The invention of the postage stamp

People laid claims that they invented the postage stamp.

Rowland Hill

Rowland Hill first started to take a serious interest in postal reforms in 1835. ^[1] In 1836 Robert Wallace, MP, provided Hill with numerous books and documents, which Hill described as a “half hundred weight of material”.^[2] Hill commenced a detailed study of these documents and this led him to the publication, in early 1837, of a pamphlet entitled “Post Office Reform its Importance and Practicability”. He submitted a copy of this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Spring-Rice, on 4 January 1837.^[3] This first edition was marked “private and confidential” and was not released to the general public. The Chancellor summoned Hill to a meeting during which the Chancellor suggested improvements, asked for reconsiderations and requested a supplement which Hill duly produced and supplied on 28 January 1837.^[4]

Rowland Hill then received a summons to give evidence before the Commission for Post Office Enquiry on 13 February 1837. During his evidence he read from the letter he had written to the Chancellor which included the statement “…by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash…”.^[5][6] This is the first publication of a very clear description of an adhesive postage stamp. It must be remembered that the phrase postage stamp did not yet exist at that time. Shortly afterwards the second edition of Hill’s booklet, dated 22 February 1837, was published and this was made available to the general public. This booklet, containing some 28,000 words, incorporated the supplement he gave to the Chancellor and the statements he made to the Commission.

Hansard records that on 15 December 1837 Mr Benjamin Hawes asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer “whether it was the intention of the Government to give effect to the recommendation of the Commissioners of the Post-office, contained in their ninth report relating to the reduction of the rates of postage, and the issuing of penny stamps?”^[7]

James Chalmers

The first documentary evidence for James Chalmers’ claim is the essay and proposal he submitted for adhesive postage stamps, to the General Post Office, dated 8 February 1838 and received by the Post Office on 17 February 1838.^[8] In this document, of some 800 words, about methods of franking letters he states “Therefore, if Mr Hill’s plan of a uniform rate of postage … I conceive that the most simple and economical mode … would be by Slips … in the hope that Mr Hill’s plan may soon be carried into operation I would suggest that sheets of Stamped Slips should be prepared … then be rubbed over on the back with a strong solution of gum …”. The original of this document is now in the National Postal Museum. The weights and postage amounts on these essays are those that were proposed by Hill in February 1837.

It is clear that James Chalmers was aware of Rowland Hill’s proposals, but it is not clear whether he had obtained a copy of Hill’s booklet or if he had read about it in the Times. The Times had, on two occasions, on 25 March 1837^[9]and on 20 December 1837^[10] reported in great detail Hill’s proposals. In neither report was there any mention of “a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp”. So if Chalmers had only read the Times he would have been completely unaware that Hill had already made the proposal for “a bit of paper…”.

James Chalmers organised petitions “for a low and uniform rate of postage”. The first such petition was presented in the House of Commons on 4 December 1837 (from Montrose).^[11] Further petitions organised by him were presented on 1 May 1838 (from Dunbar and Cupar), 14 May 1838 (from the county of Forfar) and 12 June 1839. Many other people were concurrently organising petitions and presenting them to Parliament. All these petitions were presented after Hill’s proposals had been published.

The claim that James Chalmers was the inventor of the postage stamp first surfaced in 1881 when the book “The Penny Postage Scheme of 1837”, written by his son, Patrick Chalmers, was published.^[12] In this book the son claims that James Chalmers first produced an essay for a stamp in August 1834 but no evidence for this is provided in the book. Patrick Chalmers continued to campaign, to have his father recognised as the inventor, until he died in 1891.