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Aden is a city in southern
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
. Aden's location made it a popular exchange port for
mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...
passing between places around the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
and Europe. When Captain S. B. Haines of the Indian Marine, the East India Company's navy, occupied Aden on 19 January 1839, mail services were immediately established in the settlement with a complement of two postal clerks and four letter carriers. An interim postmaster was appointed as early as June 1839. Mail is known to exist from 15 June 1839 although a regular
postmaster A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...
was not appointed until 1857; one of the officials of the Political Agent or the civil surgeon performed the duties of postmaster for a small salary.Rossiter & Flower, p.223.


Stamps of British India

By the Indian Post Office Act of 1837 (Section XX) all private vessels were required to carry letters at prescribed rates for postage. A handstamp was applied to preadhesive ship letters in Aden; although these handstamps were used until 1867, examples are rarely seen. The Aden Settlement used adhesive
postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...
s of
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
from 1 October 1854 until Aden became a
crown colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Council ...
on 1 April 1937. As an outpost of the British East Indian empire, Aden was supplied with India's first lithographed adhesives, which became available in Aden just as they were issued on the Indian mainland. Until 1857, the only Aden post office was in the Crater, later known as Aden Cantonment or Aden Camp. Mails were carried by camel to and from Steamer Point. In 1857 a Postmaster was appointed and the main post office was moved to new quarters at Steamer Point. Covers from Aden with the Indian lithographed stamps are rare. Although these stamps did not have an Aden
overprint An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a Postage stamp, postage or revenue stamp, postal stationery, banknote or Ticket (admission), ticket after it has been Printing, printed. Post offices most often use ...
, many of them may be recognised (even off cover) from the frequent use of the number 124 in postmarks, a number assigned to Aden as part of the Indian post office identification system. However, other numbers and letters also were used to identify the offices in Aden: these include 132, 125, A/125, B and B-22.R. W. Pratt, ''Postal History of British Aden, 1839-1967,'' ed. E. B. Proud, Proud-Bailey Co Ltd. (1985), .


First stamps


Dhow Issue

In 1937, the Settlement was detached from India and became the
Colony of Aden Aden Colony ( ar, مستعمرة عدن, ), also the Colony of Aden, was a British Crown colony from 1937 to 1963 located in the south of contemporary Yemen. It consisted of the port of Aden and its immediate surroundings (an area of ). Prio ...
, a British Crown colony. The new colony received a series of twelve
definitive stamps A definitive stamp is a postage stamp that is part of the regular issue of a country's stamps, available for sale by the post office for an extended period of time and designed to serve the everyday postal needs of the country. The term is used in ...
depicting a
dhow Dhow ( ar, داو, translit=dāwa; mr, script=Latn, dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically spo ...
, produced by De La Rue & Co.


George VI

In 1939, a new definitive issue with the effigy of
King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of In ...
was issued. The sultans of the two major states in the
Hadhramaut Hadhramaut ( ar, حَضْرَمَوْتُ \ حَضْرَمُوتُ, Ḥaḍramawt / Ḥaḍramūt; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, ''Ḥḍrmt'') is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Saud ...
(part of the
Aden Protectorate The Aden Protectorate ( ar, محمية عدن ') was a British protectorate in South Arabia which evolved in the hinterland of the port of Aden and in the Hadhramaut following the conquest of Aden by the Bombay Presidency of British India ...
) objected to this since they were sovereigns in their own right and were not subjects of the King of the United Kingdom. Therefore the British government issued separate stamps in 1942, with the additional inscriptions '' Kathiri State of Seiyun'' and '' Qu'aiti State of Shihr and Mukalla'' (later '' Qu'aiti State in Hadhramaut''), with portraits of the respective sultans replacing the effigy of George VI. All of these types were valid in Aden and in the Aden Protectorate. In 1951, the definitive issue of 1939 was overprinted with shilling denominations when the British East African shilling replaced the Indian rupee as the legal currency of Aden. Stamps inscribed Aden were used until 31 March 1965 when all were withdrawn. Stamps of the
Federation of South Arabia The Federation of South Arabia ( ar, اتحاد الجنوب العربي ') was a federal state under British protection in what would become South Yemen. Its capital was Aden. It was formed on 4 April 1962 from the 15 protected states of ...
, formed from
Aden Colony Aden Colony ( ar, مستعمرة عدن, ), also the Colony of Aden, was a British Crown colony from 1937 to 1963 located in the south of contemporary Yemen. It consisted of the port of Aden and its immediate surroundings (an area of ). Prio ...
and
Aden Protectorate The Aden Protectorate ( ar, محمية عدن ') was a British protectorate in South Arabia which evolved in the hinterland of the port of Aden and in the Hadhramaut following the conquest of Aden by the Bombay Presidency of British India ...
, were issued from 1963 to 1966.


See also

*
Federation of South Arabia The Federation of South Arabia ( ar, اتحاد الجنوب العربي ') was a federal state under British protection in what would become South Yemen. Its capital was Aden. It was formed on 4 April 1962 from the 15 protected states of ...
*
Postage stamps and postal history of Yemen This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Yemen. Yemen is located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. It has an estimated population of more than 23 million people and is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Se ...
*
Revenue stamps of Aden The British colony of Aden, which is now part of Yemen, issued revenue stamps from 1937 to around 1945. Prior to having its own issues, Aden had used revenue stamps of India. Court Fee The first set of Aden Court Fee stamps was India's King Geor ...


References and sources

;References ;Sources * Stanley Gibbons Ltd: various catalogues
Encyclopaedia of Postal History
* Rossiter, Stuart & John Flower. ''The Stamp Atlas''. London: Macdonald, 1986.


Further reading

* Brown, Gary. ''Catalogue of a Display: Aden Postal History to 1914 given to The Royal Philatelic Society of London April 28, 2011.'' Melbourne: Gary Brown, 2011. * R. W. Pratt. ''Postage stamps and postal history of Aden'', ed. Proud, Edward B. Proud-Bailey Co. Ltd., 1985. * Proud, Edward. ''The Postal History of Aden and Somaliland Protectorate''. Proud-Bailey Co. Ltd., 2005. * Victoria Stamp Co., "The Jerone R. Hart Collection, Aden and India Used in Aden", Public Auction No. 28 (October 9, 2010).


External links


Resource Page for Collectors of Aden Stamps and Aden Postal History.
{{PostalhistoryAsia Colony of Aden
Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 peopl ...
Philately of Yemen
Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 peopl ...