SarawakFirst Postage Stamp

A posthumous first

On Borneo’s northwest coast, Sarawak was a land of rivers and jungle when James Brooke carved out his own kingdom as the first "White Rajah". In 1869, Sarawak issued its first stamp, a 3c brown & yellow bearing the portrait of James Brooke, though he had died the year before. To my knowledge, it became the world’s first postage stamp to depict a ruler posthumously, a miniature memorial to the man who founded the state. The stamps were lithographed in Glasgow by Maclure, Macdonald & Co., perf 11 with no watermark. In the four corners sit the initials J B R S, James Brooke Rajah Sarawak, which is one more detail to honour the founder. The Brooke dynasty would go on to rule for three generations, their faces a constant on Sarawak’s stamps until the mid-20th century. But it all began here, with one portrait and one single value.