Frederick Booty

The cover of Booty's first illustrated stamp catalogue.
A hand-drawn page from Booty's catalogue showing early Malta and Mauritius stamps but not the famous Mauritius "Post Office"

Frederick William Booty (Circa 1840 - 1924)[1][2] was an artist, living in Brighton, England, who was also the author of the first postage stamp catalogue in English,[3] and the first illustrated stamp catalogue anywhere.

Education

In 1893, a Frederick William Booty received a Master of Arts Degree from Cambridge University.[4]

Stamp catalogues

Booty's Aids to Stamp Collectors, being a list of British and Foreign Postage Stamps in Circulation since 1840 - by a Stamp Collector, was published in April 1862,[3] just weeks before Mount Brown issued his more successful work, and when Booty was in his early twenties.[5] The catalogue was partly based on earlier works produced in Belgium and France.[1]

Later in 1862, Booty was also the first to issue an illustrated catalogue, titled The Stamp Collector’s Guide; being a list of English and Foreign Postage Stamps, with 200 fac-simile drawings. This edition listed 1100 stamps[5] and Booty drew all of the illustrations himself.[6] He reportedly used half a million stamps to compile the catalogue.[7]

Booty also contributed to the Monthly Advertiser, published by Edward Moore & Co., in 1862.

These catalogues appear to have been a business venture, capitalising on Booty's artistic skills, as there is no evidence that Booty was a philatelist.

"Whitby", a watercolour painting by Frederick Booty from 1886.

Art

Booty's watercolour landscape pictures are still regularly featured in art auctions in Britain. Although originally based in Brighton, his later work is mainly of scenes from Yorkshire and Humberside, including Hull and the ports of Scarborough and Whitby. Harbour scenes were a popular subject with Booty. He also painted Yorkshire panoramas and the peacocks at Haddon Hall, Derbyshire.[8]

See also

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 Schofield, Brian. Who Was Who in British Philately. London: British Philatelic Trust, 2003, p.10. ISBN 1-871777-14-3 Online version here
  2. ↑ Year of birth uncertain. 1841 according to Schofield but 1840 according to art sources.
  3. 1 2 "Evolution of the Postage Stamp: Exhibition at Brighton" in The Times, 9 January 1920, p.8.
  4. ↑ "University Intelligence" in The Times, 23 January 1893, p.6.
  5. 1 2 The Stamp Lover, Vol.1, No.1, June 1908, pp.5.
  6. ↑ Birch, Brian. Biographies of Philatelists and Dealers. 9th edition. Standish, Wigan: 2008, p.238.
  7. ↑ Morgan, Helen. Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Stamps. London: Atlantic Books, 2006, p.33. ISBN 1-84354-435-0.
  8. ↑ Art auction results for Frederick Booty. Retrieved 23 March 2010. Archived at WebCite here.

Further reading

External links

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