THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN IDEA
Early instances of contrivances to denote prepayment
of postage--The "Two _Sous_" Post--_Billets de port
payé_--A passage of wit between the French Sappho and M.
Pellisson--Dockwra's letter-marks--Some fabulous stamped
wrappers of the Dutch Indies--Letter-sheets used in
Sardinia--Lieut. Treffenberg's proposals for "Postage Charts"
in Sweden--The postage-stamp idea "in the air"--Early British
reformers and their proposals--The Lords of the Treasury start
a competition--Mr. Cheverton's prize plan--A find of papers
relating to the contest--A square inch of gummed paper--The
Sydney embossed envelopes--The Mulready envelope--The
Parliamentary envelopes--The adhesive stamp popularly preferred
to the Mulready envelope.
The simplest inventions are usually apt adaptations. The postage-stamp,
as we know it to-day, can scarcely be said to have been invented,
though much wild controversy has raged about the identity of its
"inventor." The historian must prefer to regard the postage-stamp of
to-day as the development of an idea.
It would not serve any purpose useful to the present subject to trace
to its beginnings the use of stamped paper for the collection of
Government revenues; but it is highly interesting to disentangle
from the web of history the facts which show this system to have
been recognised as applicable to the collection of postages by the
prototypes of the reformers of 1840.
The first known instance of special printed wrappers being sold for
the convenience of users of a postal organisation occurred in Paris
in 1653. At this time France had its General Post, just as England
about the same time had set up a General Letter Office in the City of
London; but in neither case did the General Post handle local letters.
To despatch a letter to the country from Paris, or from London, there
was no choice but to deliver it personally, or send it by private
messenger, to the one solitary repository in either city for the
conveyance of correspondence by the Government post.
The porters of London found no small part of the exercise of their
trade in carrying letters to the General Letter Office, and in Paris,
no doubt, a similar class of men enjoyed the benefit of catering at
individual rates for what is now done on the vast co-operative plan of
the State monopoly.
In 1653, a Frenchman, M. de Villayer, afterwards Comte de Villayer,
set up as a private enterprise (but with royal authority) the _petite
poste_ in Paris, which had for its _raison d'être_ the carrying of
letters to the General Post, and also the delivery of local letters
within the city. He distributed letter-boxes at prominent positions
in the chief thoroughfares in Paris, into which his customers could
drop their letters and from whence his _laquais_ could collect them at
regular intervals. At certain appointed places M. de Villayer placed
on sale letter-covers, or wrappers, which bore a _marque particulier_,
and which, being sold at the rate of a penny each (two _sous_), were
permitted to frank any letter deposited in the numerous letter-boxes
of the Villayer post to any point within the city. The post is the one
afterwards referred to by Voltaire as the "two-_sous_ post."
These wrappers, then, were the first printed franks for the collection
of postage from the public. The exact nature of the matter imprinted
upon them is uncertain; but it probably included M. de Villayer's
coat of arms, and it was on this hypothesis that the late M. Maury,
the French philatelist, reconstructed an approximate imitation of the
original form of cover. The covers, it should be stated, were wrapped
around the letters by the senders, and were then dropped in the boxes.
In the process of sorting for delivery, the servants of M. de Villayer
removed the special cover, which removal was practically the equivalent
of the cancellation of the stamps of to-day.
These covers undoubtedly represent the first known form of printed
postage-stamps, being the forerunners of the impressed non-adhesive
stamps of to-day. The Maury reconstruction is fanciful, but the
inscriptions thereon are literally correct. Owing to the removal of the
covers (which were probably broken in the process) during the postal
operations no originals of these covers are now known to exist. Indeed,
the only true relics of the _billets de port payé_ of M. de Villayer
are in the two fragments of correspondence between M. Pellisson and
the French Sappho, Mlle. Scudéri. Pellisson, who was not noted for
his good looks, addressed "Mademoiselle SAPHO, demeurant en la rue,
au pays des _Nouveaux Sansomates_, à Paris, par billet de port payé."
Signing himself "Pisandre," he inquired if the lady could give him
a remedy for love. Her reply, sent by the same means, was, "My dear
Pisandre, you have only to look at yourself in a mirror." It was of
this correspondent that the lady once declared, "It is permissible to
be ugly, but Pellisson has really abused the permission."
The London Penny Post of 1680, while it did not use special covers
for the prepayment of letters, introduced the system of marking on
letters, by means of hand-stamps, the time and place of posting and
the intimation "Penny Post Payd." Dockwra, instead of setting up boxes
in the public streets, organised a great circle of receiving houses to
which the senders took their letters and paid their pennies over the
counter. So the principle of the postage-stamp, as we know it to-day,
was not represented in the triangular hand-stamps of Dockwra, or of his
successors in the official Penny Post.
A device representing the arms of Castile and Leon was used in the
eighteenth century as a kind of frank or stamp which passed official
correspondence through the posts, and in the last quarter of that
century the Chevalier Paris de l'Epinard proposed in Brussels the
erection of a local post with a mark or stamp of some kind to denote
postage prepaid--a plan which, however, was not adopted.
[Illustration: A FACSIMILE OF THE ADDRESS SIDE OF A PENNY POST LETTER
IN 1686, SHOWING THE "PENY POST PAYD" MARK INSTITUTED BY DOCKWRA AND
CONTINUED BY THE GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES.]
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE CONTENTS OF THE PENNY POST LETTER OF
1686.]
There is a curious account given by a correspondent in _The Philatelic
Record_ [xii. 138] of some so-called stamps said to have been used
in the Dutch Indies. The writer, whose account has never so far as I am
aware received any definite confirmation, says:--
"At the beginning of this year [1890] were discovered amongst some old
Government documents at Batavia some curious and hitherto--whether here
or in Europe--unknown postally used envelopes, with value indicated....
In the time of Louis XIV. it is believed that postage-stamps existed;
but nobody has been able to bring them to light, consequently we have
in these hand-stamped envelopes of the Dutch East Indian Company
absolutely the oldest documents of philatelic lore.
"The letter-sheets are all made from the same paper, and are all of the
same size--namely, about 23 × 19 centimetres; whilst the side which is
most interesting to us--the 'address' or 'stamp' side--is folded to a
size of 103 × 88 mm. Up to the present the following values have been
found:--
3 stivers black
5 " "
5 " red
6 " black
6 " " {_double_; that is to say, two stamps
{of 6 stivers side by side.
10 " "
10 " red
15 " "
"On the address-side is no date stamp, and no indication of the office
of departure; also the figures denoting the year are only discernible
on the seal of each letter. On the specimens hitherto found are the
dates from 1794 to 1809; but it is quite possible that other values
may be unearthed. So far, of all the above values together, only about
thirty specimens are known.... These envelopes came from various places
in the Dutch Indian Archipelago."
[Illustration: THE OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION OF DECEMBER 3, 1818, RELATING
TO THE USE OF THE SARDINIAN LETTER SHEETS.
Described in the records of the Schroeder collection as "the oldest
official notification of any country in the world relating to postage
stamps."
MANIFESTO CAMERALE
Portante notificanza che la Carta Postale-bollata, stabilita
colle Regie Patenti delli 7 dello scorso novembre, sarà
provvisionalmente posta in corso non filagranata; della
dimensione ordinaria della Carta cosi detta da Lettere, e
munita dei bolli relativi alle tre qualità della medesima
pienamente conformi agli impronti lvi delineati.
_In data delli 3 dicembre 1818._
TORINO,
DALLA STAMPERIA REALE.]
[Illustration: (_Continuation from previous page._)
THE MODELS SHOW THE DEVICES FOR THE THREE DENOMINATIONS: 15, 25, AND 50
_CENTESIMI_ RESPECTIVELY.
3. Che all'epoca in cui comincierà la distribuzione della nuova
carta filagranata cesserà l'uso della carta bollata non
filagranata; e che i foglj rimanenti della medesima potranno
essere cangiati contro altrettanti della nuova con filagrana.
I diversi bolli che verranno apposti sovra la carta provvisionale
non filagranata, saranno pienamente conformi agl'impronti
infra delineati, i quali unitamente ai loro modelli, ed agli
esemplari della carta suddetta sono stati depositati negli
Archivj nostri giusta il disposto dall'articolo 2' delle
mentovate Regie Patenti delli 7 dello scorso novembre.
_Modelli de' Bolli._
Mandiamo il presente pubblicarsi ai luoghi, e modi soliti, ed
alle copie che ne verranno stampate nella Stamperia Reale
prestarsi la stessa fede che all'originale.
Dat. in Torino li tre dicembre mille ottocento diciotto.
_Per detta Eccellentissima Regia_
_CAMERA_
FAVA.]
The foregoing statement is open to much question, in view of the lapse
of twenty years since the matter was first aired in _The Philatelic
Record_. If authentic, these would be the earliest denominated
stamps for the prepayment of postage, the Dutch _stuiver_ in use in
the colonies being a copper coin equal to about one penny. Perhaps
the introduction of the matter in these Chats will, in the light of
increased modern facilities for research, bring the subject before the
notice of our Dutch philatelic _confrères_.
The Sardinian letter sheets of the early nineteenth century are now
tolerably well known to stamp-collectors. They, however, represented
a Government tax on the privilege of letter-carrying, rather than a
direct prepayment of postage. These were the product of a curious
anomaly in the exercise of the postal monopoly by the Government of
Sardinia. It was forbidden to send letters and packets otherwise than
through the Government post; but as this latter was very inefficient,
and in many parts of the country was practically non-existent, the
authorities established by decree, in 1818, a system whereby the people
for whom the Government post was inconvenient, if not absolutely
useless, could send their letters by other means. To effect this the
senders had to supply themselves from a post-office with a stock of
special letter sheets, stamped with a device of a mounted post-boy,
within a circular, oval, or octagonal frame, at a cost of 15, 25, or
50 _centesimi_ apiece. The use of these stamped letter sheets, bought
from the post-office, was an authority for their conveyance by private
means, but not through the ordinary channels of the Sardinian postal
organisation. Thus, while the Post Office took its full charges for the
conveyance of such letters, it did not perform the work of collecting,
transmitting, and delivering them. The three denominations, 15, 25,
and 50 _centesimi_ were used for letters conveyed varying distances
according to the Government postal tariff, from which, however, the
actual messenger derived no benefit, his remuneration being over and
above these official charges.
[Illustration: SARDINIAN LETTER SHEET OF 1818: 15 CENTESIMI.
THE 25 CENTESIMI LETTER SHEET OF SARDINIA.
Issued in Sardinia, 1818: the earliest use of Letter Sheets with
embossed stamps.]
The next proposal of stamped covers the historian has to note, is that
embodied in a Bill introduced in the Swedish Riksdag, March 3, 1823, by
Lieutenant Curry Gabriel Treffenberg. His proposals included: "Stamped
paper of varying values, to be used as wrappers for letters, should
be introduced and kept for sale in the cities by the Chartæ Sigillatæ
deputies, or by other persons appointed for that purpose by the General
Chartæ Sigillatæ Office at Stockholm, and in the rural districts, by
the sheriffs and other private persons." Private persons were to be
granted the privilege of selling these "Postage Charts" by the local
officials representing the Crown authorities on obtaining proper
security.
The actual proposals for the distinguishing character of the stamped
covers were:--
"The Postage Charts should be made of the size of an ordinary letter
sheet, but without being folded lengthwise as these are. The paper
should be strong but not coarse, and in order to make forgery more
difficult, should contain a circular design, easy to discover. It
should also be of some light colour.
"In the centre of the paper two stamps should be impressed side by
side, occupying together a space of six square inches. One of the
stamps should be impressed into the paper and the other should be
printed with black ink. Both should contain, besides the value of the
Chart, some suitable emblem which would be difficult to imitate. The
assortment of values should be made to meet all requirements."
The letters were to be folded so that the stamps would be outside, and
so easily cancelled or otherwise marked if required; and in the case of
the despatch of packets too large to enclose within a chart, the latter
could be cut down, preserving the stamped portion, which was to be sent
along with the packet, both packet and chart bearing marks by which the
two could be identified and associated in the course of the post.
The Bill did not pass the Riksdag, and so Sweden was deprived of the
national credit of giving a lead to the nations of the world in a
postage-stamp system, not very different in principle from that of
Great Britain in 1840.
[Illustration: THE HIGHEST DENOMINATION, 50 CENTESIMI, OF THE SARDINIAN
LETTER SHEETS.]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE TEMPORARY ENVELOPES ISSUED FOR THE USE OF
MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, PRIOR TO THE ISSUE OF STAMPS AND COVERS
TO THE PUBLIC, 1840.]
I now come to the period of the active development of the idea,
and so far from the stamp being a particular invention of the fourth
decade of the nineteenth century, we must recognise that, beyond all
controversy, the notion--whether for an impressed or an adhesive
stamp is of little matter--was "in the air." It was stated before the
Select Committee on Postage, on February 23, 1838, by a Mr. Louis,
formerly Superintendent of Mails, that a plan for stamped covers was
communicated to him "by Mr. Stead of Yarmouth, a gentleman who has
interested himself a good deal about the Post Office."[1] The sheets
of paper were to be stamped and sold to persons who would then be at
liberty "to send their letters by conveyances not suitable to Post
Office hours."
The scheme had been proposed to the Post Office according to Mr. Louis
in his evidence "many years ago," and it is attributed by some writers
to 1829, though I can trace no source for their information as to this
date.
The plan, from the rather vague remembrance of the witness before the
Committee, may have been simply one to introduce the Sardinian method
of 1818 into this country, and in any case there are no concrete relics
of Mr. Stead's ideas in the shape of essays. Mr. Charles Whiting, of
the Beaufort House Press, entered the arena of postal reform some
time prior to March, 1830, but we have no definite knowledge of his
proposals previous to that date. In that year Mr. Whiting suggested
the use of stamped bands for the prepayment of postage on printed
matter.[2]
Mr. Whiting called his stamped wrappers "Go frees," and he is
understood to have intended the plan to extend to written matter, if
it proved successful in an experimental trial with printed matter. The
plan did not get a trial, and no greater success attended the efforts
of Mr. Charles Knight, the celebrated publisher, who suggested stamped
wrappers as a means of collecting postage on newspapers, subject to
the abolition of the "Taxes on Knowledge," which were the occasion
of a vigorous campaign set on foot in 1834. According to _Hansard_,
a resolution was moved by Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer, May 22, 1834,
"that it is expedient to repeal the Stamp Duty on newspapers at the
earliest possible period," and in the course of the debate the member
for Hull, Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, advocating the payment of a penny
upon an unstamped newspaper sent by post, said: "To put an end to any
objections that might be made as to the difficulty of collecting the
money, he would adopt the suggestion of a person well qualified to give
an opinion on the subject--he alluded to Mr. Knight, the publisher.
That gentleman recommended that a stamped wrapper should be prepared
for such newspapers as it was desired to send by post; and that each
wrapper should be sold at the rate of a penny by the distributors of
stamps in the same way as receipt stamps."[3]
Mr. Knight had made the proposal referred to in a private letter to
Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer.[4]
The ultimate result of the campaign was the reduction, not the
abolition, of the Newspaper Tax, and, as the reduced tax of one penny
for an ordinary newspaper included free transmission in the post, there
was no need for the adoption of Mr. Knight's proposal at that time.
It is to be noted, however, that Mr. Knight was an active supporter
of Rowland Hill's plan a few years later, and that Hill was not
unaware of the suggestion, for he wrote of it in his pamphlet that:
"Availing myself of this excellent suggestion, I propose the following
arrangement:--Let stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the
public from the Stamp Office or Post Office, as may be most convenient,
and sold at such a price as to include the postage: letters so stamped
might be put into the letter-box, as at present."
Dr. Gray, the eminent zoologist of the British Museum and one of the
earliest scientific collectors of postage-stamps, made a somewhat
ambiguous claim to the authorship of the proposal for the prepayment
of postage by means of stamps. When challenged by Rowland Hill in _The
Athenæum_,[5] he stated in that journal that "I have simply said I
believe I was the first who proposed the system of a small uniform
rate of postage to be prepaid by stamps." When Mr. Knight entered upon
the _Athenæum_ correspondence, Dr. Gray reminded him of an incident:
"In the spring of 1834 we [Knight and Gray] were fellow-passengers
in the basket of a Blackheath coach, when the subject was
discussed. I then stated, as I had frequently done before to other
fellow-travellers, my views in relation to the prepayment of postage
by stamps. These views Mr. Knight combated, and so little was he then
prepared to adopt them that he exclaimed, as he quitted the coach at
the corner of Fleet Street, 'Gray, you are more fit for Bedlam than for
the British Museum.'" Knight, whose case has the advantage of attaining
substantial record in _Hansard_ and _The Mirror of Parliament_,
disclaimed any connection with the incident, and left his friends to
decide "whether the language, stated to have been used by me to a
gentleman of scientific eminence, would not have been better suited to
a costermonger returning from Greenwich fair than to mine."
[Illustration: THE "JAMES CHALMERS" ESSAY.]
Mr. Wallace, the member for Greenock, was perhaps the first to turn
Rowland Hill's attention in the direction of a serious campaign for
postal reform, and Wallace succeeded in 1837 in getting a Committee
"to inquire into the present rates and modes of charging postage,
with a view to such a reduction thereof as may be made without injury
to the revenue; and for this purpose, to examine especially into the
mode recommended for charging and collecting postage in a pamphlet
published by Mr. Rowland Hill." The Committee started its sessions
in February, 1838, and it had the advantage of the reports of the
Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry, and the collection of much
valuable material by a Mercantile Committee, of which Mr. (afterwards
Sir) Henry Cole was secretary.
[Illustration: ROUGH SKETCHES IN WATER-COLOURS SUBMITTED BY ROWLAND
HILL TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER FOR THE FIRST POSTAGE STAMPS.]
The proposals from this time on, till the issue of the stamps, were
numerous. The Commissioners of Post Office Inquiry had printed samples
of several suggested letter-sheets for use by the London District post,
in their "Ninth Report, 1837." Mr. J. W. Parker, of the Cambridge
Bible Warehouse, West Strand, London, printed a somewhat similar
letter-sheet, with advertisement on the reverse, which was circulated
with W. H. Ashurst's "Facts and Reasons in support of Mr. Rowland
Hill's plan for a Universal Penny Postage,"[6] and Mr. James Chalmers
of Dundee first communicated to the Mercantile Committee a proposal
that stamped slips should be printed at the Stamp Office on prepared
paper, furnished with adhesive matter on the back. These slips were to
be sold to the public, and affixed by senders to their letters; and
postmasters were to deface the stamps in the course of the post. He
included two specimens; similar specimens were submitted by Chalmers to
the Treasury in the same year.
In 1839, the first uniform postage Act (2 and 3 Vict. c. 52) was
passed, and the Lords of the Treasury, in preparing to give effect to
the plan of Rowland Hill, extended an invitation to "artists, men of
science and the public in general" to submit proposals in competition
for prizes of £200 and £100, for the best and next best proposals. My
Lords stated that in the course of the inquiries and discussions on the
subject, several plans were suggested, _viz._, stamped covers, stamped
paper, and stamps to be used separately, and "the points which the
Board consider of the greatest importance are:--
"1. The convenience as regards the public use.
"2. The security against forgery.
"3. The facility of being checked and distinguished at the Post
Office, which must of necessity be rapid.
"4. The expense of the production and circulation of the stamps."
The contest brought in about 2,700 suggestions, and although none was
actually adopted, the suggestions contained in some were deemed of
value. The Treasury increased the amount of prizes to £400, dividing
that sum equally between Mr. Benjamin Cheverton, Mr. Charles Whiting,
Mr. Henry Cole, and Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. Mr. Stead of Norwich,
Mr. John Dickinson, the paper-maker, Mr. R. W. Sievier, the sculptor,
Mr. S. Henderson of Dalkeith and others were included amongst the
competitors. Until recently, however, little or nothing has been known
as to the nature of these suggestions, except that the majority were
impracticable; but it is on record that Mr. Charles Whiting sent in
at least one hundred samples, embodying his ideas or illustrative of
designs and methods of duplication in use at his printing establishment.
[Illustration: HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED EXAMPLES OF THE PROPOSALS SUBMITTED
TO THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY IN 1839 IN COMPETITION FOR PRIZES OFFERED
IN CONNECTION WITH THE PENNY POSTAGE PLAN.
(_From the Author's Collection._)]
However, in May, 1910, an article which I contributed to _The Daily
Mail_ brought from the daughter of Mr. Cheverton a letter in which she
made the interesting statement that her late father's papers relating
to the proposals made by him in 1839 were still in her possession. She
very kindly promised me a sight of them.
Enthusiasts know how difficult it is, when on the verge of an
anticipated discovery, to possess their souls in patience, hoping
for at least a sight of the find; but my patience in this case was
unavailing, for the next I heard of the treasured papers and the dies
was--and this is some consolation--that they were in the capable hands
of the Earl of Crawford, who prepared and subsequently read before the
Royal Philatelic Society a scholarly reconstruction of Cheverton's plan.
Fortune, however, made me some compensation shortly afterwards. The
upheaval and dispersal of an old store of rubbish and unconsidered
trifles brought into my possession a considerable parcel of papers
accumulated by the Lords of the Treasury in response to their
invitation of 1839, and which, after lying hidden for nearly
three-quarters of a century, have fortunately escaped total destruction
in the year of grace 1911.
The suggestions are mostly crude designs in the form of pencil or
crayon work on envelopes, pen and ink drawings for adhesive labels,
and in one case the latter were made up in such form as to suggest how
the labels would be printed in sheets. The unravelling of the plans
for which these various suggestions were made is not yet complete,
but they will, I trust, yield to further investigation and admit of
extensive description in a forthcoming work in which Mr. Charles Nissen
is collaborating with me on the subject of British essays and proofs
for postage-stamps.
It was towards the end of 1839 that Mr. Henry Cole visited Messrs.
Perkins, Bacon & Co., then at Fleet Street, and told them that the idea
of the authorities was that the adhesive labels should be about one
square inch in size, and on December 3, 1839, that firm submitted their
first estimate of not exceeding eightpence per thousand, nor less than
sixpence per thousand, the price being exclusive of paper. The process
by which they were to be produced is the now well-known system known as
the "Perkins mill and die" process, a method of production which was
adopted in due course, and has never been superseded for the production
of artistic stamps.
The history of the making of the stamp, the combination of the art of
Wyon, Corbould, and Heath, I have dealt with elsewhere, so I turn to
the envelope plan. Stamped covers, as we have seen, had been used in
Sardinia in 1818 and, in a different fashion, in Paris as early as
1653. In 1838, while Britain was in the throes of the postal agitation,
New South Wales actually issued and used embossed envelopes, which
were sold in Sydney at 1s. 3d. per dozen sheets. The embossed design
consisted of the royal coat of arms of William IV. enclosed in a
circular frame, bearing the words "General Post Office--New South
Wales."
[Illustration: THE ADDRESS SIDE OF THE MODEL LETTER WHICH HAS THE STAMP
(SHOWN BELOW) AFFIXED TO THE BACK AS A SEAL.]
[Illustration: ANOTHER OF THE UNPUBLISHED ESSAYS SUBMITTED IN THE
COMPETITION OF 1839 FOR THE PENNY POSTAGE PLAN.
(_From the Author's Collection._)]
The envelope proposals that were before the Treasury in 1839 consisted
mainly of rough sketches, but in a few cases of elaborate printed
designs (_e.g._, Harwood's envelope), and the patterns made up of
intricate geometrical work like the specimens in Ashurst's "Facts
and Reasons" and the "Ninth Report." Cole called upon Mr. William
Mulready and invited him to draw a design for the envelope, and it was
decided that this design should be printed on the paper with the silk
threads embedded in its substance, a paper which has since been known
to philatelists as "Dickinson" paper, after the name of its inventor.
Mr. Dickinson had all along been keenly interested in the proposals
for postage reform, and was a witness before the Select Committee in
1837, providing paper with threads in it for the essays in the Report.
Many of the chief officials and the agitators were convinced of the
protection that this paper offered against forgery, and it is not
generally known--I mention it as specimens of the paper are by no means
commonly met with--that Mr. Dilke was so convinced of the importance
of the use of this paper that he printed the entire issue of _The
Athenæum_ for April 28, 1838, on the thread paper.[7] Mr. Dickinson's
firm was at that time supplying the regular _Athenæum_ paper.
Among the rarities for which collectors, even general collectors, will
pay high prices are the temporary letter-covers prepared in January,
1840, to give members of Parliament the first privilege of using the
penny "post-frees." There are several kinds with inscriptions reading
"Houses of Parliament," "House of Lords," and "House of Commons." These
were in use from January 16th, but their great rarity suggests that the
use of them was not extensive. That, no doubt, was attributable to the
injunction, "To be posted at the House of ... only."
The public in London first saw the stamps on May 1, 1840, when Sir
Rowland Hill reports, "Great bustle at the Stamp Office"--£2,500 worth
were sold on the first day. They did not come into use, however, until
May 6th, when Sir Henry Cole went to the Post Office and reported that
"about half the letters were stamped."
The envelopes, covers and labels were issued simultaneously. Within
six days the "labels" won the race for popular favour. "I fear,"
wrote Hill on May 12th, "we shall be obliged to substitute some other
stamp for that designed by Mulready, which is abused and ridiculed on
all sides.... I am already turning my attention to the substitution
of another stamp, combining with it, as the public have shown their
disregard and even distaste for beauty, some further economy in the
production."
[Illustration: PROOF OF THE MULREADY ENVELOPE ON INDIA PAPER, SIGNED BY
ROWLAND HILL.
(_From the Peacock Papers._)]
Sir Rowland Hill was perhaps pardonably piqued at the success which
the label won from the start, at the expense of the elaborate envelope
design on which the artistic ideals of both Cole and Hill had set
their hopes.[8] It was not the public lack of appreciation of
beauty or art, but their ready selection of the convenient and the
practical, instead of the imaginative and sentimental, and, it must
be admitted, very impracticable, design for the envelopes and covers.
More than two decades later--May, 1863--Sir Rowland Hill, writing to
Signor Perazzi, who was making inquiries on behalf of the Italian
authorities, said, "I do consider them [stamped envelopes] as of real
use to the public, although the small proportion used (not more than 1
per cent., I believe), shows that the demand for them is comparatively
insignificant."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Select Committee on Postage, First Report, 1838," p. 122,
questions 1829, 1830.
[2] It should be remembered that newspapers had for many years (since
1712) been the subject of a tax, and until 1855, when the newspaper tax
was abolished, such papers passed through the post free.
[3] _Hansard_, xxxiii., p. 1214.
[4] _Athenæum_, No. 1836, January 3, 1863, p. 18.
[5] Nos. 1834 (December 20, 1862) and 1835 (December 27, 1862).
[6] Second edition 1838.
[7] Mr. John Collins Francis refers to this issue in his two volumes,
"John Francis and _The Athenæum_," published by Bentley in 1888.
[8] It is said to have cost £1,000; the art of the label cost, to Mr.
Corbould £12 12s., to Mr. Heath £52 10s.
III
SOME
EARLY
PIONEERS
OF
PHILATELY