Adhesive postage stamp and uniform penny post
Sello postal adhesivo y franqueo uniforme (Penny Black)
- Date
- 1840 · confidence high
- Place
- London, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Rowland Hill (reform); James Chalmers (adhesive stamp, disputed)
- People
- 👤 James Chalmers1782–1853👤 Rowland Hill1795–1879
- Field
- Communication
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A postal reform charging a flat rate of one penny, prepaid by the sender using an adhesive stamp, instead of charging the recipient according to distance. The post became a universal mass service.
James Chalmers of Dundee claimed to have proposed the adhesive stamp in 1834; Lovrenc Košir suggested it in Austria in 1835. Hill was the author of the reform as a whole.
What it led to
- An explosion in private and commercial correspondence (from 76 to 350 million letters in a year)
- The Universal Postal Union (1874)
- Prepaid envelopes, letter boxes and mail order
- Philately
Built on
- Public railway (mail transport)
- Perkins Bacon security printing
- Dockwra's postal rates (1680)
Made possible
- Machine-made envelope (De La Rue, 1845)
- Postcard (1869)
- Postal money order