Michael Geoffrey Medlicott, FRPSL (2 Jun 1943 - 5 Dec 2024)

Michael was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham and spent his childhood in Worcestershire, Somerset and Kent. After graduating from Lincoln College, Oxford in 1965, Michael joined P&O Orient Lines as a graduate trainee. He rose through the ranks and was a Director of P&O Travel by 1980. After an extensive career in the travel and air industry,and in Finance (Nomura International and on the Board of National Savings and Investments) Michael then moved into healthcare in 2010. Michael also held many government advisory positions including being on the ‘Tidy Britain Group’, ‘The Heritage of London Trust’, and ‘The Audit Committee of HM Treasury’. Regardless of what must have been an extremely demanding career, Michael was able to make time for a wide variety of interests. He enjoyed travel, was a keen opera buff, an enthusiastic gardener, and he loved his philately. Michael was also a big family man with his son Oliver, and three daughters Charlotte, Annabel and Flora; plus, six grandchildren, whom he adored (although sadly none of them had an interest in stamps despite his best efforts). He will be greatly missed by his wife Susan and his family.
Michael’s parents had neighbours with family living in Barbados and as a result, from the age of 5, Michael was supplied with Caribbean stamps ‘to collect’. Thus, commenced what became a lifetime’s passion for philately. He travelled widely and always took the time to visit the local stamp shops and post office wherever he was.
Michael was a member and a fellow of the Royal Philatelic Society, being awarded the RPSL Gold Plaquette in 2016. He has also been a member of the West Indies Philatelic Study Group for nearly 55 years (originally as a member of the British West Indies Study Circle). He wrote many articles for the Bulletin over the years.
Michael co-authored the now famous ‘Trinidad: a philatelic history to 1913’ book with two other philatelic giants - Ben Ramkissoon and John Marriott. It won the Charles Peterson Literature Grand Award and Gold Medal in 2011 and a further 4 international gold medals. British Empire Revenue stamps were a key area of his collecting (he had various exhibits of these), as were the manuscript postmarks of small villages in West Indies before the issue of date stamps. His British Empire revenues were dispersed in a landmark Stanley Gibbons auction on 26 Oct 2022. The catalogue, with many exotic highlights in the form of essays, proofs and usages, gives an insight into Michael's approach to collecting.
Michael was well known for his kindness and his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things philatelic. Michael’s thoughtfulness was epitomised by the appreciative emails he posted to members who researched and wrote good articles, and the time he put into writing detailed book reviews. His displays on Caribbean philatelic subjects were epic, always meticulously written up in his characteristic neat script. He was always keen to share his discoveries such as cancels, watermark varieties or constant plate flaws, which would be communicated to the BWISC journal or to Hugh Jefferies for possible inclusion in Part I. A recent example was the "broken frame" on the British Guiana 1876-79 issue and its subsequent surcharges,
and he always went out of his way to support and encourage fledgling members.
Michael’s Trinidad Collection will be auctioned by Spink on 29th April 2025.