William Mulready original sketch
1820’s and to whose widow he was married.
Long before the head of Mercury (whi ch would be used by Austria some
Treasury Competition he had suggested designs for postal twenty years later).
How ever, his essays clearly show the head
labels and stationery, perhaps as far back as 1830.
He was of Victoria.
He also propo sed the use of watermarked paper.
known to and had worked with both Rowland Hill and fellow
winner Henry Cole, who in turn had asked printers Perkins,
Bacon & Petch to print some of Whiting’s designs.
Little is known of Francis Coffin save for the fact that he lived
in Russell Square, Bloom sbury and, in 1837, he received a
patent, “in consequence of a communication made to him by
a foreigner residing abro ad, for certain improvements in the
construction of printing machinery or presses.”
The foreign
correspondent was Jame s Bogardus, born in New York but in
1839 living in London.
His many patents covered a wide variety
of subjects.
His greatest claim to fame was the construction
of the first cast iron fram ed building in New York in 1848,
the forerunner of the mo dern skyscraper.
He also produced
printing presses for, amo ng others, Rawden Wright, and Hatch,
the printers of the first U nited States stamps.
Many of Whiting’s multicoloured designs still exist and
they are the most common to be found.
Among his ideas
that were adopted in one form or another were a machine-
turned background, sheets of 240 impressions (twenty rows
of twelve columns), and check letters for differentiating
individual stamps.
It is believed many or all of these ideas were
suggested several months before the actual competition.
The youngest of the winners, 31-year-old Henry Cole, was a
long-time supporter of the campaign for postal reform and
a long-time associate of Rowland Hill.
He was secretary and
a driving force behind the Mercantile Committee mentioned
earlier.
A talented artist, his cartoon of a mail coach showing
the inequalities of the old postal system was used extensively
to push for the reform.
He was, in fact, appointed as assistant
to Rowland Hill at the Treasury before the results of the
competition had been announced.
He would go on to produce
the first Christmas card, organize the Great Exhibition of 1851,
and help found the Victoria and Albert Museum.
His numerous
achievements were rewarded with a knighthood in 1865.
A part of Bogardus and C offin’s entry was almost certainly a
machine designed to affix labels to envelopes by way of a seal,
evidenced by a patent aw arded in August 1839.
Bogardus also
held a patent for a machi ne that could apply engine-turned
designs onto steel plates
Unfortunately, only a small number
of essays attributed to th e pair are known and all of these are
consistent with the paten t design of 1839.
It has to be noted that in spite of so few entries that related
to postage labels, every s ingle one of the prizewinners
proposed at least one typ e of adhesive stamp and between
them described all the fa cets that appeared in the finished
article.
Benjamin Chevert on suggested the Queen’s head and
watermarked paper, whil st Charles Whiting had the ideas of
an engine turned backgro und, check letters in the corners
and printing sheets of 24 0 impressions.
Bogardus and Coffin
may well have also sugge sted the background and a means
of transferring die impres sions to steel plates as well as
proposals for printing.
William Mulready (1786-1863) by John Linnell, oil on panel, 1833 © National Portrait Gallery, London
ability to harden soft steel using charcoal and heat so that
each transfer was between hard and soft steel.
His submission pertained to both suggestions- in his ow
words “In my essay, I entered fully on the question of forgery
and suggested postage stamps and stamped covers.
An artist, sculptor and inventor, Benjamin Cheverton produced
a machine for reproducing and miniaturizing sculptures and
medallions which won a gold medal at the Great Exhibition of
1851.
His submission is unique in the fact that it was rediscovered
in near complete form in 1910 when the noted philatelist Lord
Crawford obtained it from one of Cheverton’s relatives.
The resulting
plate was then hardened before printing began.
Perkins, Bacon
& Petch demonstrated several small plates still producing
identical impressions following hundreds of thousands of
prints.
Jacob Perkins had also conceived and built a device
known as the improved “Rose” machine.
Based on a type
of lathe and with the ability to produce an infinite variety of
geometric patterns that could be engraved on flat, concave, or
convex surfaces, this was ideal for bank notes and for stamps.
labels were also to be produced.
The firm had been involved
in discussions with both Hill and Henry Cole regarding the dry
printing of a Charles Whiting design during the late summer
of 1839 but nothing had come of it.
On instructions from Hill,
Henry Cole visited the firm on December 2nd 1839 and laid out
the government’s preliminary requirements for the labels.
The
following day Perkins, Bacon & Petch wrote back with quite
detailed estimates including a price of 8d.
per 1,000 labels and
a potential for producing 41,600 labels a day.
Following the Treasury C ompetition, Hill began work on
finalizing the requiremen ts for the new labels.
Cheverton’s proposal came in two parts: the first concerning
Perkins, Bacon
& Petch of 69 Fleet Stree t, London, were security printers
the implementation and requirements of the system; the
second for the stamps themselves.
and were primarily engag ed in banknote and stock certificate
Cheverton suggested a
production.
well-executed image of a very recognizable person, embossed
In 1819 the fi rm’s American founder Jacob Perkins
on a stamp that was to be produced in rolls.
had developed a process for transferring die impressions
His initial idea was
to steel plates via transfe r rollers.
Due to a confusion as to the requirements of the Treasury,
Perkins, Bacon & Petch had not submitted an entry for the
Treasury Competition or a proposal for the printing of any
of the new stamps.
The method involved the
The confusion had arisen due to Perkins,
Bacon & Petch being unaware that in addition to entire
envelopes and wrappers being required, small inch square
On December 13th Hill visited Joshua Bacon to outline, in
greater detail, what was needed.
This first meeting produced
an offer from Perkins, Bacon & Petch to produce an engraved
die of the Queen’s head on an engine turned background of a
size to fit in a frame three quarters of an inch square.
The cost
would be 75 guineas with a promise that, if the firm received
the contract, the cost would be offset.
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