The Mosely Collection of British Africa stamps dating to 1935 was formed by Dr Edward Mosely of Johannesburg, South Africa. The collection was donated to the British Museum by his daughter, Kathleen Cunningham, in 1946 and is now held as part of the British Library Philatelic Collections. After the Tapling Collection, this is considered the Library's most important philatelic acquisition due to the number of countries represented and the number of unique items included.^[1]^[2]

Collection scope

The collection consists of stamps of the following countries and colonies: Ascension; the Bechuanalands; Cape of Good Hope (including Mafeking and Vryburg); Gambia; Gold Coast; Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika; Lagos; Mauritius; Natal; Niger Coast Protectorate (now part of Southern Nigeria); Nigeria; Northern Nigeria; Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia); Nyasaland; Orange Free State; Rhodesia; St. Helena; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; Union of South Africa; Southern Nigeria; Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe); South-West Africa; Transvaal; Uganda Protectorate; Zanzibar; Zululand.^[1]

Of particular note for quality and completeness are the collections of Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Orange Free State, and Rhodesia. Mosely spared no efforts to try to make his collection as complete as possible, and included all known varieties, as well as essays, proofs, 'specimens', and stamps on original covers.^[1]

Highlights of the collection include:

Ascension Island: a page of British stamps cancelled with the Ascension postmark before special stamps were introduced in 1922.
Cape of Good Hope: Die proofs of 1d., 6d., and 1s with the rarest item being a 4d. black, one of seven known to exist.
The Niger Coast collection has a number of proofs of the 1893 issue, some of which are unique.

The majority of the collection is unused or specimen stamps with a few used stamps.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Holmes, H. R. (January 1951), "The Edward Mosely Collection of the Postage Stamps of British Africa", The British Museum Quarterly, 16 (1), British Museum: 7–10, doi:10.2307/4422292, ISSN 0007-151X, JSTOR 4422292
^ "Philatelic Collections: The Mosely Collection". Bl.uk. 2003-11-30. Retrieved 2011-01-16.
^ Martin, Jeremy, & John Powell. (2010) West Africa in the British Library Philatelic Collections. Dronfield: West Africa Study Circle. pp. 144-150. ISBN 9781905647040

British Library

Named
collections

Ephemera	Ettridge Collection Evanion Collection Francis Place Collection Jaffray Collection National Reports Collection
Literature	Ashley Library Cotton Library Dexter Collection Durrell Collection Eccles Collection Ediciones Vigía Garrick Collection Hannas Collection Harold Pinter Archive King's Library Leyden Medical Dissertations Paston Letters Private Case Suppressed Safe collection Thomason Collection Todd-Bowden Collection of Tauchnitz Editions
Manuscripts	Arundel Manuscripts Coptic Language Collection Cotton Collection Egerton Collection Harleian Collection Royal manuscripts King's manuscripts Lansdowne manuscripts Stowe manuscripts Syriac Collection Stefan Zweig Collection
Maps	Beudeker Collection
Newspapers	Burney Collection
Philatelic	Bailey Collection Blackburn Collection Bojanowicz Collection Booth Papers Burnett Collection Campbell-Johnston Collection Chismon Collection Chinchen Collection Contributions Agency Collection Crawford Library Crown Agents Archive Crown Agents Collection Davies Collection Ewen Collection Feldheim Collection Fitzgerald Collection Fletcher Collection Foreign and Commonwealth Office Foreign Office Collection General Collection Ginger Collection H.M. Customs and Excise Collection H.M. Stationery Office Collection Harrison Collection Harrison & Sons Collection Heys Collection Imperial War Museum stamp collection Inland Revenue Stamping Archive Johnson Collection Kaluski Collection Kay Collection Langmead Collection Landmark Trust Lundy Archive McInroy Collection Model Collection Monks Collection Mosely Collection Muraleetharan Papers Murray Collection Photograph Collection Postal Authority Publicity Collection R.P.S.L. Handouts Collection Row Collection Ryan Collection Seymour Collection Scott Collection Shelley Collection Sherborn Collection Smith Collection Supplementary Collection Tapling Collection Treasury Excise Correspondence Turner Collection of Forgeries Turner Collection of Newspaper Tax Stamps Turner Collection of Railway Letter Stamps U.P.U. Collection Walker Collection Williams Papers Wilson-Todd Collection
Sound	British Library Sound Archive Oral History of British Science St Mary-le-Bow Debates

Other

Collection scope

See also

References