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One Penny Black
A History of the Worlds First Postage Stamp

Postage before 1840 was expensive and unreliable. In Great Britain at this time, postage charges were exorbitant to say the least, to send a single small page letter cost four pence to a maximum 20 miles (32km), to send a letter 100 miles (160km) cost nine pence.

So in January of 1837 Rowland Hill published his memorable pamphlet, 'Post Office Reform'; its importance and practicability. Hill's main proposal was the introduction of a uniform postage rate of one penny per half ounce in weight, however his idea was to have postal stationary, he thought the public would prefer this and stamps were merely an afterthought. After publishing further editions of 'Post Office Reform', he finally published a pamphlet in July 1839 - 'On the Collection of Postage by means of stamps'. The 'Penny Postage' bill was passed through parliament without opposition and was granted the 'Royal Assent' by the young Queen Victoria on the 17th of August 1839. The Queen expressed 'great satisfaction' with the proposed 'reduction of postal duties' which, she said, 'would be a relief and encouragement to trade' and by facilitating intercourse and correspondence, would be 'productive of much social advantage and improvement' .

 A competition to design the new stamp brought more than 2,600 entries, of which four were awarded prizes of 100 pounds, though none was considered suitable for use. One of the winners was Henry Cole, he was appointed to assist Hill and played an active role in the preparations for the new stamps. It was Cole who suggested to his friend, John Calcott Horsley , the idea for what is now generally accepted as the first Christmas greetings card (which Horsley designed and sent to Cole) in 1843. Another competitor was James Chalmers, a Dundee book seller and publisher who, years before, had essayed stamped 'labels' for use as postage, but he was only one of many who claimed to have 'invented' the postage stamp. Another was Laurenz Koschier, the centenary of whose death was commemorated by Austria with a special 'EUROPA' stamp in 1979.

It seems that the Idea, and the design, of Britain's new stamps, just emerged from a host of suggestions and essays, and that Rowland Hill himself elected the use of the queen's portrait as thier main feature, adopting the size and format of contemporary tax labels.

On the 10th of January 1840, Rowland Hill's grand scheme of uniform penny postage was introduced throughout the country and the worlds first postage stamp was born.

Written by Alan Sparks
April 2002