The Stamp Advisory Committee (SAC) is a committee to advise on the design of British
postage stamps
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 fa ...
.
History
The committee was originally established as an offshoot of the
Council of Industrial Design
The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better".
It was instrumental in the prom ...
in 1946. On 21 February 1968 a new
Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
appointed committee was set up and today the SAC advises the United Kingdom's
Royal Mail
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on their stamp issuing policy.
Work of the committee
Royal Mail select the subject of upcoming stamp issues and appoint designers to draw up a variety of different possible design for each issue. The committee then review the possible design and advise Royal Mail which they think is the best. The committee's recommendations are not binding on Royal Mail, nor does it select new subjects for stamp issues.
The committee is drawn from all walks of life but includes particularly designers, Royal Mail representatives and a British Government representative.
No guidelines for stamp issues are provided to either the SAC or Royal Mail.
The records of the SAC have been archived at the British
National Archives along with other records of Royal Mail and its predecessors and are available for the public to view as the 30 year embargo elapses.
Controversies
The subjects chosen for British stamps have often been controversial. In 1996 for instance, questions were asked in the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
about the choice of a stamp showing the British children's television character
Muffin the Mule
Muffin the Mule is a puppet character in a British 1946-1955 television programme for children. The puppet had been made in 1933 for Hogarth Puppets. The original TV programmes featuring the animal character himself were presented by Annette M ...
over one showing the designer
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
and a government minister was forced to explain that such choices were not part of the work of the SAC.
The choice of subjects for a set honouring ''20th Century Women of Achievement'' was equally controversial.
And in 1965,
Sir Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...
resigned as Chairman of the committee in protest at the increasing commercialism of the Post Office's stamp issuing policy, saying "There had been a change of outlook in the production of stamps with which I was not in sympathy. .... I was afraid that the admission of pictorial stamps would lead to complete banality"
References
{{Reflist
External links
Royal Mail description of stamp design and selection process
Philatelic organisations based in the United Kingdom
Philately of the United Kingdom