A. B. Creeke

A.B. Creeke in The Philatelic Record 1901.

A type-written page from the Creeke Index.

Anthony Buck Creeke Jr. (Burnley, 25 September 1860 – 25 July 1932) was a British solicitor and early philatelist who edited Stamp Collector's Fortnightly and The British Philatelist. His close friend and collaborator in philatelic matters was Hastings E. Wright (died 1897).

Official stamps case

In 1903, Creeke was sentenced to six months in jail for trafficking illegally in British Office of Works stamps that should not have been available unused to the public. The case caused him to be removed from the Roll of Solicitors, though he was reinstated in 1913, and may be the reason why he never signed the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists, despite the selector's original intention that he should. King George V was the first signatory.

The Creeke Index

Creeke prepared an index to 800 philatelic journals in English from 1862 to about 1928 along with Le Timbre-Poste. The index, which is now known as The Creeke Index, was sold to the Royal Philatelic Society London in 1936 by Creeke's widow who had been unable to find a publisher for it. Charles Nissen facilitated the sale. The London Philatelist noted its receipt and hoped it would be of great assistance to researchers but also commented on the fact that the costs of production would render publication impossible. In fact, the index, which was in manuscript and typescript form and hard to understand, was placed in a basement storage room and largely forgotten until the 21st century when it was restructured and placed on the website of the Royal Philatelic Society London, where it is publicly available.

Selected publications

• A history of the adhesive stamps of the British Isles available for postal and telegraph purposes. London, Philatelic Society, London, 1899. (With Hastings E. Wright)
• Stamp collecting - A guide for beginners. London, Thomas Nelson & Sons, c. 1914.