Peeps at Postage Stamps

by Stanley C. Johnson

CHAPTER IX

PIONEERS OF POSTAGE

In a previous chapter we spoke of the penny black of 1840 as the first postage label to be given to the world. The reader must not suppose from this remark that the appearance of the stamp coincided with the commencement of an organized postal system in Great Britain. Such a thing as a post was known to exist in this country as far back as the year 1609, but not until some thirty years later were its operations extended to the public in general.

Across the sea, in France, the idea of letter-carrying was also developing in this period of stress and struggle. In the year when Cromwell was installed as "Protector," a Comte de Villayer was permitted to place pillar-boxes in the thoroughfares of Paris and provide the inhabitants with a local postal service. Villayer seems to have been greatly concerned as to the best method of collecting the postage on the letters placed in his charge until the idea of issuing a wrapper bearing some distinctive design occurred to him. These paper bands were placed on sale in a number of shops, and cost two sous apiece. Each letter had to be wrapped in one of them, which Villayer's men tore off prior to effecting delivery. The system is of unusual interest to philatelists, because the ornamental wrapper devised by this Frenchman supplies us with the origin from which postage stamps sprang.

At home the business of letter-carrying was growing with considerable rapidity, considering how troublous were these times. Villayer's counterpart in London was a man named Dockwra. He organized a system of depots throughout the city for receiving correspondence. People took their letters to these depots, paid the postage in actual coin, and an attendant franked the communications by means of a hand stamp. This was a device exactly similar to the obliterating stamps seen to-day on the counters of our post offices. Dockwra's hand stamp bore a triangular design bearing the curious legend, "Post Payd, Peny."

We now know the history of the first stamped wrapper, the first franking stamp, and the first adhesive stamp. At this point we will speak of the first stamped envelope. The "Mulready," as this pioneer envelope was called, owed its origin to Sir Rowland Hill and his co-workers. The penny black adhesive label was considered to be too great an innovation by Sir Rowland's followers, and, as a sort of compromise, it was decided to issue a stamped envelope as an alternative to the penny adhesive. The two were placed on sale at the same moment, and, curiously enough, the adhesive immediately proved a tremendous success, whilst the Mulready only received slight favours. This happened in spite of the fact that the authorities were confident that the stamped envelope would prove the more popular of the two.

The Mulready was a curious, if not weird, production. The design covered half of the face of the envelope, and consisted of Britannia surrounded by people and animals treated symbolically. The paper used for the envelope bore the silk threads spoken of in an earlier chapter.

The Mulready deserved a better fate. All the comic papers at the time reproduced grotesque imitations of it; every wit used it disparagingly, and in all ways it became a butt for humour. Perhaps the best-known caricatures of this unfortunate envelope were those produced by Doyle, a boy of fifteen. Though his drawings never received postal sanction, they are often sold by stamp dealers and treasured by collectors as curiosities.

Before leaving the Mulready, we must admit that two other envelopes claim to be older than this production of Sir Rowland Hill. The first is the special-letter cover, which was issued to members of Parliament in January, 1840, and the second, the New South Wales embossed envelope of 1838. Of the former we need only say that its use was merely of a private nature, whilst of the latter our knowledge is very imperfect and hardly trustworthy.