Robin M Startup Achive of New Zealand Postal History

The Society was given a great honour, when Stancy Startup, sister of Robin, so graciously gifted the society Robin's enormous archive of research notes and books accumulated over his 50 years of research. The archives are housed in a separate section of the society's library. Access to the archival material for research purposes can be found on this link:      Access to Robin M Startup Archives

 

Robin M Startup, RDP, FRPSNZ, FRPSL

 

Robin was without doubt one of the outstanding scholars of New Zealand philately and especially of New Zealand postal history; his knowledge and understanding was profound. He was the author, or occasionally joint author, of over sixty books or monographs and over ninety other manuscripts and limited published works.

 

In professional life he was Director of Administration of a public hospital in New Zealand before he retired. While still at school he became interested in New Zealand postmarks and later the stories behind the post offices, their names, the carriage of mails and the postmasters.

 

Over many years Robin built a major New Zealand postal history collection and researched extensively in the subject and its background, recording a considerable amount of the history of the postal services. He wrote widely in sharing his discoveries as may be seen from his publications. He was Editor of The Mail Coach, the journal of the Postal History Society of New Zealand, from 1964 to 1987, with over 2,000 articles published in this and many other publications.

 

His work was recognised by a Special Award from the Postal History Society of New Zealand, the Harry Cope Memorial Medal from the Forces Postal History Society, the Collins Award from The Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand, the New Zealand Philatelic Federation’s Award of Honour and later a special award from the same organisation. Robin was also awarded a New Zealand 1990 Medal approved by Her Majesty the Queen, and at the 2000 FIP World Congress, Madrid was the recipient of the Research Medal of the Federation Internationale de Philatelie.

 

Robin was elected to sign the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists in 2009. He was a Fellow of The Royal Philatelic Society London and of The Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand where he was the Honorary Archivist. For the Postal History Society of New Zealand, he was the Honorary Research Officer.

(taken from: http://www.philatelicdatabase.com/new-zealand/robin-m-startup-rdp-frpsnz-frpsl/ )