Stamp Curiosities: Tapping Rubber in Ceylon

Behind these stamps lies a very romantic story. and a most unexpected link with the botanical gardens at Kew, London.

It had been long known that the very best rubber came from the Amazon Valley in South America, but there was none growing in the British Empire, and in 1876 Mr.(later Sir Henry Wickham, a far-seeing botanist and explorer of some note, chartered a British vessel (then lying at anchor in Santarem awaiting cargo) to bring 70,000 seeds of the rubber tree (Hevea braziliensis) to England. The seeds, carefully packed in banana leaves, were brought from lierpool to Kew, and from two thousand plants carefully and painstakingly reared by the staff of the famous greenhouses a number were just as carefully transported to Ceylon, and from these seedlings have developed not only the plantations in Ceylon, but eventually those of Malaya and Indonesia, which have grown into vast proportions; while Burma and Southern India also in due course received specimens, while providing an international source of raw material for our rubber needs and for that of many other nations.

But that is not all!

The The 9c. George V issue gave a picture of a woman plucking tea, and even here there were evidently technical errors, when the same design was repeated for the George VI 1938 set, this time in the 20c. value, again striking differences are apparent. Note the collecting basket, for instance, wholly different in shape and design; and the simple slender bangle on the arm of the worker
has now multiplied to one on each wrist, and even two on the upper arm.

Now look at the tea plant itself. In the new version it is held lower, and the leaves are smaller, and this has resulted in a change of attitude on the part of the worker for the hands too are held lower.