Neil Donaldson published in 1975 "The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf". In this book, now out of press, he described, amongst other items, the first 17 type of cancellers used in Qatar as well as the history of the post office - in particular the Umm Said (today Mesaieed) Post Office in the Qatar Petroleum facilities.
Note that the stamps on the cover in the slide below are still in the hexadecimal Indian Rupee format issued on the 5th of December 1952. It was not until 1957 that the Indian Rupee changed to the decimal format.
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Another item that Neil Donaldon meticulously described were the design process for the first stamps to be issued in Qatar with the portrait of the then ruler H. H. Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Bin Jassim Al Thani (who was also given the Knighthood of Commander of the British Empire) - see slide below:
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The Knighthood ceremony was done aboard HMS Newfoundland - below I described a little of the ship's history.
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But back to philately, H. H. Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Bin Jassim Al Thani had an important role in the design of Qatar's First own designed stamps as well as the opening of its own Postal Agency. But that is the topic for a later post.
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