Jeffery Matthews

Jeffery Edward Matthews (3 April 1928 – 24 April 2023) was a British artist, specialising in postage stamp design from 1959 to 2007. He conceived the Machin definitive series' colour palette in the mid-1980s.

Biography Early years Jeffery Edward Matthews was born on 3 April 1928 in London, England. At Brixton School of Building he learnt painting, decorating,

Forming a design studio with Alan Harmer who died in 1953,

Stamp design At the end of the 1950s, Matthews registered to the Council of Industrial Design, which proposed graphic artists to client entities. In 1959, he was amongst the designers the Council proposed to the Post Office; the British postal administration was looking for the design of two stamp series to mark its 300th anniversary. Matthews' project went up to submissions to Queen Elizabeth II. But his and two other artists' proposals failed to please the Stamp Advisory Committee.

Matthews proposed some designs to reshape the Machin design into an horizontal format or with a barcode However some of Matthews' ideas were used for a horizontal autoadhesive stamp trial in 1997.

Awards Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire MBE 2004 for services to design Phillips Gold Medal for Stamp Design 2005

References and sources