The Penny Black Stamp Store: William Mulready's profile of Queen Victoria

Monday 20 June 2011

William Mulready's profile of Queen Victoria

Sir Rowland Hill's 1837 proposals to reform the British postal system was such that there was pre-payment of postage, as back then it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery. He was given a two-year contract to run the new system and together with Henry Cole, he ran a competition to identify the best way to pre-pay letters. None of the 2,600 entries were good enough, so Hill launched the service in 1840 with an envelope bearing a reproduction of a design created by the artist William Mulready and a stamp bearing a representation of the profile of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. Up to today, all British stamps still bear a picture or silhouette of the monarch somewhere on the design, and are the only postage stamps in the world that do not name their country of origin, leaving the monarch's image to symbolise the United Kingdom.

Queen Victoria

The Treasury chose a rough design endorsed by Rowland Hill, featuring an easily recognisable profile of 15-year-old former Princess Victoria. Hill believed this would be difficult to forge. The head was engraved by Charles and Fredrick Heath based on a sketch provided by Henry Corbould. Corbould's sketch was based on the cameo-like head by William Wyon, which had been designed for a medal used to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria to the City of London in 1837. The background consisted of finely engraved engine turnings and the two upper corners contained star-like designs with the lower corners contained letters designating the position of the stamp in the printed sheet.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black

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A Brief History

Before 1st May 1840, posting a letter was a very complicated and expensive affair. It could cost the equivalent of a days wage, and it was charged by how many sheets of paper were used and how far it had to travel. Normally the recipient had to pay the cost.

Sir Roland Hill was responsible for reforming the British postal system, and as part of this a competition was held for the public to design the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. However none of the entries were thought suitable, so instead they used the profile sketch of a then 15 year old Queen Victoria. This image was used on stamps until the end of her reign. Because the Penny Black was the first postage stamp in the world, it did not show a country of origin, and to this day British stamps are the only stamps in the world that do not state what country they are from.

However, the Penny Black only remained in circulation for a year, as it was soon found that it was possible to remove the ink of the red cancellation mark and re-use the stamp, so the Treasury switched to the Penny Red and black cancellation ink.