Postage stamps and postal history of Canada

The postal history of Canada falls into four major periods:

French control (1608-1763)
British control (1763-1851)
provincial control (1851-1868)
Dominion of Canada (1868-)

French control

The earliest reference to a postal service is of couriers in 1705 carrying the Governor's despatches by boat, along with (for a fee) private letters. A regular postal system was proposed in 1721, but would have been too expensive at the time, and was not created until 1734, when a road existed between Montreal and Quebec. Post houses were established at intervals of nine miles or so, along with ferries across the rivers. Fees were 10 sols between the two major cities, and 5 sols to Trois Rivieres.

British control

The British captured Montreal in 1759, and shortly thereafter established a military postal system that handled letters between Quebec and Montreal, and from Montreal to Albany, New York.

The peace treaty of 1763 inaugurated the development of a civilian post. The Postmasters General of the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin and William Foxcroft surveyed a route between New York and Quebec, and contracted Quebec-Montreal mail to a Hugh Finlay, who provided a weekly service at 8d per letter. Mail to New York took two weeks and cost about a shilling. The service was quite successful, the Quebec-Montreal route increasing to twice/week, and eventually branching out to include Skenesborough.

The American Revolutionary War disrupted mail to New York, and also showed the weakness in not having an all-British route to Halifax, and in 1787 a complicated route was set up through Riviere du Loup, Fredericton, Digby, and Annapolis. Upper Canada had its own semi-monthly route through Kingston, Ontario, Niagara, Detroit, and as far as Michilimackinac on Lake Huron.

Finlay was succeeded in 1800 by John Heriot, then in 1816 Daniel Sutherland took over as Postmaster General. By this time dozens of post offices were being opened. 1816 was also when the postal services of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia were separated, and not rejoined until 1868.

Postmarks had been in use since 1764, Finlay having been introduced to them by Franklin. The earliest markings were town names in a straight line.

As is typical of the period, the postal service introduced ever-more-complicated systems of rates for mail, depending on destination and distance. In 1840 Rowland Hill proposed a uniform rate for Great Britain that could be prepaid by postage stamps, and on May 25, 1849, the Legislative Assembly of Canada resolved to adopt the use of stamps in Canada.

Provincial control

The first stamps of the province were in the values of 3d, 6d, and 12d. The lowest value depicted a beaver in an oval frame, and in fact was the first postage stamp anywhere to picture an animal. The 6d was a portrait of Prince Albert and the 12d (1 shilling) a portrait of Queen Victoria. The first issues were made on laid paper, which did not stick as well to envelopes, and so in 1852 the printers switched to wove paper. Thus the earliest issues on laid paper are quite rare; a grand total of only 1,450 copies of the 12d were ever issued, and copies today sell for upwards of US$50,000 apiece.

In the late 1850s, the postal service came out with new values: 1/2d, 7 1/2d, and 10d, the first two depicting Victoria, and the 10d featuring a portrait of Jacques Cartier. The 7 1/2d was unusual in that it was also denominated "6 Pence Sterling". In 1858 stamps began to be perforated.

In 1859 the province standardized on a single decimal monetary system, which also meant new stamps would be needed. In general the existing designs were used, resulting in a series of five stamps of values from 1c to 17c, plus a 2c value issued in 1864.

Dominion of Canada

The Dominion came into existence July 1, 1867, assembled from colonies each of which had their own stamps, so the new government issued a new series of stamps on April 1, 1868, superseding all previous issues. These featured a profile of Queen Victoria, and became known to philatelists as the "Large Queens". They ranged in value from 1/2c to 15c.

The Large Queens had a relatively short life, being replaced in 1870 by the "Small Queens", smaller stamps of the same basic design, adopted to be able to produce more stamps more quickly. The Small Queens came in a number of printings between 1870 and 1897.

In 1893 20c and 50c stamps came out with a 3/4 portrait of Victoria.

In 1897 the American Bank Note Company secured the contract to print stamps for Canada, which lasted until 1923. The company's first job was to print a series for the Diamond Jubilee celebrating the 60th year of Queen Victoria and the 30th year of confederation, the first commemorative stamps of Canada. The design was a side-by-side of the Chalon vignette of the young Victoria and the likeness painted by Von Angeli in 1862. The series included 16 denominations ranging from 1/2c to five dollars, a princely sum in those days, and more aimed at collectors than mailers. Only 9,937 of the $4 value were ever sold, and unsurprisingly they are rare and expensive today.

1897 also saw the Maple Leaf Issue, regular stamps with the central design based on a Jubilee portrait for Victoria, with maple leaves in each corner. It was in use for only a few months before being replaced by a modified design that replaced the lower leaves with numerals of value, motivated by the French-speaking population who found it difficult to read the textual denomination on the original design. (The Universal Postal Union would require the use of Arabic numerals in 1907.)

In 1898, a first step towards Imperial Penny Postage happened when a number of Dominions agreed on a uniform rate of 1d (2c in Canada). Canada issued an interesting stamp depicting a map of the entire world, with British possessions marked in red, inscribed "XMAS 1898" (the rate took effect on Christmas Day), and "WE HOLD A VASTER EMPIRE THAN HAS BEEN" underneath, a line extracted from "A Song of Empire" composed by Sir Lewis Morris in 1887. The stamp was notable as the first multi-color stamp of Canada, and also for the tremendous variability of the red highlighting, resulting in amusing geographical incongruities.

On January 5, 1899, the postmaster in Port Hood, Nova Scotia, running out of 2c stamps, cut about 300 3c stamps into pairs of uneven vertical strips, marking the wider pieces with a "2" and the narrower with a "1" and selling them as 1c and 2c stamps. These bizarre-looking stamps are among the great rarities of Canadian collecting. Because the postmaster created these without authority, many collectors do not recognize them as having had any official status.

Upon the accession of King Edward VII, the basic maple leaf was retained but updated with a portrait of Edward wearing the ermine Robes of State. Canada's first experiments with coil stamps occurred during this period.

King George V was depicted in 1911 as Admiral of the Fleet in a widely-admired design that continued in use until 1928.

1928 saw the "Scroll Issue", so-called because "CANADA" appeared in a scroll across the top. This was the first issue to be bilingual. The pictorials are among the finest stamps ever produced, especially the 50c value portraying the legendary schooner Bluenose.

The "Arch Issue" of 1930 was similarly elegant. The last issue for George V, in 1935, was called the "Dated Die Issue" because the year appeared in very small print in the design.

The dated die concept was used in 1937 as well, in the stamps issued for King George VI.

Reference

Winthrop S. Boggs, The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada (1945, reprinted 1974)