Well one thing strange about it is it use to be British even though it is just off the German coast. I know that Queen Victoria was practically German but it still seems a surprise that this little known country use to issue stamps bearing a picture of her head on them...kevinchess1 wrote:Heligoland?
Is that where they make stuff from tiny interlocking bricks?
Could have come with George 1stBoro Boy wrote:Well one thing strange about it is it use to be British even though it is just off the German coast. I know that Queen Victoria was practically German but it still seems a surprise that this little known country use to issue stamps bearing a picture of her head on them...kevinchess1 wrote:Heligoland?
Is that where they make stuff from tiny interlocking bricks?
Boro Boy wrote:
I hope that proves of interest as they have a wealth of Q&A's for competitions...
On 11 September 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, HMS Carrier brought to the Admiralty the despatches from Admiral Thomas Macnamara Russell announcing Heligoland's capitulation to the British.[8] Heligoland became a centre of smuggling and espionage against Napoleon. Denmark then ceded Heligoland to George III of the United Kingdom by the Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814). Thousands of Germans came to Britain and joined the King's German Legion via Heligoland.
The British annexation of Heligoland was ratified by the Treaty of Paris signed on 30 May 1814, as part of a number of territorial reallocations following on the abdication of Napoleon as Emperor of the French.
The prime reason at the time for Britain's retention of a small and seemingly worthless acquisition was to restrict any future French naval aggression against the Scandinavian or German states.[9] In the event no effort was made during the period of British administration to make use of the islands for naval purposes, partly for financial reasons but principally because the Royal Navy considered Heligoland to be too exposed as a forward base.[10]
In 1826, Heligoland became a seaside spa and soon it turned into a popular tourist resort for the European upper class. The island attracted artists and writers, especially from Germany and Austria who apparently enjoyed the comparatively liberal atmosphere, including Heinrich Heine and August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. More vitally it was a refuge for revolutionaries of the 1830s and the 1848 German revolution.
Marriage Proposal in Heligoland by Rudolf Jordan, 1843
As related in the Leisure Hour, it was "a land where there are no bankers, no lawyers, and no crime; where all gratuities are strictly forbidden, the landladies are all honest and the boatmen take no tips", while the English Illustrated Magazine provided a description the most glowing terms: "No one should go there who cannot be content with the charms of brilliant light, of ever-changing atmospheric effects, of a land free from the countless discomforts of a large and busy population, and of an air that tastes like draughts of life itself."
Britain gave up the islands to Germany in 1890 in the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty. The newly unified Germany was concerned about a foreign power controlling land from which it could command the western entrance to the militarily-important Kiel Canal, then under construction, and other naval installations in the area, and traded for it. A "grandfathering"/optant approach prevented the Heligolanders (as they were named in the British measures) from forfeiting advantages because of this imposed change of status
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