Before the end of the year the specification was amended
by Hill to a more rectangular shape to allow for wording
“Half oz One Penny” or “1/2 oz One Penny” at the bottom of
the stamp and that “The 4 corners be taken away but only
to a slight extent”.
Although this is not shown in any of the
surviving essays it is the first indication that the individual
corner lettering was to be included.
It was also confirmed that
the model for the Queen’s head should be taken from the City
Medal of 1837 by William Wyon.
still had not been settled was the color for the new labels.
Any
color was theoretically p ossible- however, Perkins, Bacon
Petch were clear in their view that “we most strongly advis
the penny stamp to be p rinted in black.
The press selected for th e task of printing the stamps was
the Jacob Perkins design ed “D Cylinder press”.
This model
of press proved so succe ssful that with few modifications it
continued in service for t he next forty years.
The following
excerpt from an 1852 iss ue of Charles Dickens’s periodical
Household Words, descr ibes the printing of a sheet of 1d.
Reds,
using the same presses that had been built for the printing of
the 1840 1d.
Black – and using the same methods:
“Twelve presses are gen erally at work, at each of which presides
its own proper mechanic, who turns out, on an average, fou
hundred sheets of two hu ndred and forty each – equal to eleve
hundred and fifty thousa nd stamps – per day
The celebrated image of Queen Victoria on the City Medal,
struck to commemorate her visit to the Guildhall, was actually
taken from a sculpture Wyon had made of the young Princess
Victoria in 1834 when she was fifteen.
The task of drawing the
image fell to (Edward) Henry Corbould, a noted watercolorist,
who produced numerous sketches and was paid £12 for his
work.
The completed drawing was then sent to Charles Heath,
Corbould’s ex-father-in-law and a former business partner of
Jacob Perkins.
His work is not
different from ordinary c opper and steel plate printing.
The
workman’s plate is kept warm by gas light, and he lays it on the
“bed” of the press before him.
He then grasps a bunch of hard
blanketing duly charged with red ink and transfers the ink to
the plate with a “wrigglin g” motion, which fills up the engraved
lines with the pigment.
N ext he carefully smooths the polished
surface, leaving the ink o nly in the lines into which it has
been forced.
Now he seiz es a sheet of paper, supplied by the
Government – which bea rs a Crown and a border, composed
of the words “Penny Pos tage”, as watermark – and lays it on
the plate.
Now, he turns t he wheel, which pulls it in between two
cylinders, and they squee ze out the ink from the lines indented
on the steel upon the pap er, and it comes back to its master,
radiant with crimson hea ds.
This back movement is the pride of
the press; it is caused by the form of the cylinder (a form which
its name of D suggests) a nd saves the trouble of the mechanic’s
drawing the plate back hi mself.”
By the middle of January, Heath and his son Frederick
had produced a first die for a postage stamp.
A proof was
created using one of the several different engine engraved
backgrounds and impressions were taken.
Both were found to
be too weak and both were rejected.
However, one of the other
backgrounds was found to be acceptable.
Work started on a
second die immediately and this time it was engraved directly
on a cleared space on the accepted background.
The first die
was not entirely wasted as it was used throughout January
and February 1840 to produce proofs for the labels and for
use in fixing the layout and spacing of the 240 impressions
on the plate.
On February 20th Charles Heath sent the
completed second die to Jacob Bacon with a note “If that does
not transfer well nothing will.”
Charles and Frederick Heath
received £52.10s.
for their revolutionary work, which allowed
for an unprecedented multiplication of a printed image.
The last parts of the design were the top and bottom labels
and blank corner squares.
As previously mentioned, Hill had
requested blank corners and a bottom label reading “Half (or
½) oz One Penny”.
No doubt Perkins, Bacon & Petch would
have informed him that these could be added at any time and,
as he was unsure of the wording, should be left until later.
On
January 30th Hill wrote to inform them that the wording had
been fixed to read “Postage One Penny” and several essays
of the rejected die with this inscribed at the bottom exist.
By February 17th essays were produced using the accepted
background showing two thin labels above and below- th
top reading “Postage” and the bottom “One Penny.”
together
with framelines around the whole design and blank squares at
all four corners.
The wording was presented in both black on
white and white on black, the latter being approved.
THE MULREADY STATIO NERY
The Mulready stationery was developed in parallel with the penny
stamps.
The Wallace document
A first essay, depicting a seated Britannia at the top of a
lettersheet, was submitted in late 1839 by Henry Corbould
who was soon to provide the image of Queen Victoria for the
penny stamp.
Both required de nominations of 1d.
and 2d..However,
the stationery was require d in two forms: rectangular lettersheets
or covers and also diamo nd-shaped envelopes.
Because of their
larger size, the stationery would be produced in sheets of twelve
(with a sheet value of one or two shillings) compared with 240
for the stamps (sheet val ue of one or two pounds).
It is perhaps
ironic that the Mulready d esign was conceived on Friday the 13th
and the first completed p roof was delivered on April Fools’ Day.
Offered for sale to the pu blic on May 1st, the ill-fated Mulready
was immediately ridiculed by the public and almost immediately
caricatures appeared lam pooning the design.
A particular
favourite was that one of the four messengers being dispatched
by Britannia to the four co rners of the globe appeared to only
have one leg.
Within two weeks even Rowland Hill admitted the
design had failed miserab ly.
Believed as being the preferred means of prepaying postage,
it was calculated that as many as 1,000,000 would eventually
be needed per day to meet demand.
In paper alone the
requirement would be over 150 reams per day compared with
less than 3 for the same number of the diminutive stamp.
At
12 covers per sheet over 80,000 would need to be printed
every working day, not something that could be achieved with
a hand press.
The question as to which type of press must
have been asked and answered at a very early stage.
Rowland
Hill was intimately familiar with the industry having patented,
with brother Edwin, a rotary press in 1835.
He had also very
nearly accepted a partnership with William Clowes, the chosen
printer, before taking on Postal Reform.
The solution was the
steam powered flat bed cylinder press originally invented by
Fredrich Konig but subsequently improved upon by Applegath
and Cowper.
As early as January 16th Henry Cole and one of
the inventors, Edward Cowper, had been in correspondence.
Nineteen of these presses resided across the river Thames at
the junction of Duke and Stamford Streets in Blackfriars, the
home of William Clowes and Sons.
This essay was dismissed as unsuitable and Hill
turned to his assistant Henry Cole to obtain a better design.
He
first consulted Sir Martin Archer Shee, President of the Royal
Academy, who suggested fellow Academicians Westmacott,
Cockerell, Howard, Eastlake, and Hilton.
He was then advised
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Francis Baring, to visit
William Mulready, R.A..
Mulready was born in Ireland in 1786 though moved to London
at a young age.
He studied at the Royal Academy School in
1800 and enjoyed early success as a landscape artist.
He was
elected to the R.A.
as an associate in 1815 and as a full member
the following year.
An accomplished draughtsman, he gained
prominence for both his depictions of contemporary life and
numerous book illustrations.
Sir Thomas Baring, father of
Francis Baring, became one of his early patrons.
In later life his
works were greatly admired by Queen Victoria who acquired
several for the royal collection.
On Saturday, February 22nd 1840 two proofs of the completed
die comprising the head and background were delivered up to
As early as 1837 Rowland Hill had proposed prepaid stationery as
Rowland Hill.
One week later Francis Baring, the Chancellor of
part of his Postal Reform.
It was not a new idea, the first recorded
the Exchequer, showed him a letter from the Queen expressing
examples being produced by a Monsieur De Valayer for his Paris
her “high appreciation” of the stamp.
local post in 1653, a syste m that also included mailboxes.
A short time later the die was returned to Perkins, Bacon &
Petch from Charles Heath who, along with William Wyon, had
made some very minor changes to his engraving.
The chosen
labels were added on March 4th and during the following week
the decision was made that crosses should be added to the
top corner squares.
The die was finally complete and on March
13th a proof was sent to H.L.
Wickham, Commissioners of
Stamps and Taxes, the man empowered to award the contract
for printing.
The two parties met the following day and major
terms and conditions were agreed upon.
The one matter that
Almost all the 2,600 sub missions for the Treasury Competition
of 1839 produced sugge stions and ideas for postal stationery
yet none of the surviving essays bear any real resemblance
to the adopted design.
O f the winners, Benjamin Cheverton’s
thoughts of employing fi ne art as a measure against forgery
appears to be the only id ea to make an impression on Rowland
Hill.
One other competit or who had also submitted essays
for the London District p ost in 1837 with Charles Whiting was
papermaker John Dickin son.
His 1828 invention incorporated
security paper that was embedded with silk threads.
On Friday December 13th while Hill was visiting Perkins, Bacon
& Petch to discuss the Penny Black, Cole visited Mulready with
a view to designing the envelopes and covers.
On a second
visit two days later Mulready presented him with a completed
sketch of the design.
According to Hill’s diary, Francis Baring
approved Mulready’s design on January 4th 1840.
For this
work Mulready was paid £200, the equivalent to approximately
£12,000 today.
William Clowes (1779–1847) had taken over the premises
in Blackfriars in 1827 from Applegath and Cowper.
With a
workforce of over 350 and a total of 42 hand and steam
printing presses he was printing over 1,500 reams of paper per
week and was the largest printer in London if not the world.
An acquaintance of Rowland Hill, he had printed Hill’s Postal
Reform pamphlet in 1837.
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