Gibraltar Philately at London event

The opening presentation at the Crawford Festival at the Royal Philatelic Society, London on 24 June will be delivered by Richard Garcia assisted by Maurice Hadida. It will feature Gibraltar and Morocco philately. The Crawford Festival is named after James Lindsay, the 26th Earl of Crawford who bequeathed his valuable philatelic library to the British Museum, on his death in 1913. The Festival is a celebration of philatelic literature.

Richard Garcia was the lead author of a book on Morocco philately that he wrote jointly with Maurice Hadida, of Paris.

The book, entitled Morocco: The history of the Local and Sherifien Posts, 1891-1913 was published by the Royal Philatelic Society, London in 2019. It is a dual-language book, with parallel texts in English and French on facing pages. The book additionally examines the British postal service in Morocco which was operated by Gibraltar until the end of 1906.

The presentation will demonstrate how documents in national archives are an essential resource when researching a historical subject.

Richard Garcia first began to examine the records in the Gibraltar National Archives in 1979, shortly after Bill Cumming was entrusted by the government of Sir Joshua Hassan to create what is now the GNA.

His experience of over 45 years carrying out research in the GNA is unmatched by any other scholar in Gibraltar. The fruits of the research have led to his publishing over twenty books on different aspects of Gibraltar’s history, and writing and presenting a number of series of television programmes for GBC. He will be speaking on how the documents in the GNA solved a number of questions that philatelists had been discussing for years, and how errors that had been perpetuated for many years were finally corrected.

Maurice Hadida will speak on his experience of carrying out philatelic research in the French national archives in Nantes and in La Corneuve. They include making new philatelic discoveries.

“The Royal Philatelic Society, London is the oldest philatelic society in the world,” said Richard Garcia.

“It was founded in 1869 and is enormously prestigious. The Patron is King Charles III. It is an honour to be invited to speak on a Gibraltar-related theme before the society.”

Previously, in 2004, on the occasion of Gibraltar’s tercentenary, Richard Garcia organised a comprehensive display of Gibraltar philately at the premises of the Royal Philatelic Society.

The display was very well received. He was also one of the ten overseas Fellows of the Society introduced to Queen Elizabeth II when she paid a visit to the Royal Philatelic Society, London when the society moved to its present premises in Abchurch Lane in the City of London.