The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive
postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...
used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
(referred to in
philatelic circles as
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
), on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
.
In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir
Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his soluti ...
proposed an adhesive
stamp
Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to:
Official documents and related impressions
* Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail
* Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods
* Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...
to indicate pre-payment of postage.
At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of up to to be delivered at a flat rate of one penny, regardless of distance.
Treasury competition
![Perkins D cylinder printing press in the British Library](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Perkins_D_cylinder_printing_press_in_the_British_Library.jpg)
On 13 February 1837, Sir
Rowland Hill
Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his soluti ...
proposed to a government enquiry both the idea of a pre-paid
stamp
Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to:
Official documents and related impressions
* Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail
* Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods
* Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...
and a pre-paid
envelope
An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter or card.
Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one of three shapes: a rhombus, a shor ...
, a separate sheet folded to form an enclosure for carrying letters.
Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system, and together with
Henry Cole he announced a competition to design the new stamps. Out of some 2,600 entries, none was considered suitable, however, so a rough design endorsed by Hill was chosen instead, featuring an easily recognisable profile of the former Princess
Victoria. Hill believed this would be difficult to forge. An envelope bearing a reproduction of a design created by the artist
William Mulready
William Mulready (1 April 1786 – 7 July 1863) was an Irish genre painter living in London. He is best known for his romanticising depictions of rural scenes, and for creating Mulready stationery letter sheets, issued at the same time as the P ...
was also issued.
Design
The portrait of
Victoria was engraved by
Charles Heath
Charles Theodosius Heath (1 March 1785 – 18 November 1848) was a British engraver, currency and stamp printer, book publisher and illustrator.
Life and career
He was the illegitimate son of James Heath, a successful engraver who enjoyed ...
and his son Frederick, based on a sketch provided by
Henry Corbould
Henry Corbould (1787–1844) was an English artist.
Life
The third son of Richard Corbould, he was born in London. He studied painting with his father, and was at an early age admitted as a student of the Royal Academy, under Fuseli, where he ...
. Corbould's sketch was in turn based on the 1834
cameo-like head by
William Wyon, which was used on a medal to commemorate the Queen's visit to the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
in 1837. This portrait of Victoria remained on British stamps until her death in 1901, although by then she was 81 years old. All British stamps still bear a portrait or
silhouette of the monarch somewhere on the design. The first stamps did not need to show the issuing country, so no country name was included on them. The UK remains the only country in the world to omit its name on postage stamps; the monarch's image signifies the UK as the country of origin.
Initially, Hill specified that the stamps should be 3/4 inch square,
[Edward Denny Bacon, "The line-engraved postage stamps of Great Britain printed by Perkins, Bacon & Co.", 1920] but altered the dimensions to 3/4 inch wide by 7/8 inch tall (approx 19 x 22 mm) to accommodate the writing at the bottom. The word "POSTAGE" at the top of the design distinguishes it from a
revenue stamp
A revenue stamp, tax stamp, duty stamp or fiscal stamp is a (usually) adhesive label used to designate collected taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, ...
, which had long been used in the UK; "ONE PENNY." at the bottom shows the amount pre-paid for postage of the stamped letter. The background to the portrait consists of finely engraved
engine turnings
Engine turning, also known as jewelling, is a fine geometric pattern turned onto metal as a finish. Aluminium is often the metal chosen to inscribe, but any appropriate surface can be finely machined to produce intricate repetitive patterns ...
.
The two upper corners hold
Maltese cross
The Maltese cross is a cross symbol, consisting of four " V" or arrowhead shaped concave quadrilaterals converging at a central vertex at right angles, two tips pointing outward symmetrically.
It is a heraldic cross variant which developed f ...
es with radiant solar discs at their centres; the lower corner letters show the position of the stamp in the printed sheet, from "A A" at top left to "T L" at bottom right. The sheets, printed by
Perkins Bacon
Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co was a printer of books, bank notes and postage stamps, most notable for printing the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamps, in 1840.
{{Infobox
, above = Details on the mode of preventing the forgery o ...
, consisted of 240 stamps in 20 rows of 12 columns. One full sheet cost 240 pence or one pound; one row of 12 stamps cost a shilling. As the name suggests, the stamp was printed in black ink. A
two penny stamp printed in blue and covering the double-letter rate (up to ) was issued on 8 May 1840.
Issue
Although the stamps were not officially issued for sale until 6 May 1840, some offices such as those in
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
sold the stamps unofficially before that date. There are covers postmarked 2 May, and a single example is known on cover dated 1 May 1840. All London post offices received official supplies of the new stamps but other offices throughout the United Kingdom did not, continuing to accept payments for postage in cash for a period.
The Penny Black lasted less than a year. A red cancellation was hard to see on the black design and the red ink was easy to remove; both made it possible to re-use cancelled stamps. In February 1841, the Treasury switched to the
Penny Red
The Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It succeeded the Penny Black and continued as the main type of postage stamp in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1879, with only minor changes to the design dur ...
and began using black ink for cancellations instead, which was more effective and harder to remove. However, people still reused stamps by combining the uncancelled parts of two stamps to form an unused whole, so in 1864 as a further safeguard the top corner stars on the Penny Red were replaced by the lower corner check letters in reverse order.
Imprimatur sheet
Imprimatur sheets are from among the first sheets of stamps printed from a finished printing plate. The actual ''
imprimatur'' ('let it be printed') refers to the written permission of the
Inland Revenue officials entered on the back of the sheet of stamps. In the 19th century, it was common for officials to remove some stamps from each sheet to present as gifts to dignitaries and other important people. Individual stamps from an Imprimatur sheet can thus be found for sale on the open market.
A complete sheet of the Penny Black without check letters is held by the
British Postal Museum
The Postal Museum (formerly the British Postal Museum & Archive) is a postal museum run by the Postal Heritage Trust. It began in 2004 as The British Postal Museum & Archive and opened in Central London as The Postal Museum on 28 July 2017.
Si ...
.
This unique item is in fact a plate proof, and by definition not an imprimatur sheet.
Printing
![Penny Black Block of six](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Penny_Black_Block_of_six.jpeg)
The Penny Black was printed from 11 plates, but as Plate 1 was completely overhauled due to excessive wear, it is generally considered to be two separate plates, 1a and 1b. Plate 11 was originally intended solely for the printing of new red stamps, but a small number were printed in black. These are scarce.
The stamps were printed in
imperforate
For postage stamps, separation is the means by which individual stamps are made easily detachable from each other.
Methods of separation include:
# perforation: cutting rows and columns of small holes
# rouletting: small horizontal and vert ...
sheets, to be carefully cut with scissors for sale and use. As a result, stamps with badly cut margins, or no margins, are common and worth very little, while examples with four clear margins are rare and valuable, and fetch very high prices, especially if in mint condition.
An original printing press for the Penny Black, the "D" cylinder press invented by
Jacob Perkins
Jacob Perkins (9 July 1766 – 30 July 1849) was an American inventor, mechanical engineer and physicist. Born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Perkins was apprenticed to a goldsmith. He soon made himself known with a variety of useful mechanical ...
and patented in 1819, is on display at the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
in London.
Rarity
The total print run was 286,700 sheets, containing a total of 68,808,000 stamps. Many were saved, and in used condition they remain readily available to
stamp collectors
Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects. It is an area of philately, which is the study (or combined study and collection) of stamps. It has been one of the world's most popular hobbies since the late nineteenth ...
. The only known complete sheets of the Penny Black are owned by the
British Postal Museum
The Postal Museum (formerly the British Postal Museum & Archive) is a postal museum run by the Postal Heritage Trust. It began in 2004 as The British Postal Museum & Archive and opened in Central London as The Postal Museum on 28 July 2017.
Si ...
.
The VR official
In addition to the general issue of the Penny Black, a similar stamp intended for official mail was produced, with the letters "V" and "R" replacing the crosses in the top corners. Because the general public quickly accepted the postage stamps and ridiculed the
Mulready stationery produced at the same time, vast supplies of Mulready letter sheets were given for official use to government departments such as the tax office and the idea of introducing an official stamp was abandoned. Only a few postally used examples exist, which probably originate from the
Post Office circulars sent out as advance notice of the new stamps. Four are known on covers; all were cut from their envelopes and then replaced. Most of the cancelled examples are from trials of cancellation types, inks, and experiments with their removal. Those trials led to the change from black to red stamps, and vice versa for the cancellations.
Popular culture
![The Penny Black pub sign, 58 Sheep Street - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/The_Penny_Black_pub_sign%2C_58_Sheep_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_861101.jpg)
Considered a British cultural icon, the Penny Black design features in the innovations section of the new
British passport
A British passport is a travel document issued by the United Kingdom or other British dependencies and territories to individuals holding any form of British nationality. It grants the bearer international passage in accordance with visa requ ...
in 2015. Also in 2015, the search engine
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
marked the 175th anniversary of the postage stamp with a
Google doodle of the Penny Black.
See also
*
List of British postage stamps
This is a list of British postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail postal service of the United Kingdom, normally referred to in philatelic circles as Great Britain. This list should be consistent with printed publications, and cite sources of any ...
*
List of notable postage stamps
*
Mauritius "Post Office"
*
Penny Blue
*
Penny Red
The Penny Red was a British postage stamp, issued in 1841. It succeeded the Penny Black and continued as the main type of postage stamp in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until 1879, with only minor changes to the design dur ...
*
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day.
The postal history of the United Kingd ...
*
Stamp Centenary Exhibition 1940
*
Two penny blue
The Two Penny Blue or The Two Pence Blue was the world's second official postage stamp, produced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and issued after the Penny Black.
Initial printing took place from 1 May 1840, and in all 6, ...
*
Uniform Penny Post
Notes
References and sources
;References
;Sources
*
Further reading
* Holyoake, Alan. ''The World's First Postage Stamp''. London:
Royal Philatelic Society, London, 2013 , 159p.
* Jackson, Mike. ''May Dates: A survey of Penny Blacks, Twopenny Blues, Mulreadys and caricatures used during May 1840''. Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire: Mike Jackson Publications, c1999. .
* Litchfield, Percy C. ''Guide Lines To The Penny Black: a detailed description of each one of the 2880 stamps and the plates from which it was printed''. London: R. Lowe, 1979.
*
Muir, Douglas N. ''Postal Reform and the Penny Black: A New Appreciation''. London: National Postal Museum, 1990
* Nissen, Charles. ''Great Britain: The Penny Black: Its Plate Characteristics''. Kent,
ngland F. Hugh Vallancey
Francis Hugh Vallancey (1879 – 6 September 1950) was a schoolmaster, philatelist, philatelic author and editor, and dealer in philatelic literature. His business was destroyed during the London Blitz of 1941, but he rebuilt it after the war bef ...
, 1948.
*
Nissen, Charles and
Bertram McGowan
Bertram McGowan (1874–1950) was a Scottish solicitor and philatelist who specialised in Chile and the Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain, . ''The Plating of The Penny Black Postage Stamp Of Great Britain, 1840: with a description of each individual stamp on the eleven different plates, affording a guide to collectors in the reconstruction of the sheets''. London: Stanley Gibbons, 1998
*
Proud, Edward B. ''Penny Black Plates''. Heathfield, East Sussex: International Postal Museum, 2015.
* Rigo de Righi, A.G. ''The Story of the Penny Black and Its Contemporaries''. London: National Postal Museum, 1980
External links
The digitised R.M. Phillips Collection of Victorian philatelyat the American
National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum, located opposite Union Station in Washington, D.C., United States, covers large portions of the Postal history of the United States and other countries. It was established through joint agreement between the United S ...
These stamps are the legends of the hobby Linns.com ''Refresher Courses''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penny Black
Postage stamps
1840 introductions
Postage stamps of the United Kingdom
Postal history of the United Kingdom
Cultural depictions of Queen Victoria
1840 in the United Kingdom