I have further shown that Mr. Chalmers was one of the early postal reformers prior to the period of Mr. Rowland Hill, that he had done great service in the way of accelerating the mails betwixt London and the north, and that he was in communication with several of those early reformers, such as Mr. Hume, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Knight—the publisher subsequently of Mr. Rowland Hill's pamphlet of 1837—so that his proposal of an adhesive stamp for postage purposes, a matter of notoriety in his own locality, would further have become well known in the general circle of postal reformers, amongst whom, and from whom, on joining same in the year 1835, Mr. Rowland Hill obtained the information which enabled him to draw up and publish his Penny Postage Scheme of 1837. (See page 5 of my pamphlet named.)
One of those pioneers of postal reform, the Rev. Samuel Roberts, M.A., of Conway, gives his personal testimony of the adhesive stamp having been originated by James Chalmers. (Page 42.)[3]
My pamphlet goes on to show (page 44) that on the appointment of the House of Commons Committee of 1837-38 on the proposed uniform Penny Postage Scheme, Mr. Chalmers sent in his plan of an adhesive stamp to Mr. Wallace, the Chairman, and to another Member of that Committee. Mr. Wallace's reply, stating that he will lay the plan before the Committee, is of date 9th December, 1837. In the dilemma in which the Government found itself (upon introducing on the 5th July, 1839, the Resolution preliminary to the Bill) as to how to carry out the Penny Postage Scheme in practice (page 21) Mr. Wallace favourably suggested the plan of the adhesive stamp. The statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this occasion, with the interposition of Mr. Wallace in the Commons, and of Lord Ashburton in the Lords, in favour of the adhesive stamp have already been given, conclusively showing that, up to this period, Mr. Hill had not included the adhesive stamp in his proposals.
On the passing of the Bill in August, Mr. Hill was relegated to the Treasury for the purpose of carrying out the scheme. The first step taken was to invite plans, by Treasury Circular of 23rd August, from the public; some time was taken up in receiving and considering these plans, until, by Treasury Minute of December 26th, 1839, the adhesive stamp was at length officially adopted, in conjunction with Mr. Hill's stamped covers, or stamp impressed upon the sheet of letter paper itself. (See page 46.) But the adhesive stamp, indeed, had been practically adopted by Mr. Hill before the plans were received, considered, and nothing better found, a concurrence of opinion having set in in favour of same. It will be seen that Mr. Chalmers, in his published statement of date February, 1838, now produced from Sir Henry Cole's papers, called for petitions towards the adoption of the adhesive stamp. In August, 1839, both the Associated Body of Paper-Makers and certain Merchants and Bankers of the City of London pressed for the adoption of this stamp; Mr. Rowland Hill himself, in a paper entitled "On the Collection of Postage by means of Stamps," circulated by him about the period of the Bill being before Parliament, included the adoption of the adhesive stamp, in conjunction with his own impressed stamp. Mr. Cole also drew up an able paper on the stamp question, including the advocacy of the adhesive stamp. So general, indeed, had then become opinion in its favour, that of the plans sent in no less than forty-nine others besides Mr. Chalmers, who again sent in his plan, recommended the adoption of the adhesive stamp, invented by Mr. Chalmers in 1834, laid by him before the Committee of the House of Commons in December, 1837, and further, as we shall now see, sent in to Mr. Cole as Secretary to the Mercantile Committee of the City of London, in February, 1838, and acknowledged by Mr. Rowland Hill in a letter to Mr. Chalmers of date 3rd March, 1838. In this letter Mr. Hill makes no pretension to the merit or proposed adoption of the adhesive stamp on his part, for, as will be seen, Mr. Chalmers subsequently returned to Mr. Hill a copy of this very letter for the purpose of pointing out this fact to Mr. Hill. It was not until the propriety, and indeed necessity, of adopting Mr. Chalmers' plan—not until its final official acceptance—that, in a letter dated 18th January, 1840, Mr. Hill, then in despotic power, putting Mr. Chalmers aside upon the pretext afterwards mentioned, assumed the whole merit to himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Since publishing my evidence specifically proving what is here stated, I have been favoured with the following letter:—
"Brechin,
9th October, 1883
"Dear Sir,
"When I penned my anonymous note to the Dundee Advertiser in August, 1879, expressing the hope that there might be still living some who could corroborate my statement that the late Mr. Chalmers was the inventor of the 'Adhesive Stamp,' I hardly expected it would be followed by such an amount of corroboration.
"With regard to the date of the invention, you appear to have received ample proof, and I am able to add thereto. It was in the autumn of 1834 that I left Dundee to reside here, and the Stamp was in existence in Mr. Chalmers' premises before I left.