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Article: Happy 150th, Penny Black
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- June 29, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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WHEN SIR Rowland Hill, a British education and colonial reformer,
turned his attention to his country's chaotic mail system 153 years
ago, he offered a revolutionary idea. A cheap, uniform postal rate,
Hill argued, would produce a surge in mail volume and increase
commerce and literacy in the process.
Then, in what Britain's Royal Mail service has described as
"almost an afterthought" he suggested that "a gummed printed label"
could be affixed to each letter to indicate the postage had been
prepaid by the sender. Until then the postage on most letters had to
be paid by the recipient-and at widely varying rates.
The British government accepted Sir Rowland's idea and on May 6,
1840, it ...