Edward Stanley Gibbons - Stanley Gibbons & Co.

Stanley Gibbons & Co.

On 29 January 1872, Edward (also known as Stanley) married Matilda Woon. Two years later, Gibbons decided to move to London to develop his stamp business and relocated to 25 The Chase, Clapham Common (South London). He employed women to tear up sheets of stamps in the evening from this address. Neighbours became curious of the number of women entering the premises and reported it to the local Watch Committee, however they investigated and concluded that nothing unusual was happening there.

Gibbons moved to Gower Street (London) in 1876. Gibbon's first wife, Matilda, died on 11 August 1877 in Devon from a wasting disease, marasmus. The Post Office Directory lists the main occupier of the Gower Street property as ‘Stanley Gibbons & Co publishers’ or ‘Stanley Gibbons & Co postage stamp dealers’. In 1887, Gibbons married his assistant and housemaid, Margaret Casey and in 1890, sold his business to Charles Phillips of Birmingham for £25,000 and retired. In 1891, Phillips opened a shop at 435 The Strand, as well as keeping the office at 8, Gower Street.

In 1892, two years after he had retired from business, Stanley brought the property “Cambridge Villa” in Cambridge Park, East Twickenham. It was an impressive residence in a fashionable area of suburban London, near the banks of the Thames, alongside Marble Hill House (built by George II for one of his mistresses). Gibbons lived there until 1911. The house was demolished in 1960.