Gordon Sterling Jory was born in Brandon in 1907. Educated in the city’s public schools, Mr. Jory was a lifelong native of the city. He retired from his position with the Unemployment Insurance Commission in 1968. He died in 1968. Throughout his adult life, Mr. Jory was an avid collector of stamps and in particular of postal covers.

In the course of his collecting, Mr. Jory assembled a historic collection of Manitoba postal covers. In 1968 he contacted Eileen McFadden, Director of the Brandon University Library, with a proposal to donate his collection of Manitoba postal covers to Brandon University. He wanted a permanent home for what he knew was a valuable historical record.

The Jory Collection comprises four volume of postal covers. Volume 1 includes squared circle postal stamps for Winnipeg for the years 1892-1898. Volume two includes squared circle postal stamps for Manitoba towns other than Winnipeg for the years 1893-1904. Volume three contains general postal covers for Manitoba for the period 1879-1906. Volume four includes general postal covers for Manitoba from the years 1893-1910. Specialists will also recognize many interesting railway post office (RPO), broken circle, and other postmarks of the period.

The idea of creating an online gallery of these postal covers originated with Dr. Robert Lane. He started this project with an e-mail to me a year or so ago. He and his associates in the British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) have had a longstanding appreciation of the importance of the Gordon Jory Collection now held at the University in the S.J. McKee Archives and Rare Book Collection in the John E. Robbins Library. With the new technologies available, surely it was time to introduce the collection to a broader audience and make it more accessible to specialists and collectors.

This was a collaboration involving Brandon University and BNAPS. Acting on behalf of the BNAPS Manitoba and Northern Ontario Regional Group, Rick Penko and Don Fraser came from Winnipeg to Brandon and created digital images of the Jory covers. Dr. Lane wrote the introductory note on postal covers and the detailed account of the various types of covers included in the Jory postmarks.

The British North America Philatelic Society (BNAPS) was formed in 1944 and describes itself as "The Society for Canadian Philately". BNAPS is an international organization devoted to the collector and researcher of the stamps, postal markings, and postal history of Canada, the pre-Confederation colonies, and Newfoundland. Its membership is made up of general BNA collectors, devoted specialists, prominent philatelic authors, and respected dealers. Any person of good character may become a member and share in the many benefits and resources the Society offers. For more information, visit http://bnaps.org.

Some members of BNAPS have formed "regional groups" in order to better share their interests in the hobby. Brandon members can belong to the Manitoba and Northern Ontario Regional Group. Members of that group were instrumental in the development of this project with Brandon University.

Here at Brandon University, the Information Technology web team -- Patrick Johanneson, Greg Misener, and BJ Graham -- did the creative work required to construct the site and place the images and text on the BU server.