May 2024 – The-Philatelist

New Zealand 1982, A nattering nabob comes to New Zealand, bringing sheep

A nabob is a word that comes to English from Hindi. In the English language it came to mean a fellow who returns after making a great fortune in India. When nabob John Cracroft Wilson arrived in New Zealand, he was perhaps not the fellow you would have expected to bring with him that rural England staple, a flock of sheep. You might not also expect New Zealand to take to the raising of sheep in a bigger way than even England. Even today with a diverse urban society, New Zealand hosts ten sheep for every human. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This view of a sheep herd is an attempt by the stamp designer to evoke spring. There were four stamps in the issue, one for each season. This is the lone season that implies work. Not sure what to make of that.

Todays stamp is issue A275, a 70 cent stamp issued by New Zealand on June 2nd, 1982. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents whether used or unused.

Sheep raising was not practiced by the Maori prior to the arrival of Europeans. The islands, especially the south island, are quite suited to it with ample grassland and well distributed rainfall over the seasons. John Cracroft Wilson was stationed in India during the time of the East India Company. He was tasked there with hunting down groups of native thugs that were preying on British in residence there. Thugery is another word that came to the English language from Hindi. He was quite successful at it but when faced with a patch of ill health he decided to find a more temperate climate and chose New Zealand.

Seeking a calmer rural life, he stopped in Australia and acquired a flock of sheep. One can imagine how treacherous it must have been to move a flock of sheep by sea in the time of sailing ships. Indeed the journey was quite hard on the flock with over 1200 of them having to be put overboard. He founded an estate near Christchurch that he named Cashmere. The name was to be evocative of the Indian region of Kashmir.

Just as Mr. Cracroft Wilson was getting established in New Zealand he was called back to India at the time of the Sepoy rebellion. His success in this period against thuggery was so that he was said by the Viceroy Lord Canning to have saved more Christian lives than any man in India. Mr. Cracroft Wilson was awarded by Queen Victoria the rank of Knight Commander in the newly established Order of the Star of India. Soon however he was back in New Zealand to tend his growing sheep flock. The growing flock required him to lease three additional sheep runs.

At the time New Zealand was short of accomplished men so Mr. Cracroft Wllson was pressed into a variety of roles. He was head of the Jockey Club, the Acclimation Society, a military cavalry reserve unit, the Governor of Canterbury College. He also served in the New Zealand Parliament where he was quite the nattering nabob in debate. Dealings with the Maori were a hot topic and Cracroft Wilson proposed importing a unit of Gurkhas from India to make short work of them. The suggestion was not taken up.

The sheep industry got a big boost in 1882 when it became possible to export the meat frozen and not just the wool. At the peak the flock of sheep in New Zealand was 70 million. With land becoming more valuable, it is no longer possible to allocate so much land to the sheep. The flock is down now to 39 million, but that is still 10 for every human being and ten percent larger than the sheep flock of the UK. The decline of market price for wool meant that by the 1980s, dairy farming became the bigger industry.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another toast the Hindi language. I had no idea there were so many contributions to ours. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

The early 20th century was an embarrassing time for the Russian Navy. There was an embarrassing defeat by Japan, a deadly friendly fire incident where fishing boats were mistaken for ridiculously far from home Japanese torpedo boats and this cruisers most famous shot was a blank fired under mutiny. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The older Naval warships from the naval construction race are quite strong looking and indeed an important role for them was to project power. They had huge crews so large hulls, they were armor plated unlike modern ships and the multiple large cannons are more visually powerful than modern shipboard missile silos.

This stamp is issue A1800, a three Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on July 26th, 1970. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations showing ships of the Soviet Navy. The Aurora was 70 years old at the time of the stamp but was still a navy ship with a crew and captain to maintain the ship and handle tourists and ceremonial functions, the other vessels in the stamp set were modern. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Aurora was launched in 1900 after being constructed in Saint Petersburg. It was a 6000 ton cruiser with a crew of 650 and part of the three ship Pallada class that were designed for Pacific ocean service. As a new ship, the sailors aboard had inadequate training. In 1903, the ships set out for Port Author in the Russian far east to reinforce the ships there. While on route in the Red Sea, there were second thoughts and the heavier ships were called back. Once back home in Saint Petersburg, there were third thoughts and the ships were again ordered to the Pacific accompanied by much of the Baltic fleet.

It was here that lack of training caused a disaster. Spotting several British fishing trawlers from Hull in the North Sea, they were confused with Japanese torpedo boats and fired at. Then the fleet went into chaos firing wildly at friendly ships. Aurora was lightly damaged and lost two sailors including the ship’s chaplain.

Arriving in the Pacific the force then faced the Japanese fleet. The fleet of this period Japan was mainly British built and trained and had new tech range finders that made their big guns more accurate. The Battle or Tsushima was devastating for the Russians. Many ships were damaged or sunk with the two top admirals and many ship’s captains, including the Aurora’s dying. The damaged Aurora was made a flagship and protected some smaller and slower vessels running from the Japanese fleet. The force made it to neutral Manila and was interred there for the rest of the war.

After the post war return, Aurora was made into a much needed training ship. However a ship full of young cadets many of whom were politically radicalized was not much good to the Czar. In the February 1917 Revolution, the ship mutinied and her captain was killed to be replaced by a sailor elected from the crew. In November 1917, the mostly Bolshevik crew fired one blank round that signaled to the city the beginning of the attack on the winter palace.

The ship’s crew picked the winning side in 1917, so was awarded this Order of the October Revolution

The 20s-40s saw the ship again engaged in training duties and friendly show the flag foreign visits. During the Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944, the ships 6 inch cannons were removed to form an onshore battery and the ship was heavily damaged from air strikes. Refurbished post war it resumed as a training ship before being parked permanently as a tourist ship. Firing the first (blank) shot of the 1917 revolution is thought quite noteworthy.

To last so long the ship has had much work done. In the late 1980s, the below waterline hull was cut off to be replaced by a new hull created from the original ships drawings. The old hull was sunk to create a reef. In 2013 it was suggested to by the Russian Defense Minister that the Aurora be named flagship of the Russian fleet and resume showing the flag foreign visits. The ship was duly taken to it’s original shipyard and refurbished but then instead just returned to it’s Saint Petersburg home to continue to receive tourists. Not many ships from this era survive. One that does is the Japanese battleship Makasa, that the Aurora faced at the battle of Tsushimi. Keeping these old ships painted and afloat is expensive but there are many fans. In 2009 the Makasa was fully repainted by volunteers from the current American aircraft carrier Nimitz. Admiral Chester Nimitz had previously promoted saving the Makasa during the American post war occupation.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those that keep these giant monuments to history afloat. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.