Edward Stanley Gibbons
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Edward Stanley Gibbons was an English dealer in postage stamps and founder of Stanley Gibbons Ltd.
He was born in Plymouth, Devon on 21 June 1840 - the same year that the Penny Black was introduced. He was the youngest child of William Gibbons, a pharmacist and his wife Elizabeth Langridge. He was educated at Hallorans’ Collegiate Establishment, then left at the age of 15, becoming a clerk in the Naval Bank for a few weeks then being apprenticed to his father.
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At this time stamp collecting was becoming popular and, in 1856, he started trading in stamps from his father’s shop. In 1863 he bought two sacks of Cape of Good Hope triangular stamps for £5 from two sailors who had won them in a raffle in Cape Town, and is alleged to have made £500 profit on the deal. In 1865 he issued a sixteen-page price list that was to be the forerunner of the famous Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogues.
His father died in 1867 and he took over the shop, which he sold in 1872, moving to Plymouth Hoe, from where he published a series of stamp albums. In 1874 he moved to London, first to Clapham Common, then to 8 Gower Street in 1876, where he started to publish a monthly magazine.
In 1890 he retired, selling his business for £25,000. It became a private limited company, Stanley Gibbons Ltd, but he remained its chairman. He visited the United States and the Far East in his retirement. He died at his home in Kensington on 17 February 1913.
He had been married five times. They were Matilda Woon (daughter of a Congregational minister), Maggie Casey (daughter of a publican), Georgina [uncertain], Bertha Barth (a widow) and Sofia Crofts (daughter of a wine merchant).de:Edward Stanley Gibbons fr:Edward Stanley Gibbons