In London, too, there was a coterie of amateurs among whom were men of distinction. We might trace the birth of the higher ideals in stamp collecting in London to the rectory adjoining All Hallows Staining. Charles Dickens described the church, all of which save the tower is now demolished, as "a stuffy little place." The perpetual curate in charge of this old City living at the time of which I write was the Rev. F. J. Stainforth, one of the most zealous promoters of the hobby, "assisting the movement by his well-known readiness to bid high for any real or supposed rarity." Mr. Stainforth gathered around him the chief of the serious collectors of the period, and his influence on the beginnings of the study is probably greater than most collectors of the present day are aware. Cultured, amiable, and generous, his rectory was a rendezvous for all seeking information on the subject of stamps and for those who had information to impart. Perhaps a too abundant good-nature occasionally resulted in the host being imposed upon, for it is said that, "utterly devoid of guile himself, he frequently became the prey of much younger, but more worldly-wise, heads." But if there were those who abused the welcome of the rectory, there were others who imparted a lustre to the little gatherings in the upper room. Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, was one of these. He returned from Australia about 1860-61, and formed an important collection of stamps. He was elected first President of the Philatelic Society when that body was formed in 1869. The legal profession was frequently represented at the rectory by Mr. Philbrick, afterwards his Honour Judge Philbrick, K.C., and Mr. Hughes-Hughes, who had been called to the Bar in 1842. There was also a physician in Dr. Viner, a young merchant in Mr. Mount Brown, and a youngster in his 'teens, who occasionally travelled to town to attend the Saturday afternoon gatherings and who quickly displayed an intuition for the scientific in philately which few have surpassed, and made the name of E. L. Pemberton one of the most distinguished in the annals of philately. The cult was not confined to the metropolis. Most of the early dealers began operations in the country. The first published list of stamps for collectors came from a young artist residing in Brighton. Mr. Frederick Booty was aged twenty when he issued his "Aids to Stamp Collectors" in April, 1862. Mr. Mount Brown was twenty-five when his "Catalogue of British, Colonial, and Foreign Stamps" appeared in May of the same year. The wide difference of years among the enthusiasts of this time is notable in the third of the early English chroniclers, Dr. Gray, the eminent naturalist and all-round scientist of the British Museum, who published his first "Hand Catalogue of Postage Stamps" towards the end of 1862, the author being then sixty-two years of age.