Lamb, Richard (2014). Rennie’s Seeds.

Perhaps sparked by the many William Rennie Seed covers he handled during his long career, Richard (Dick) Lamb, one of Canada’s most respected philatelists, had a special interest not only in the postal history aspects of the covers themselves, but also in the history of the William Rennie Seed Company and the Rennie family. This interest extended to the history of other seed companies that operated in Ontario and in Canada in the Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and King George V eras. His research efforts took him to the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, the Toronto City Archives, the Toronto Harbour Commission, the Annex to the University of Guelph Library, where the Ontario Farm Museum archives were transferred when it closed, and also to the McLaughlin Library at the University of Guelph. “The William Rennie Correspondence, a Personal Recollection” was published in the November 2000 issue of Confederation, the newsletter of the BNAPS Large and Small Queens Study Group. Dick’s interest and research in the subject led him to prepare Rennie’s Seeds, the exhibit depicted in this volume of the BNAPS Exhibit Series. The exhibit received a Gold medal and the BNAPS Novice Exhibitor Award at BNAPEX 2003 in London, ON, and Vermeil at ORAPEX 2004 in Ottawa. The exhibit includes corner cards, private postcards, illustrated envelopes and perforated initial stamps used by the Rennie Company. There is also biographical material about the philatelic and military activities of members of the Rennie Family, including a section entitled, “General Rennie’s Raid on the Provincial Archives.” For this book Dick’s daughter Jennifer scanned the exhibit pages and then designed the cover from material in the exhibit. As a leading expert on British North America and British Commonwealth stamps and postal history, Dick enjoyed longtime memberships in the British North America Philatelic Society, the Canadian Philatelic Society of Great Britain, and the Postal History Society of Canada. He was also a longtime member of the American Philatelic Society and the Philatelic Traders’ Society. He also served on the VG Greene Foundation Expert Committee for ten years. Dick was an honourary life member of The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada, the Canadian Stamp Dealers Association, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Philatelic Society. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada in 2002.