founded so long ago as 1869, and has as its acting President H.R.H.
the Prince of Wales. For over thirty years, without a break, this
Society has held regular meetings during the winter months. Its
membership comprises most of the leading collectors in Great Britain
and her Colonies and many of the best-known foreign collectors. On the
membership roll are three princes, several earls, baronets, judges,
barristers, medical men, officers in the Army and Navy, and many
well-known merchants. This society has published costly works on the
stamps of Great Britain, of the Australian Colonies, of the British
Colonies of North America, of the West Indies, of India and Ceylon,
and of Africa. It publishes an excellently-got-up monthly journal of
its own, which now claims shelf-room in the philatelic library for ten
stately annual volumes. It has held two very successful International
Philatelic Exhibitions, one opened by the late Duke of Edinburgh and
the other by the Prince of Wales, then Duke of York. At its
fortnightly meetings, papers are read and discussed on various matters
relating to the hobby. Other meetings are held for the friendly
exchange of duplicates.

In the provinces, the principal societies are those of Manchester and
Birmingham. The Birmingham Society possesses a collection of its own,
which it keeps up to date, as a work of reference for its members.
Several of the societies hold periodical exhibitions, in which members
compete for medals, and in many other ways they lay themselves out to
encourage and promote the collection of postage stamps as a popular
pastime.

The names of the various societies and the addresses of the
secretaries are published at the commencement of each winter season in
Stanley Gibbons' _Monthly Journal_.