Our Condolences to the Royal Family

We are deeply saddened by the death of Her Majesty The Queen. First and foremost, we send our heartfelt condolences to the Royal Family during this time.

The post and the reign of Queen Elizabeth II are intricately linked, and the 500-year-old story of the British postal service is steeped in Royal history.

Despite the enormous changes which took place during her reign, the Queen remained a constant figure of the British postal service. Her image has been delivered through letterboxes into homes for 70 years on every stamp.

The Queen’s portrait by Arnold Machin has featured on stamps unchanged for 55 years. It has been seen by millions of people and reproduced billions of times – the most reproduced image in the world.

The Postal Museum will shortly open a display in the museum commemorating Queen Elizabeth II through stamp artwork. From the original Dorothy Wilding portraits that adorned stamps from 1952, through the development of the Arnold Machin definitive stamp in 1967, to important moments of the Queen’s life captured on stamps.

The display can be seen by all visitors to The Postal Museum.

Alongside this, we will display a photograph by Anthony Buckley (1965) that was signed by Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of the National Postal Museum, 19 February 1969, and a sheet of sepia definitive stamps from 1967 in the museum’s welcome space.