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.
HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED EXAMPLES OF THE PROPOSALS SUBMITTED TO THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY IN 1839 IN COMPETITION FOR PRIZES OFFERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE PENNY POSTAGE PLAN.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.