As regular readers will know, Royal Mail will not announce the programme of stamp issues for 2026 until at least Christmas, and probably not in detail until shortly before the first issue in January.
I've had a quick glance at Wikipedia for British events in 1926, although it is not always centenaries (or multiples of 25/50 years) which are marked nowadays.
I can't see the General Strike featuring and not the birth anniversaries of Kenneth Williams and Ernie Wise.
The Imperial Conference was held in 1926 which led to the Balfour Declaration which "accepted the growing political and diplomatic independence of the Dominions in the years after World War I ... determining that they were autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations" - and hence the formal use of the term Commonwealth.
If we do see any stamps for the foundation of The Commonwealth, I can see the Commonwealth Stamps Opinion blog will be very busy!
Alas we are more likely to see more stamps for Winnie The Pooh, it being the centenary of the book's first publication.
Other notable events from that year were the foundation of what became the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and the establishment of the first air (and hence airmail) route to South Africa by Alan Cobham. Both very worthy of commemoration - which is probably why they won't be included.
Suggestions by email only please to ian@norphil.co.uk, only one per person unless I prompt you for clarification or expansion.
Results and comparison with the actual programme in due course. The exercise ends when the programme is announced - please don't leak it if you see the calendar in a post office, it won't be published here.
NOTE: just for context, the following countries have already announced their part of the annual, preliminary programmes for 2026. In no particular order:
Slovakia (in June), Belarus, Germany, Poland, Russia, Latvia, Moldova, Bosnia Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Guernsey, USA, Jordan, Montenegro, Hong Kong, Croatia, Åland,
White Knight commenting - Coincidently I had prepared an edition of my Blog on this very subject and have just posted it without seeing this post you have made. I had very little success at predicting the 2025 programme and I don’t expect to be any more successful with 2026 predictions (some of which are tongue-in-cheek) so readers need not place any weight on my suggestions. I do wish RM would drastically reduce the number of issues & costs in 2026 but as long as people keep buying them RM will continue to issue them and doubtless RM makes large profits from the numerous associated products that they put on the market and are bought by people with the money to spend on them.
ReplyDelete(Not a serious guess, just a comment on modern RM stamp choices.)
ReplyDeleteGiven that Britishness is no longer as narrowly-drawn as was once the base, I won't be surprised to see an issue dedicated to the late Elvis Presley - after all, he did once set foot on British soil; and, as seems increasingly the norm, 2026 would miss a more meaningful anniversary of his birth (2025 saw the 90th anniversary of the Presley twins' births).
And, although image rights would cost a small fortune, such an issue would surely be a moneyspinner.