This 1935 stamp from Canada shows King George V.
He was born on 3 June 1865, the second son of Prince Albert Edward, the future Edward VII.
George’s older brother Albert died in 1892, and when their grandmother, Queen Victoria, died in 1901, George became Prince of Wales.
When Edward VII died in 1910, George became King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India.
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany were his first cousins.
With the rise of anti-German feelings during World War I, George changed the family name from Sax-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor.
In 1931 George oversaw the change of the British dominions into the British Commonwealth of Nations, which gave Canada independence from the British Parliament, but retained the monarch as head of state.
This stamp was issued in 1935, less than 7 months before the George’s death.
The King was in declining health after the end of the second World War, and on 20 January 1936 his doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn gave George two lethal injections. This only came to light in 1986 on the publication of the doctor’s diary.
George’s son Edward VIII abdicated by the end of 1936, making way for George VI, the father of Elizabeth II.
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