BRITISH OCCUPIED PERIOD ISSUED STAMPS (1937-45)
There
was no postal system and no records of using stamps in Burma during the
rule of Burmese Kings. Burmese used local messengers and volunteer
carriers to send letters.
Burma
had been an autonomous country for hundreds of years before being
defeated in three wars with the British. When Burma was incorporated
into the British Empire, it was not as an independent new colony, but as
a division of the province of India. Under British occupancy, British
authorities set up an official postal system in Burma.
By
1827 Akyab Post Office was established, and by 1837 there were four
sub-offices: Kyauk Phyu, Ramree, Sandway and Moulmein. Records showed
that British Army General A. Godwin sent Mr. C. M. Crisp as a post
officer for the military after the British occupied the Lower Burma in
1852. Postal services were developed from the military needs of the
Burmese War with the British. Mr. Crisp was appointed as Rangoon
Postmaster on September, 1852 and tried to develop the stuffs and postal
works.
Burma
became a self-governing unit of the British Commonwealth and received a
constitution on April 1, 1937. Therefore, the first stamps of Burma
appeared on April 1, 1937. These were stamps of India used between 1926
to 1936, with the overprint of the word "BURMA" in black. The face
values were in the Indian Monetary System of Pies (Ps), Annas (As) and
Rupees (Rs).
The First Provisional Stamp Designs
"Provisional"
is a term descriptive of a stamp of a temporary nature and deemed to be
a short-issue stamp employed pending the omission of definitive issue.
The first provisional stamps of Burma were sold on April 1, 1937, which
was the day of political and administratively separation of Burma from
India.