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Stockbrokers

Address: 33 Bligh St, Sydney, NSW 

Revenue Use: 

Numeral 1938-66 issue 9d, 1/-, 2/-, 5/-

Rarity Scale: 

Numeral 1938-66 issue 9d R3, 1/- R3, 2/- R3, 5/- R4

Background: Alfred Meares was born in Sydney in November 1904 and in 1926 he became a clerk at the Sydney Stock Exchange. In 1932 he took a seat at the Sydney Exchange and worked for a small group of private clients.

After an absence for military service in World War 2 he returned to his seat and in 1949 he went into partnership with Jesse Bishop as A D Meares and Bishop.

Jesse Bishop had been born in Sydney in 1907 and was educated at Sydney University but completed his studies at Cambridge in England. Graduating in 1934 he worked for the Imperial Smelting Corporation for a short period before gaining a position with the stockbroking firm W Thompson and Son. and later Dormer Rumball and Co. in which he secured a partnership and a seat on the London Stock Exchange in 1940.

As with his future partner his career was punctuated by the war. After the war he worked in the legal department at Shell before returning to Australia for family reasons in 1948.

In 1949 he joined the Sydney Stock Exchange as a sole trader but soon joined fellow sole trader Meares.
The partnership soon moved from its small client base to become involved in some major share floats including Yates Seeds, Ampol Exploration, Canberra Television, J B Young and Thomas Nationwide Transport (TNT).

Bishop remained with the firm until 1965 and Meares retired from his role in the firm in 1970.
 
Device: The M&B pattern is found on the revenue stamps of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania as well as Western Australia. All of the strikes are identical and Meares and Bishop are not known to have had offices or seats on Stock Exchanges other than in Sydney. Given this it is reasonable to assume that the device was located in Sydney and applied to revenue stamps of various States as required to process transactions within the jurisdiction of a given State revenue office. This is supported by company stamps applied to documents that all show the Bligh Street, Sydney address.

Multiples of this pattern show an inconsistent relationship to each other so the device is most likely a single head one. This is supported by the fact that the strikes are identical which is less likely on a multiple die device, which often show variation between dies.

The M&B device is only found on revenue stamps and the use on documents shows that the stamps are punctured prior to being affixed, indicating use as a security device rather than a cancelling device. The use as a security device to prevent theft is further supported by the fact that once affixed the stamps are then cancelled either by pen, company cachet or circular punch.

The device was used between 1962 and 1967.

Related Patterns: Refer to other usage of this A D Meares and Bishop device in:
NSW:    M&B.a
TAS:     M&B.a
VIC:     M&B.a
WA:     M&B.a

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