madonna & Child after old paintings, available from self-adhesive counter sheets (and booklets) and a gummed miniature sheet as usual.
A further set of four, available in self-adhesive guise only, features the two winning designs from a children’s competition, which attracted more than 200,000 entries.
Royal Mail has surprised the philatelic world by announcing that it will issue a second commemorative set devoted to the Star Wars film series.
Following the set of 12 stamps and a six-stamp miniature sheet heralding the release of The Force Awakens in 2015, a new issue on sale from October 12 will comprise eight stamps heralding The Last Jedi, which will be released in December.
It illustrates four droid and four alien characters, most of them well-known but one of them introduced in the latest film.
Educational Reading For Generations Of Kids
On September 14 Royal Mail will issue a set of eight stamps celebrating Ladybird books, which have had a huge influence on generations of British children.
The Loughborough-based stationery firm Wills & Hepworth registered the Ladybird name in 1915, and published the first of its small-format children’s books bearing the Ladybird logo in 1940.
With wartime paper rationing in force, it concocted a format in which a 56-page book could be printed from a single sheet of paper.
Workshops wound by wind and water
The Windmills & Watermills set, to be issued on June 20, will salute an endearing and important part of Britain’s industrial archaeology, the mechanisms which harnessed natural energy in the days before steam, coal and petrol engines, and cheap electricity.
Water power, harnessed by a waterwheel in fast-flowing water, was initially used for grinding grain and fulling cloth, and later for driving processing machinery in metal and textile factories.
Wind power, harnessed by sails mounted high in the air flow, was primarily used for grinding corn, especially in areas where flowing water was less easily available.
The Machin Definitive
Birthday celebrations for a very familiar face
Royal Mail’s celebration of 50 years of the Machin definitive comprises two miniature sheets to be released on June 5, the precise anniversary of the first issue.
The Machin Definitive - 50 Years of a Design Icon
One, subtitled 50 Years Of A Design Icon, has six new 1st class stamps, each with the familiar Machin portrait in use since 1967 alongside a preliminary design concept dating from the development of the series during 1966.
The other, subtitled Golden Anniversary Celebration, has seven stamps, six of which are reprints of original decimal issues from between 1971 and 2013, and the other a new £1 value.
A set of 10 stamps to be issued on May 4 will feature Songbirds, the wildlife that is equally familiar to British eyes and ears.
Birdsong builds to a peak between January and May each year, and is the soundtrack to the spring and early summer in our woodland, parkland and gardens.
Some of the featured birds are very familiar, some less well-known and seldom seen.
The Racehorse Legends issue, released on April 6, honours eight equine legends of flat racing and national hunt racing in Britain.
Illustrated by Michael Heslop, each stamp shows a famous horse in action during one of its most celebrated races, with five different racecourses featured in all.
The horses selected are among the most popular and successful in racing history, from the mid 1960s to the present day.
