James Negus (22 February 1927[1] - 22 February 2008[2]) was a British philatelist and book editor.
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Negus was a student of chemistry and then a civil servant.[2] Later he worked in book editing for British publishing houses.
He had already published some philatelic books at Heinemann when he was hired in 1975 by Stanley Gibbons Ltd to manage its philatelic and numismatic publications. In 1977, he was promoted to editor of the Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue. He decided its thematic and geographic division into 21 volumes but in 1981 he was made redundant as part of an economy plan.[2]
An author himself, Negus came back to this activity for Stamp World magazine and new books. he participated to the Connoisseur Catalogue, specialised in the Machin series.[2]
As a collector, he was a member of many philatelic associations in the English speaking world, and an editor or a writer to many of their publications. In 1957 he was the first Editor of the Journal of Chinese Philately of the China Philatelic Society of London.[3] He was interested in the first half of the 20th century philately of many countries. In the 1980s, he studied souvenirs created and distributed during British philatelic exhibitions.[2]
In 2000, Negus stopped all philatelic activity and sold his bibliophile and stamp collections. He lived at Milford on Sea, Hampshire until his death in February 2008.[2]
Ron Butler, President of the Royal Philatelic Society London in the 1970s, described him as "the best of bibliographers and [...] the most competent of researchers".[4]
His brother, Ron Negus, was a philatelic author too[2] and honorary archivist of the Royal Philatelic Society London.[5]