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."
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."