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Sir Gawaine Baillie, 7th Bt (8 March, 1934 - 21 December, 2003) was an amateur motor racing driver, engineer, industrialist, stamp collector, and the owner of the ancient estate surrounding Leeds Castle, the ancient fortress in Kent. After his death, it was discovered that he had amassed, almost entirely in secret, one of the greatest collections of stamps of the former British Empire.

Early Life

Sir Gawaine was raised at Leeds castle, the ancient fortress in Kent that his mother Lady Olive Baillie had bought with her sister Dorothy Paget in 1928. At age five, after World War II broke out, Baillie went to live with his American cousins, the Whitney family. Soon after returning to England, his father died, and he succeeded to the family title, becoming 7th Baronet of Polkemmet, Linlithgowshire.

Following Eton and Cambridge, he created HPC Engineering, a company which specializes in sub-contract manufacturing for the automotive, aerospace, computer, defence, medical and machine tool industries. He served as chairman and managing director of the company for the rest of his life. He was also an elite amateur race car driver, competing at the highest professional level with such legendary figures as Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn and Jackie Stewart, participating in numerous championships, including Le Mans 24 Hours, Goodwood, Aintree, Silverstone and the Tour de France. After retiring from motor racing, he returned to his boyhood hobby of collecting stamps.

Stamp Collecting

Sir Gawaine's goal in stamp collecting was to build a comprehensive collection of postage stamps from Great Britain and the British Empire, starting with the earliest issues of Queen Victoria through to the present. Sir Gawaine was interested in only the most perfectly preserved stamps and his collection is distinguished from others of comprable scale by his exacting standards. He mastered at least ten areas of specialisation and acquired over 100,000 stamps, of the highest quality. The collection was considered the most comprehensive of its kind and, when Sotheby's put the stamps up for auction, after his death, the collection was described as the most important to be sold in more than 50 years. Sotheby's divided the stamps into ten separate auctions, the first nine of which exceeded the initial estimate of £11m, by more than £4m

• Old Etonians
• Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
• People from Kent
• English racecar drivers
• Philatelists
• 1934 births
• 2003 deaths