Text/Zhang Huadong
Editor's note: The long-awaited London 2022 World Stamp Exhibition will open on February 19 after being postponed for two years, in order to let the stamp friends have a better understanding of this stamp exhibition, the "Philatelic" public number, "China Chromatography" and "Philatelic Museum" jointly launched the "London 2022 World Stamp Exhibition Special Series Report", and today forwarded the article of Mr. Zhang Huadong, founder of the "Philatelic Museum", about the chairman of the London 2022 World Exhibition Organizing Committee Walton, please enjoy!
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Brief introduction of Chairman Walton of the Organizing Committee of London 2022 World Exhibition
Zhang Huadong
Mr. Walton, whose full name is Frank Leslie Walton (Figure 1), is a Fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society (FRPSL), a signatory to the World Register of PhilatelicIsts (RDP), a FIP judge, and is currently Chairman of the Organising Committee of the World Stamp Show 2022 in London. Frank was not tall, as Chinese figure as we were, with a young man's head, and looked very lean. Frank always talks to you with a smile and makes people feel amiable and approachable.
Figure 1: Author and President Walton at the Royal Postal Society (Photo by Michael)
Frank told me that he had a hobby of stamp collecting since he was a student, but like other young people, he paused for a while at the age of 15 to 25 and later continued his hobby. In the mid-1980s, Frank said he had hit a bottleneck in his philatelic career, when he had almost everything he could afford to love the stamp collections and was looking for new challenges. And just at this time, he ushered in the timely rain. At that time, he was the secretary of the Associated Bank Philatelic Society in charge of the exchange of stamps, and one day a postman sent him a new stamp book of Queen Victoria of Sierra Leone to exchange, and Frank saw this stamp album and immediately realized that his opportunity had come, so he left about 90% of the stamps in the album, probably dozens of stamps, and then the rest flowed to the philatelic circle. These dozens of early Sierra Leone stamps were the beginning of his new stamp collection and laid the foundation for his famous Sierra Leone to 1961 stamp collection. He had vowed to collect only new stamps about his new stamp collection, but soon he was fascinated by some of the evocative village names on the postmark, such as KISSY (Kissy), TORMA BUM (Tormaboom), and so on. Of course, this is only half the story, and on the other hand, this new stamp collection has restructured his philatelic career. It was also because of this new philatelic collection that he gradually lost interest in other philatelic collections, and soon concentrated his entire philatelic collection on Sierra Leone, and he wanted to expand his postmark knowledge and find ways to buy such books, but contrary to his wishes, there were no such books available on the market. However, he was fortunate to work in the same office building as Fellow Philip Robinson of the Royal Postal Society, and Philip was also the regional representative of the Royal Postal Society, who had extensive experience with postmarks and authored postmark books. He told Frank that if there were no such books, he suggested that Frank write such books, and he encouraged Frank to broaden the scope of his research as much as possible, and it was under his encouragement and guidance that Frank published the book "The Postmarks of Sierra Leone 1854 to 1961" in 1990, which was popular with philatelic enthusiasts after publication.
Frank joined the Royal Philatelic Society in 1994, became editor-in-chief of Cameo, the journal of the West African Stamp Research Society, and a few years later was invited to meet two fellows of the Royal Stamp Society, GAVIN FRYER RDP FRPSL and George Barker RDP FRPSL, who negotiated with him to succeed George as editor-in-chief of the London Postmaster. It's an honor. I think that I can be appreciated by my predecessors mainly because of Frank's rich postal knowledge and work ability, as well as his outstanding performance as editor-in-chief of Cameo. Frank officially took office in June 2001 and became editor-in-chief of the world's most famous philatelic journal, which made him a natural member of the Council of the Royal Postal Society, and many years later in 2015. Frank served as editor-in-chief for a total of 14 years until December 2014, and so far, there have been 12 editors-in-chief of the London Postmaster since its inception (1892), and Frank's 14-year tenure ranks fifth.
It was also at this stage that the Sierra Leone stamp collection developed, with the continuous increase of Frank's philatelic products and the continuous improvement of stamp knowledge, so he decided to try his hand in the stamp exhibition world, but he did not expect that he was extraordinary and blockbuster, and his "Sierra Leone and before 1961" stamp collection won a big gold medal at the "London 2010 International Stamp Exhibition". In addition, he is interested in sheffield postal history and Chinese stamps, and has a deep knowledge of Chinese stamp research, and his "CHINESE INTERNATIONAL AIR MAIL TO 1949" (1949) has also won the "London 2015 International Stamp Exhibition" gold medal (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Mr. Kim Kim, President of the Royal Philatelic Society, Honorary Fellow, and Signatory of the Register of World PhilatelicIsts (CHRIS KING RDP FRPSL) said of Frank when he became a signatory to the Register of World Philatelists (RDP) in 2015: he is a writer who is very active in his field of philately, a philatelist who has won the World Award for stamp collecting, a judge of the International Philatelic Federation (FIP), who is very proficient in publishing and understands modern technology. This led him to initiate the creation of the Global Philatelic Library, a project that provides research opportunities and conveniences for philatelic enthusiasts around the world. Frank's digitization of the THE DE LA RUE COLLECTION and his editing into a book in 2014 earned him the European Philatelic Union's (FEPA) Research Prize. It is an amazing work that many collectors will regard as priceless.
On May 19, 2016, members and members of the Royal Philatelic Society in the UK had the honor to visit Frank's "Sierra Leone 1961 and Before" stamp collection exhibition, a total of 52 frames, everyone witnessed the famous stamp collection that won the big gold medal at this world exhibition, and the visitors also included members from European countries, and everyone agreed that many philatelic products were completely comparable to the museum's collections, and they were world-class treasures, which made people refreshing and admired, and some of the collections were unique in the world. A philatelic product worthy of the world's award. Among the exhibits are the mother model of the first Victorian Stamp of Sierra Leone, the design of the second stamp to the stamp of the Postage Machine in the 1950s. Figure 3 and Figure 3a are the philatelic products from the two stamp collections selected by the author to show you here and make a brief introduction.
Sierra Leone was one of the first governments in the world to issue stamps, the first of which was born in 1859. They chose the De la Ruff Printing House and this exclusive agency relationship lasted until 1931. Before 1872, 6p (6d) was the only stamp value (Figure 3), i.e. the postage for a single letter sent to England, at that time, Sierra Leone had no domestic mail service, so no other denomination stamps were required.
Figure 3: Sample of a 6p (6d) stamp taken from the general ledger of the De la Lu printing plant
图3a
Figure 3a, an 1815 letter from Scotland to FREETOWN, one of the last three remaining letters in the world delivered by a Sierra Leone company, was a business letter that mentioned the price of rice and that the sender said: "Your mother died a few weeks ago." Before 1848, there was no regular mail service between Sierra Leone and Britain, and in the early 19th century, letters were carried by ships owned and operated by Sierra Leonean companies. Zachary Macaulay on this letter is the appointed agent who was governor of Freetown in 1790 and retired to work for the colony in London.
Mr. Frank not only collects Chinese philatelic products, he is also very friendly to China, and he has traveled with this author to Promote and Introduce Blackpop stamps and participate in other postal events (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The author and Frank conduct postal activities in Guangzhou and Dongguan
At the 2019 Wuhan World Stamp Exhibition, he was also invited by the All-China Philatelic Federation to give a speech on the philatelic situation between China and the UK at the Stamp Exhibition Philatelic Forum (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Lecture at the Belt and Road Forum and Philatelic Forum (Photo by Mr. Gao Xiaoen)
In addition, as the head of the visiting delegation of the Royal Philatelic Society's Wuhan World Exhibition, he also participated in a number of philatelic activities that interacted with Chinese postal friends, such as the wang hongwei new book conference organized by the Literature and Philatelic Research Association (Figure 6) and the World Rare Stamp Event (Figure 7).
Figure 6: With Chinese philatelists
Figure 7: Walton was with Liu Jiawei, then vice president of the National Philatelic Federation, and other Chinese philatelists during the 2019 Wuhan World Stamp Exhibition
At the closing ceremony of the Wuhan World Stamp Exhibition, on behalf of the London World Stamp Exhibition Organizing Committee 2020, the International Philatelic Union flag was received from the Wuhan Organizing Committee (Figure 8).
Figure 8: Deputy Secretary-General Xi Dan of the Wuhan Government, President Ye of the Wuhan Postal Association, Chairman Walton and Vice Chairman of the FIP handover of the FIP flag in Wuhan
During the Outbreak in Wuhan, he also wrote an inscription to cheer for China for Chinese postmen (Picture 9)!
Figure 9: Mr. Yu Jingjun's article on Walton cheering for China published in China Grammail
Although Mr. Walton has been busy with various affairs as the chairman of the organizing committee of the London World Stamp Exhibition in recent years, he still takes time to study stamp collecting and participate in various philatelic activities, and his newly organized British stamp stamp collection won a large gold medal at last year's London International Stamp Exhibition (Autumn), and in recent years, his postal works have also won many awards, and he has also given many lectures on philology for posttenders on the Internet.
Chairman Walton has shared his experience with me many times about marshalling stamp collections. He says you have to pay attention to the places where it doesn't cost money, because sometimes you may spend a lot of money on a treasure, but you may only get an extra point or two, and if you can work the choreography, story organization, FIP rules and postal knowledge without spending a penny, you may get more points. The author's observation of his stamp collections does prove this. Although there are few or no shocking treasures in his stamp collection, the story is well told and well organized, and it still gets high scores. This experience is worth learning from.
Figure 10: Chairman Walton's welcome address
This London World Stamp Exhibition can be said to be a good thing, after more than two years of epidemic finally to open on the 19th of this month, Chairman Walton has paid a lot of efforts, in its active efforts, although the epidemic in the United Kingdom is still severe, but, as Chairman Walton said, this postponed stamp exhibition will be held on time. Figure 10 shows Chairman Walton's welcome speech (in English) published on the Stamp Exhibition Catalogue. We would like to thank Chairman Walton and other volunteers for their dedication, and wish the stamp exhibition a complete success, and also wish the postal friends from the mainland to achieve good results!