Edward Stanley Gibbons - Overseas Trips

Overseas Trips

During Gibbons' retirement he made numerous trips overseas, mostly for pleasure, but also for business, buying stamps for his old company. A scrapbook was discovered belonging to either him or someone close to him, it contained photographs and memorabilia. It related mostly to his travels. The scrapbook became divided, half of it is kept in the Society of Genealogists archive and the other half is in private hands.

In 1894, Gibbons witnessed the crash of the Orient Express at Tirnove in Bulgaria. A pencil drawing of the crash, appears in his scrap book. A newspaper cutting headed "Honolulu, January" was also found in the scrapbook, referring to a resolution to burn stocks of obsolete Hawaiian stamps. Gibbons was present at the fire and described the experience as "sad". During this time, he was on his second world tour and was en route to Japan.

Margaret died on 23 November 1899 of cirrhosis and a few years after her death, Gibbons was in Calcutta and Rangoon. The scrapbook contains a duplicate passport issued at Rangoon on December 1901 for a Mrs Gibbons, his third wife, Georgina. In 1903, Gibbons was in Ceylon. The Society of Genealogists archive contains a newspaper article titled, Reminiscences of a Stamp Collector- Mr Stanley Gibbons (sic) in Colombo. The cutting is not dated, but is presumably from 1903 as it refers to the recent issue of stamps with King Edward VII’s portrait. When asked around this time if he still collected Stamps, Gibbons replied that he had specialised collections in six countries, but rarely bought any stamps because they were too expensive. Further visits seem to have been made to Ceylon judging by the existence in the scrapbook of souvenirs for Colombo Empire Day Celebrations and Edward VII’s Birthday Celebration Dinner in Colombo (November 1906).