Qatar to Kirkuk - Early covers

Prior to the start of the Post Office in Qatar, most of the in and out mail would have been directed via Bahrain. The only way to identify the covers as being to or from Qatar, would be the address. This is the case for the three covers below.

The first cover is from Nagpur, India to a Mr. Robert Lawson, working for the Petroleum Development (Qatar). As can be seen on the address, the last two lines show that the cover was sent via the offices of the Petroleum Company Bahrain.

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The second cover, is from a well known philatelist to a relative in Surrey, England. Again, the cover shows only Bahrain Stamps and a Bahrain cancellation. The only proof that it was sent from Qatar, is inside where the top line shows the date and Qatar.

Mr. Tonkinson, the sender, clearly was a keen philatelist, in this letter talking about acquiring stamps from far a field.

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As we can read on the previous letter. Mr. Tonkinson was aware that he would be travelling to Kirkuk, Iraq in April, giving him plenty of time to send himself another letter from Qatar (via Bahrain). Completing an interesting story.

In a previous blog, I showed that Mr. Tonkinson, possibly began his Middle East work for the Petroleum company in Beirut, Lebanon. Then moved to Basrah, Iraq prior to being sent to Dukhan, Qatar. Here we see that he also travelled to Kirkuk, Iraq. In a future post, I shall show that he also travelled to Dubai, Sharjah and Muscat. This to show that he was obviously an expert for the Petroleum Company.

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Qatar and the British Postal Agencies

I have already displayed the below cover with regards to the 'On His Majesty Service" (click here to read more on this).

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The cover was sent to Mr. W. J. Tonkinson from Bahrain. Mr Tonkinson is a known philatelist which also helps us to recognise the spelling mistake both on the cover and on the letter from the Postal Superintendent. The correct name would be Mr. W. D. Tonkinson.

The cover used a 1954 printed official On His Majesty Mail Service postal stationary. Printed for, and used by, the Postal Superintendent. The letter within, not often seen, clarifies some of the rare covers sent from each of the regional states, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar some of which will be presented later in this blog.

It is well known that the stamps used by the Gulf States from the 1950’s until their own postal services became independent, were issued by the British Postal Agency in Eastern Arabia. Since all postal services were controlled by the same agency, and as can be red on the letter itself, the British Postal Agency was willing to send the stamps overprinted for one state to another.

It is interesting to note that the British Postal Agency as shown on the top right corner of the enclosed letter, is not "in Eastern Arabia" as is now commonly known, but rather "Persian Gulf". I have already written a blog highlighting the change in the name from Persian to Arabian Gulf (click here to read the blog again). Perhaps the best known book regarding philatelic history of the region for that time frame was written by Neil Donaldson, entitled "The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf".

Clearly, the agency began life as the British Postal Agencies, Persian Gulf (see letter above). All covers until 1958 referred to the Persian Gulf. Towards the end of 1958 the first covers began to circulate referring to the Arabian Gulf. The British Postal Agency remained responsible for postal services in Qatar until 1963. Perhaps the agency itself changed it name from the British Postal Agencies Persian Gulf, to British Postal Agency in Eastern Arabia around the same time.

I would appreciate if anyone could share any additional information or images to validate the name of the Agency over the period of time.

The first set of stamps with QATAR on them !!!

The issue of stamps has been used to demonstrate sovereignty by many countries (as mentioned on my vey first blog) a good example are the many stamps issued to claim territory in Antartica such as Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, UK, USA, USSR and so on.

In this aspect, the countries under British suzerainty are no different. Below is one such example with the stamps from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

The stamps shown for all these states are the same issue of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II issued in 1957, but just like on my previous blog, the issue dates were not the same for all states.

A word of caution, it appears that there are forgeries of the Oman FDC. Generally, in that period the covers were always at least off white, yet there are some examples of the FDC on white FDCs which is in the very least suspicious.

For this collection, I opted to have all addressed FDC's, which provides more authenticity to them. Feel free to share your FDC's versions for this set - in particular looking for a version from Dubai.

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