If we turn back time by a few centuries, one of the first things that stands out is how different communication was from what it is today. Information was sent over long distances using smoke signals, drumbeats, and even town criers. It could take days or weeks for a message to reach the receiver. In contrast to present-day, emails, text messages, and multiple online platforms have made this process instantaneous. But there was an era that straddled these two worlds and served as a transitional period from one to the next; this was the era of letter-writing. The story of this era can’t be told without mentioning postage stamps.
Timeline of Postage Stamps
The first postage stamps of British East Africa were issued after the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) set up post offices in Mombasa and Lamu in 1890. These stamps featured a motif of the sun donning a crown, bore the name of the company, and were valued between ½ anna to 4 annas (1 anna being equivalent to 1⁄16 rupee). They were later overprinted when IBEAC went bankrupt, and control of this territory was transferred from the company to the imperial government on 1st July 1895. The motif was maintained but the company’s name on the stamp was replaced with the words ‘British East Africa’. In 1896 a series of stamps depicting Queen Victoria were issued but ran short the next year.
Several changes happened in years that followed, starting with the merging of the postal services of Uganda and East Africa Protectorates in 1901. Then came the change of name of the East African Protectorate to Kenya in 1920, followed by the creation of a postal union that included Tanganyika in 1933. Each of these events was commemorated with the release of new postage stamp designs that featured profiles of the British monarchs who were in power at the time.
The Independence Era
A major turning point came about when the shackles of colonialism were shed on 12th December 1963, and the new independent nation was free to design its own postage stamps.
And this brings us to a Paukwa series titled #KeStamps, to take readers through the times and reasons behind the stamps released for use in Kenya in the decade that followed independence.
