The world’s first Christmas stamp, issued on Dec. 7, 1898 by Canada was less a celebration of the season than it was a celebration of Queen Victoria and the empire to which Canada belonged
OTTAWA – The story of the world’s first Christmas stamp begins in the summer of 1898, in London, England, with a Canadian, William Mulock.
Mulock, Canada’s postmaster general at the time, had joined his Commonwealth counterparts for a conference in the imperial capital, the goal of which was to establish a common postage rate across the Commonwealth.
Move over Christmas — Eid, Diwali and Hanukkah to get their own Canada Post stamps
Canada Post is quietly preparing for its first annual issue of stamps that mark a religious holiday that is not Christmas
While in London, Mulock found himself talking to Queen Victoria and told her about a new stamp he had in mind should that common rate be achieved.
Mulock’s stamp would be notable for a few reasons, not the least of which was it would be the first stamp in the 31-year-old Dominion of Canada’s history to be issued without a picture of the Queen or her relatives on it. Mulock thought he should give the Queen a heads up about that. Indeed, by law, he required the Queen’s permission before a queen-less stamp could be issued.
Queen Victoria was curious: What was the point, she wondered, of issuing a stamp without her picture on it?
“The stamp is to honour the prince …” Mulock began before being interrupted. “The prince?” Queen Victoria said, sounding annoyed at Mulock’s presumption.
The Queen’s favourite prince, as Mulock and everyone in the world knew, had been her husband, Albert, who died in 1861. Was Mulock about to honour him without her say-so? Was he thinking of the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII?
Mulock, thinking fast on his feet and desirous of not offending the monarch, replied: “To honour the Prince of Peace, ma’am.”
And so was born the world’s first Christmas stamp, issued by Canada on Dec. 7, 1898, with a face value of two cents and the phrase “Xmas 1898” on it — a phrase honouring, as Mulock had promised, the birth of Jesus Christ.
Canada would be a country for 40 years before it issued a stamp with a single word in French on them. These are those stamps, issued July 16, 1908 by the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City. Clockwise from top left, the Prince and Princess of Wales; King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; Montcalm and Wolfe; and Cartier and Champlain
The story may not be entirely true, but it is part of the creation myth that still gets told by collectors, historians and current-day Canada Post employees.
The stamp is easy to find — 20 million versions were printed for a country that was, at the time, inhabited by about 5.5 million people. A decent mint edition of what collectors call Canada Stamp #85 might cost $40. The rare first-day cover issued on Dec. 25, 1898, is a $2,500 item.
The design of the stamp is officially credited to Warren L. Green, head of the Canadian Bank Note Company, printer of Canada’s stamps. But, in fact, the design was all Mulock. He literally stood over Green’s shoulder, telling him what to do.
Despite what Mulock may have told Queen Victoria about honouring the Prince of the Peace, what he really wanted to do was celebrate the empire. The main feature of his stamp is a blue map drawn by George Robert Parkin. Mulock insisted all the countries in the Queen’s empire be dabbed in red ink. Canada, of course, is the biggest splash of red and it’s right there in the middle of the stamp.
Running at the bottom is the phrase: “We Hold A Vaster Empire Than Has Been.” That phrase was lifted from “A Song of Empire,” written by Welsh poet Sir William Morris in honour of Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897.
We hold a vaster Empire than has been!
Nigh half the race of man is subject to our Queen!
Nigh half the wide, wide earth is ours in fee!
And where her rule comes all are free.
The first modern-era Christmas stamps from Canada were issued on Oct. 14, 1964. The ‘Star of Bethlehem’ stamps were designed by Harvey Prosser. Canada has issued Christmas stamps every year since
In looking back at the history of this first Christmas stamp — or the history of all stamps, coins and other items by which any state asserts its jurisdiction — we can trace the narrative of Canada: how the state thought about itself; how it wanted to be seen by its peers; and what themes it thought important for its population to ponder.
So it was with that first Christmas stamp and all others issued since. Consider: although Canada was born a bilingual country, and its first French-speaking prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, had just been elected, there was no hint of its two founding nations in Mulock’s 1898 stamp. Up to that point Canada’s stamps, like all official government cultural policy, was about one founding nation — the English one — and its connection to the empire.
In fact, Canada would be a country for 40 years before it put its first French word on a stamp, in 1908, when Laurier’s government celebrated the 300th anniversary of the founding of Quebec with a series of “French” stamps. Indeed, those first French stamps, featuring Champlain, Cartier, Montcalm and Wolfe, were, in a way, a small act of nation-making, an assertion of independence from the empire.
Laurier had to seek the express permission of Edward VII to issue those stamps. In doing so, he firmly established the tradition originated by Mulock — to use stamps to promote an official narrative that was politically valuable to the governing party.
Politicians would continue to interfere with stamp design and selection until 1969, when Canada Post established the independent, arms-length advisory committee that to this day decides who and what is on Canada’s stamps.
Until that committee was established, it was commonplace for stamp designers to be told to favour this theme or that to meet the political ends of the governing party.
“It happened all the time,” Harvey Prosser told me in a recent telephone interview from his home in Arnprior, Ont.
Prosser, who just turned 87, should know. Between 1959 and 1971, he designed 64 Canadian postage stamps, including the first Christmas stamps of our modern era: the 1964 3-cent and 5-cent “Star of Bethlehem” stamps.
As an employee of the Canadian Bank Note Company, Prosser was not in on the decision by the just-elected Pearson government to issue a Christmas stamp, but he remembers getting the assignment with only a few weeks to deliver a design.
Prosser, an Anglican, who then and now describes himself as “not terribly religious,” started doodling. “I was looking for imagery that wasn’t going to cause any controversy,” Prosser said. “I wanted to keep it simple, clean,” Prosser said.
Mission accomplished: The stamp features a family of four in silhouette standing in a snowy meadow. In the top left corner, one star is brighter than the other, a symbol that any Christian would immediately understand, but does not overpower the non-Christian. The image’s focus is clearly on the everyman family, a secular theme, and a theme of then-Governor General Georges Vanier.
The first appearances of an image of Jesus Christ or Santa Claus came on Oct. 7, 1970. On that day, Canada Post issued 12 Christmas stamps, each designed by schoolchildren. The image of Christ in swaddling clothes was drawn by Corrine Fortier, age 10, of St. Leon, Manitoba and the image of Santa was drawn by Eugene Battacharya, age 7, of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Prosser’s 1964 stamps were printed 400 million times for a country that had fewer than 20 million people. This year, by comparison, Canada Post might sell 25 million stamps for a country of 35 million.
Since 1964, Canada has issued roughly 180 different Christmas stamps. Throughout, one can see a country struggling with the role of religion in its society. One year, Canada would issue stamps heavy with religious imagery. The next, nothing but Santa, snow and sleighs.
And at the end of each season, Canada Post would get hundreds of complaints either way: Too much Jesus, not enough Jesus.
Indeed, Jesus would not appear on a Canadian postage stamp until 1970, when an image of the Christ child appeared on two stamps. For the 1970 Christmas stamps, Canada Post held a cross-country competition, asking schoolchildren to send in their ideas for a Christmas stamp. Canada Post selected and printed 12 different stamps that year, a mix of secular and religious themes.
The drawings of Janet McKinney, 8, of Saint John, and Corrine Fortier, 10, of St. Leon, Man. would be the first images of the Christ child, in his famous manger, to appear on a Canadian stamp.
Since the mid-1960s, Canada Post has regularly issued stamps with aboriginal themes and Christmas stamps have been no exception. Clockwise, from top left, a reproduction of the 1973 painting ‘Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist’ by Norval Morrisseau, issued on Oct. 25, 1990; issued Oct. 26, 1977 and designed by Yon van Berkom based on explorer/priest Father Jean de Brébeuf’s 1641 Huron Confederacy carol ‘Jesous Ahatonhia’; and a stamp issued Nov. 4, 2002 based on ‘Winter Travel’ by the late Ojibway artist Cecil Youngfox
Every seasonal stamp, whether secular or religious in theme, had the word “Christmas” on it — until 1989. That year, Canada Post struck the word Christmas from the stamp and replaced it with “Season’s Greetings.” It did it again in 1990, but this time the replacement phrase was “Peace on Earth.”
There were complaints, many of them. The word “Christmas” was returned in 1991, and has been there ever since.
The year there was no Christmas: The Christmas stamps issued on Oct. 26, 1989 were the first ever issued without the word ‘Christmas’. Instead, Canada Post used the phrase ‘Season’s Greetings’
Canada Post would resolve this seasonal tension between secular and religious themes in 2005, when it began to issue four “seasonal” stamps each year with at least one of those four having a religious theme and the rest “fun” themes.
“Now, we don’t get any complaints,” said Jim Phillips, Canada Post’s director of stamp services. “In fact, we get letters of congratulations for not forgetting that Jesus is in the season, that it’s his birthday.”
Needless to say, Santa Claus has been a recurring theme on Canada’s Christmas stamps since he first showed up one in 1970. From left to right, stamp titles and release year issued: Top row: ‘Santa in a Cadillac’ 2004; 2, ‘Ded Moroz'(‘Russian Santa’) 1993; ‘Estonia Santa’ 1992 / middle row: 1;2; ‘Christmas, Santa Claus Parade’ 1985; 4, ‘Santa Claus’ 1991 / bottom row: ‘Santa Claus’ 1973; , ‘Santa Clause’ 1975, ‘Santa Claus’ 1970
Canada Post says that, in recent years, the ‘religious’ stamps are outsold as much as five-to-one by the ‘fun’ stamps. Still, it is committed to religious themes. Here, a selection of stamps with Madonna and Child. 1. ‘The Madonna of the Flowering Pea’ 1978 ; 2. ‘Madonna and Child’ (Caruso) 2010 ; 3. ‘Our Lady of the Rosary’ (Nincheri) 1997; 4. ‘The Virgin and Child Enthroned’ (di Cione) 1978; 5: ‘Virgin and Child’ 2016 ; 6: ‘Mother and Child’ (Qiatsuk) 1990; 7: ‘Scene from the Life of the Blessed Virgin’ 1997; 8: ‘Genesis’ (Odjig) 2002 ; 9: ‘Madonna and Child’ 2014 10: Starting at 10, L-R: , ‘Christmas Stained Glass’ 2012; ‘Virgin Mary with Christ Child and St. John the Baptist’ (Morrisseau) 1990; ‘Madonna and Child’ Ukrainian 1988; ‘Mary and Child’ (Anguititok) 2002
