Stamps of the British Empire: A World Tour

Conquered by the English in 1655, Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth member on 6 August 1962. A hand-painted map of the Caribbean basin anchors this sheet, with a 1937 Coronation pair, a UPU 75th-anniversary issue and four 1962 Independence commemoratives — the Doctor Bird, Blue Mountain Peak, the national coat of arms on a £1 value, and the flag.

Jamaica's stamps served the Cayman Islands from 1889 until 1901, when the colony began issuing its own. Five stamps are mounted here, from an Edward VII portrait through a George VI sailing-ship pictorial to a QEII outline-map definitive.

British Honduras issued stamps under that name from 1866 to 1973, when the territory was renamed Belize; full independence followed on 21 September 1981. This page carries eleven early Queen Victoria and Edward VII definitives on the main sheet, plus a Stanley Airport pictorial and a butterfly-and-QEII design on the supplement.

British post offices once operated in Dominican ports, using distinctive numbered barred cancels — Porto Plata (1871–1879, No. C 86) and Santo Domingo (1865–1879, No. C 87). No British-era covers survive here, only two later national Dominican issues: an anti-malaria stamp and an education-centenary commemorative.

The Leeward Islands crown colony grouped the Virgin Islands, Barbuda, Antigua, Anguilla, St Christopher-Nevis, Montserrat and Dominica under one general stamp issue from 1890, withdrawn in 1956; individual islands also kept their own issues. The British Virgin Islands printed stamps from 1866 — four are shown, including an early Half Penny and a QEII map-of-Tortola design.

Antigua was a presidency of the Leeward Islands crown colony until 1956, an associated state from 1967, and independent from Britain together with Barbuda on 1 November 1981. Eleven stamps run from Victorian issues in orange-red, through a St John's Harbour George VI pictorial, to a Postage Stamp Centenary pair marking 1862–1962.

Part of the joint postal territory of St Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla from 1952, Anguilla broke relations with the other two islands on 30 May 1967 and began issuing its own stamps that year, gaining a separate government on 10 February 1976. No stamps of Anguilla's own survive mounted on this page — only the historical note beside Antigua's stamps.

St Christopher issued its own stamps from 1870, sharing issues with the Leeward Islands from 1890 and with Nevis from 1903; Nevis had its own stamps from 1861. United as the crown colony St Kitts-Nevis in 1956, the joint territory used combined "Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla" stamps from 1952–1980. Five QEII pictorials are mounted here — Salt Pond, Bath House and coastal-view designs.

A former British crown colony among the Leeward Islands, Montserrat gained autonomy in 1963. Five stamps are shown here, from George V portrait definitives through a 1937 Royal Wedding issue to a modern Churchill/QEII joint commemorative alongside a Machin definitive.

Long disputed between France and England, Dominica was taken by the English in 1759 and became an associated state in 1967, independent from 3 November 1978. Four stamps run from an early one-penny "War Tax" overprint to a vanilla-drying and river pictorial pair in the QEII series.