Stamp Collector

73 MAY 2020 www.allaboutstamps.co.uk Quick Links Page 74 British Library Page 75 Stamp printing in detail Page 76 Eminent philatelists Page 77 Registered post guide PHILATELIC FOCUS As we mark the 180th anniversary of the famous stamp, Nicola Davies, Head of Collections at the Royal Philatelic Society London, describes a remarkable sheet that features suggestions from Rowland Hill himself Born in 1795, Rowland Hill was raised in a family of educators whose schools, Hazelwood and Bruce Castle, enjoyed excellent international reputations. Hill was a school master for 26 years before ill-health forced him to retire. It was then that he devoted his energies to postal reform. Prior to 1840 the British postal system was complex and expensive for the user and subject to corruption and abuse by officials. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and railways the population was becoming more mobile and the cost of sending letters was preventing poorer families from remaining in contact. Rowland Hill recognised this social injustice and became determined to remedy it. He produced a pamphlet entitled ‘Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability’ and campaigned vigorously for a universal penny post which was finally achieved with the passing of the Penny Postage Act (1839) and the Act’s implementation in 1840. This is the original corner letter layout sheet for the Penny Black plate and is the instruction given by Hill to the printers Perkins Bacon suggesting the layout and lettering for each stamp. Hill decided that the stamps should be arranged in a sheet of 240 stamps with each stamp individually identifiable by having different check letters in two corners; he reasoned that a forger would be unlikely to produce 240 different stamps. Dated 22 February 1840, at this stage the check letters were to be located in the top two corners of the stamp but this was later changed to the bottom two corners for the issued stamps. This sheet was purchased by the Society in 1936 following the closure of Perkins Bacon & Co. in 1935 and forms part of the RPSL’s extensive Perkins Bacon archive. For more from the RPSL Collections: www.rpsl. org.uk or email research@rpsl.org.uk Your expert guide to theworld of philately Treasure atThe Royal Rowland Hill and the Penny Black