BIOGRAPHY: Henry Cooper Jervis

Henry Cooper Jervis was born in 1816. In around 1841 he moved to Adelaide in South Australia. In the two years he lived there, Jervis engraved a number of views of Adelaide buildings. In 1843, Jervis moved to Sydney, where he established himself as an engraver. In the early 1950s, Jervis engraved a number of New South Wales stamps.

Jervis engraved versions of the Sydney Views design and he was responsible for the re-engraving of the 2d laureated stamp, and an accompanying 8d stamp in the same design. In an 1894 journal of the RPSL, there is a rather scathing paper on his work on the 2d laureated stamp. Besides general criticism of Jervis’ work, specific flaws were pointed out in several of the stamps on the printing plate, which may be manna for the platers among philatelists but do nothing for Jervis’ reputation.

The main flaw has since been given catalogue status, consisting of the error in the country name, resulting in it reading New South Waees on the stamp in position 23. Furthermore, Jervis was rather inconsistent when it came to creating his eight-sided value label, omitting to cut out various corners, so that several labels on the plate only have six or seven sides.

You will find Henry Cooper Jervis' database HERE.