Bahamas Philately: 1954 Definitive Series – 1½d Out Island Settlement

The Out Islands are the islands that make up the Bahamas with the exception of New Providence Island. They are more sparsely inhabited and less economically developed than New Providence and Grand Bahama. The most populous of the Out Islands are Abaco, Andros, and Eleuthera; the Out Islands tend to be less populous as one moves southward.

A significant number of American Loyalists fleeing from the Revolution migrated to the Bahamas, along with their slaves. Specifically, some 300 white families (owning an estimated 5,000 slaves) fled from East Florida to New Providence; among these, the majority of the whites stayed on New Providence, while two-thirds of the slaves went to the previously undeveloped Out Islands.

A Tourism Development Board was set up in 1914 which had the power to advertise and market The Bahamas with an annual budget of three thousand pounds. This led to the beginnings of tourism in The Out Islands with the opening of the Bimini Rod and Gun Club in 1924.

As the tourism trade grew in the 1950’s, the Out Islands became a destination for intrepid tourists and luxury resorts. They soon became the haunts of the famous and wealthy, and were dominated by white inhabitants well into the 1960s.

Details

Designer:
Printer: Bradbury Wilkinson & Co Ltd, New Malden, Surrey, England
Process: Recess
Paper:
Watermark: Multiple Script CA
Perf: 11 x 11.5 (comb)
Plates: 1 (Black), 1 (Blue) : 1a (Black), 1a (Blue) [Left pane : Right pane]
Sheet: Printed in two panes of 120, separated by a gutter. Guillotined through gutter into two single panes (R10 x 6).
Quantity:
Reprints:
- 2nd Printing – 14 April 1955
- 5th Printing – 21 November 1956
- 7th Printing – 19 February 1958
- 8th Printing – 14 January 1959
- 11th Printing – 7 February 1961
- 12th Printing – 23 January 1962