Royal Mail is today issuing a set of ten Special Stamps to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. Six stamps show a timeline of the development of the London Underground ranging from the first steam driven Metropolitan Line service through to a striking image of Canary Wharf, the most modern Jubilee Line station. There is also a special four stamp miniature sheet focusing on the design heritage of London Underground posters.
Andrew Hammond, Royal Mail Stamps spokesperson, said: “After a year where images of London were beamed around the world, showing this great city in all its glory and splendour, it’s quite fitting that we should begin 2013 celebrating one of London’s hidden treasures.
“The breadth and scale of the London Underground is a wonder to behold. These beautifully designed stamps pay tribute to one of London’s greatest and most iconic assets, one that has served it so well for over 150 years, and will continue to do so for many more years to come.”
In January 1863, London’s Metropolitan Railway opened the first underground service in the world. This went from Paddington to Farringdon with the aim of linking the mainline termini with the City of London. This is celebrated on two 2nd Class stamps, one marking 1863 and showing a steam locomotive on the Metropolitan Line, and the other showing the excavation of a tube tunnel by railway construction workers in 1898.
There are two 1st Class stamps in the issue, the first of which depicts a traditional 1911 commute from the suburbs with a carriage of Edwardian ladies and gentlemen illustrated on their journey to work. Boston Manor, a traditional Art Deco station rebuilt in 1934, takes pride of place on the second 1st Class stamp in the set and perfectly demonstrates the distinctive, defining look of the mid-1920s modern London.
Classic Rolling Stock, the trains introduced on the tube’s deep cut lines in 1938, are depicted on one of the £1.28 stamps, with the final stamp in the set showcasing one of the most recent additions to the London Underground network, Canary Wharf station (£1.28). Designed by Sir Norman Foster, the Jubilee Line Extension, which included Canary Wharf, marked a return to the high design standards of the pre-war years.
The miniature sheet of four stamps celebrates the poster art that has defined the London Underground for more than a century. The pictorial poster was a distinctive and highly effective medium for promoting all aspects of the London Underground and later London Transport. The visual images brought modern art and design to a huge audience and many of the artists commissioned were influenced by the avant-garde European art movements of the early 20th century. This brought Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism to the general public of Britain and the four stamps have three classic London Underground posters on each.