The Adhesive Postage Stamp Part 1

The Adhesive Postage Stamp.

by Patrick Chalmers.

PREFACE.

When a man of note dies, the journalist of the day can only reproduce in an obituary notice the accepted position of his life and works--it is no part of that writer's duty to examine, so as fully to certify, all the statements at hand, or to ransack old volumes dealing with the times when such reputation was established. That is the duty and the task of the later historian, or of some one specially interested. Such has been my duty, my task, as respects that public benefactor, the late Sir Rowland Hill, with the result arrived at in this and former publications.

Upon the death of Sir Rowland Hill in August, 1879, a series of letters with comments thereon appeared in the Dundee press, recalling the name and services of a townsman who, in his day, had taken an active interest in post-office improvement, and had worked in that field to some purpose. Mr. James Chalmers, bookseller, Dundee, who died in 1853, had been an earnest postal reformer. Through his efforts, and after a long correspondence with the Post Office in London, he brought about such an acceleration of the mail as to lessen the time necessary for the reply to a letter from Dundee to London, or betwixt the chief commercial towns of the north and south, by two days--a day each way. Subsequently he conceived the idea of an adhesive stamp for postage purposes; and it was this invention, made known to such post-office reformers as Mr. Hume and Mr. Wallace--with both of whom, as with others, he was in communication--that formed the origin of the adoption of the adhesive stamp in the reformed Penny Postage system of 1840, the plan proposed by Mr. Rowland Hill in 1837 having been that of the impressed stamp.

These letters in the Dundee press from old townsmen and friends of Mr.

Chalmers, personally unknown to me as I was to them (I having left Dundee while a youth, over fifty years ago, and pa.s.sed much of the interval abroad), with the consequent attention drawn to the subject, naturally called upon me to make an endeavour to vindicate my father's claim to the merit of such an important feature in the success of the Penny Postage scheme as was, and is, the adhesive stamp. These letters, moreover, acquainted me with what I was previously unaware of--that on the 1st January, 1846, a public testimonial had been presented in the Town Hall of Dundee to Mr. Chalmers, in recognition of his postal services, and of his having been the originator of the adhesive postage stamp; thus all the more calling upon me to investigate a subject of which hitherto I had only a dim and partial idea. This investigation was further facilitated by my withdrawal just before the same period of 1879 from active business, thus enabling me to examine at the library of the British Museum the papers, doc.u.ments, speeches, and motions in Parliament, Reports of Parliamentary Committees, and all such evidence and information tending to throw light upon, from the year 1832 onwards, the history and events preceding the reformed system of postage introduced to the public in the year 1837 by the then Mr. Rowland Hill.

My father long since dead (while I was abroad), and his establishment long ago broken up, difficulty was at first experienced in obtaining the specific evidence necessary to enable me to establish my claim on his behalf, but the attention publicly drawn to the matter by former publications of my own, and of Mr. Pearson Hill to which I was called upon to reply, brought forward ever-increasing evidence of the most conclusive nature, and to which I am now enabled to add material and interesting confirmation from papers left by the late Sir Henry Cole, whose connection with the Penny Postage Reform of 1837-40 is well known.

THE PENNY POSTAGE SCHEME OF SIR ROWLAND HILL NOT ORIGINAL.

My business, of course, in the investigation just named, was to ascertain what plan Sir Rowland Hill had proposed in his pamphlet of 1837 for the purpose of carrying out his Penny Postage Scheme, and to trace therefrom the adoption on his part of my father's plan of the adhesive stamp. But a discovery of much more historical importance before long presented itself, namely, that neither the conception of uniform penny postage itself, nor of any one of the valuable principles and figures of the penny postage scheme, were original conceptions on the part of Sir Rowland Hill.

The reformed system of postage was not the work of one year nor of one man. For some years prior to 1837 the abuses and mismanagement of the post office were a constant theme of complaint, both in and out of Parliament--many able and earnest men combined to bring about some reform demanded by men of business and public opinion. Commissions of inquiry were held, evidence and suggestions taken, reports issued.

Early in 1835 Mr. Wallace, M.P. for Greenock, a prominent post-office reformer, obtained a Commission of Inquiry on the subject, which Commission issued in all ten Reports; while, in addition to Parliamentary returns, a commission, termed the Commission of Revenue Inquiry, had sat for many years prior to the Commission of merely Post Office Inquiry, and had issued twenty-three Reports, in more than one of which post-office affairs were dealt with.

In that large field of complaint, suggestion, information, and proposal may be found the substance, origin, and foundation of the subsequent writings and proposals of Sir Rowland Hill.

It will be remembered that the old system of postage, prior to 1840, was that of a high and variable charge according to distance, of, say, twopence to one shilling and sixpence a letter, charged by sheet; and two sheets, however light in weight, were charged double. The same with circulars. But in these Reports, including the evidence of the numerous witnesses, are to be found embodied all the valuable principles and figures of the reformed system. And that all these Reports had come under Mr. Hill's review is left in no doubt, having been sent to him by Mr. Wallace, after Mr. Hill, freed from other occupations, had, in 1835, joined the circle of post-office reformers, when he "commenced that systematic study, a.n.a.lysis, and comparison which the difficulty of my self-imposed task rendered necessary."--("Life," page 246.)

But to be looked upon as the _inventor_ of that scheme which he had introduced and (saved and rendered practicable by the adhesive stamp) had successfully carried out--to have this scheme understood as having been the unaided conception of his own mind--was with Sir Rowland Hill simply a mania, and to that mania James Chalmers, the originator in every sense of that adhesive stamp, was sacrificed.

The bearing of all this non-originality of conception on the part of Sir Rowland Hill is obvious when the question of the stamp is under consideration. In propounding the scheme itself, what were only acquired ideas were a.s.sumed, or allowed to be a.s.sumed, as inventions or conceptions. As with the scheme, so with the stamp--the stamp also was an acquired idea, not Rowland Hill's invention.

Having now, however, obtained from a quarter of the highest standing, after an impartial investigation, a full acknowledgment of my father's services, and this in addition to an already large amount of recognition from the press in general, further observations as to the non-originality of the scheme may be here dispensed with, for the present at least, and left to history. And if I have been compelled to show that, so far from the adhesive stamp having been the invention of Sir Rowland Hill, originality of conception formed no element whatever in any one of the proposals of even the Penny Postage Scheme itself, such course has been forced upon me by the unfortunate proceedings of Mr. Pearson Hill in denying, against the clearest evidence, my just claim in the matter of the stamp, without a pretence of proof that such was at any period an invention on the part of Sir Rowland Hill.

THE IMPRESSED STAMP.

The plan by which Mr. Rowland Hill, in his pamphlet of 1837, proposed to carry out in practice his uniform penny postage scheme was, shortly stated, first, simply to pay the penny or money with the letters; but secondly, and more especially, by stamped sheets of letter paper, and stamped wrappers or covers. "Let stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the public, from the Stamp Office or Post Office, or both, and at such a price as to include the postage." ... "Economy and the public convenience would require that sheets of letter paper of every description should be stamped on the part used for the address; that wrappers, such as are used for newspapers, as well as covers made of cheap paper, should also be stamped," and kept on sale at the post offices. "Stationers would also be induced to keep them."

What Mr. Hill overlooked in this proposal, was the broad fact that he sets up the Stamp Office or Post Office to do the business in letter paper of the stationers throughout the kingdom--some huge Government establishment against which compet.i.tion would be hopeless, as the Stamp Office was to sell the writing paper at cost price, while the stationer requires a profit to pay his rent and expenses, and to live upon. The effect upon the stationers, consequently would have been confiscation--and against this plan the united body of paper makers and stationers subsequently protested.

The Select Committee of the House of Commons of 1837-38, again, took exception to Mr. Hill's plan mainly on account of its liability to forgery--a stamp of the nature proposed would be extensively forged.

After evidence on the part of the Stamp-Office authorities and paper makers had been taken, it was decided to recommend--that the paper for all stamped covers should be manufactured at the paper mills of a Mr.

d.i.c.kenson, or of another, solely, under strict excise supervision. This paper of Mr. d.i.c.kenson's was of a peculiar make, having threads of cotton or silk so interwoven in the paper that a post-office clerk could readily know by the look or feel that a stamped cover was genuine. The paper makers protested and pet.i.tioned against this, objecting to one of the body having all the work. Besides, the proposal involved permanent excise supervision over the manufacture of paper. This proposal, however, extended only to covers or envelopes; how forgery was to be prevented in respect to the stamps upon the sheets of letter paper the Committee do not say. The whole position, in fact, remained in a state of chaos, only relieved by the ultimate adoption of the adhesive stamp, which plan Mr. Chalmers had laid before this Committee through Mr.

Wallace, the Chairman, and likewise through Mr. Chalmers, M.P., a member of the Committee, and which plan had been publicly discussed, not without finding adherents, including Mr. Cobden, one of the witnesses in favour of the scheme.

To the solution proposed by the Committee that all stamped covers should be made of d.i.c.kenson's peculiar paper the Government again highly objected, further adding to the dilemma; and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 5th of July, 1839, introduced and carried a resolution sanctioning a Penny Postage Bill being brought forward, he distinctly only "asked hon. members to commit themselves to the question of a uniform rate of postage of one penny at and under a weight hereafter to be fixed." Everything else was to be left open. "If it were to go forth to the public to-morrow morning that the Government had proposed, and the House had adopted, the plan of Mr. Rowland Hill, the necessary result would be to spread a conviction abroad that, as a stamped cover was absolutely to be used in all cases, which stamped covers were to be made by one single manufacturer, alarm would be felt lest a monopoly would thereby be created, to the serious detriment of other members of a most useful and important trade. The sense of injustice excited by this would necessarily be extreme. I therefore do not call upon the House either to affirm or to negative any such proposition at the present. I ask you simply to affirm the adoption of a uniform penny postage, and the taxation of that postage by weight. Neither do I ask you to pledge yourselves to the prepayment of letters, for I am of opinion that, at all events, there should be an option of putting letters into the post without a stamp."

"If the resolution be affirmed, and the Bill has to be proposed, it will hereafter require very great care and complicated arrangements to carry the plan into practical effect. It may involve considerable expense and considerable responsibility on the part of the Government; it may disturb existing trades, such as the paper trade." ... "The new postage will be distinctly and simply a penny postage by weight." ... "I also require for the Treasury a power of taking the postage by antic.i.p.ation, and a power of allowing such postage to be taken by means of stamped covers, and I also require the authority of rating the postage according to weight."[1]

In this dilemma, as to _how_ to carry out the scheme in practice, Mr.

Wallace favourably suggested the adhesive stamp, the adoption of which plan, he had no hesitation in saying from the evidence adduced, would secure the revenue from loss by forgery. Mr. Warburton, also a member of the 1837-38 Committee, "viewing with considerable alarm the doubt which had been expressed of adopting Mr. Hill's plan of prepayment and collection by stamped covers," recommended that plans should be applied for from the public.

Again, in the House of Lords on the 5th of August, Lord Melbourne, in introducing the Bill, is as much embarra.s.sed as was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Commons. The opponents of the Bill use, as one of their strongest arguments, the impossibility of carrying out the scheme in practice. The Earl of Ripon says:--"Why were their lordships thus called upon at this period of the session to pa.s.s a Bill, when no mortal being at that moment had the remotest conception of how it was to be carried into execution?" Here Lord Ashburton, like Mr. Wallace in the Commons, favourably suggested the adhesive stamp, "which would answer every purpose, and remove the objection of the stationers and paper makers to the measure."

Let it, then, be clearly noted that, up to the period of the Bill in July and August, 1839, not a word is said in any way connecting Mr.

Hill's name with other than the impressed stamp on the sheet of letter paper, or, more especially, on the stamped covers. That, _and that alone_, is taken on the one part as _his_ plan by all the speakers, official or otherwise--for that alone does the Chancellor of the Exchequer ask for "powers." The adhesive stamp is brought in, on the other part, as a distinct proposal, in no way entering into the proposals of Mr. Hill.

(The above is given in more detail in my former pamphlet, ent.i.tled "Sir Rowland Hill and James Chalmers, the Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp,"

1883).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See "Hansard," Vol. 48.

THE ADHESIVE STAMP.

In my pamphlet ent.i.tled "Sir Rowland Hill and James Chalmers, the Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp," I have already proved from overwhelming evidence, both general and specific, the invention of the adhesive stamp for postage purposes by the late James Chalmers, bookseller, Dundee, in the month of August, 1834. In addition to friends and fellow-townsmen, several of those in his employment at that period have, unknown to me, come forward from various quarters to describe the process and to fix the date. The setting up of the form with a number of stamps having a printed device--the printing of the sheets--the melting of the gum--the gumming the backs of the sheets--the drying and the pressing--are all described, and the date already named is conclusively fixed.[2] That this was the first instance of such invention is clear; earlier instances of an _impressed_ stamp proposed for postage purposes are on record, but not one of a proposed adhesive stamp--while Sir Rowland Hill himself has left it on record, in his "Life," referring to the same period and occasion when an impressed stamp was proposed in 1834 for newspaper covers by Mr. Knight, "of course, adhesive stamps were yet undreamt of." (See page 69 of my pamphlet above named).

I have further shown that Mr. Chalmers was one of the early postal reformers prior to the period of Mr. Rowland Hill, that he had done great service in the way of accelerating the mails betwixt London and the north, and that he was in communication with several of those early reformers, such as Mr. Hume, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Knight--the publisher subsequently of Mr. Rowland Hill's pamphlet of 1837--so that his proposal of an adhesive stamp for postage purposes, a matter of notoriety in his own locality, would further have become well known in the general circle of postal reformers, amongst whom, and from whom, on joining same in the year 1835, Mr. Rowland Hill obtained the information which enabled him to draw up and publish his Penny Postage Scheme of 1837. (See page 5 of my pamphlet named.)

One of those pioneers of postal reform, the Rev. Samuel Roberts, M.A., of Conway, gives his personal testimony of the adhesive stamp having been originated by James Chalmers. (Page 42.)[3]

My pamphlet goes on to show (page 44) that on the appointment of the House of Commons Committee of 1837-38 on the proposed uniform Penny Postage Scheme, Mr. Chalmers sent in his plan of an adhesive stamp to Mr. Wallace, the Chairman, and to another Member of that Committee. Mr.

Wallace's reply, stating that he will lay the plan before the Committee, is of date 9th December, 1837. In the dilemma in which the Government found itself (upon introducing on the 5th July, 1839, the Resolution preliminary to the Bill) as to _how_ to carry out the Penny Postage Scheme in practice (page 21) Mr. Wallace favourably suggested the plan of the adhesive stamp. The statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this occasion, with the interposition of Mr. Wallace in the Commons, and of Lord Ashburton in the Lords, in favour of the adhesive stamp have already been given, conclusively showing that, up to this period, Mr. Hill had not included the adhesive stamp in his proposals.

On the pa.s.sing of the Bill in August, Mr. Hill was relegated to the Treasury for the purpose of carrying out the scheme. The first step taken was to invite plans, by Treasury Circular of 23rd August, from the public; some time was taken up in receiving and considering these plans, until, by Treasury Minute of December 26th, 1839, the adhesive stamp was at length officially adopted, in conjunction with Mr. Hill's stamped covers, or stamp impressed upon the sheet of letter paper itself. (See page 46.) But the adhesive stamp, indeed, had been practically adopted by Mr. Hill before the plans were received, considered, and nothing better found, a concurrence of opinion having set in in favour of same.

It will be seen that Mr. Chalmers, in his published statement of date February, 1838, now produced from Sir Henry Cole's papers, called for pet.i.tions towards the adoption of the adhesive stamp. In August, 1839, both the a.s.sociated Body of Paper-Makers and certain Merchants and Bankers of the City of London pressed for the adoption of this stamp; Mr. Rowland Hill himself, in a paper ent.i.tled "On the Collection of Postage by means of Stamps," circulated by him about the period of the Bill being before Parliament, included the adoption of the adhesive stamp, in conjunction with his own impressed stamp. Mr. Cole also drew up an able paper on the stamp question, including the advocacy of the adhesive stamp. So general, indeed, had then become opinion in its favour, that of the plans sent in no less than forty-nine others besides Mr. Chalmers, who again sent in his plan, recommended the adoption of the adhesive stamp, invented by Mr. Chalmers in 1834, laid by him before the Committee of the House of Commons in December, 1837, and further, as we shall now see, sent in to Mr. Cole as Secretary to the Mercantile Committee of the City of London, in February, 1838, and acknowledged by Mr. Rowland Hill in a letter to Mr. Chalmers of date 3rd March, 1838. In this letter Mr. Hill makes no pretension to the merit or proposed adoption of the adhesive stamp on his part, for, as will be seen, Mr.

Chalmers subsequently returned to Mr. Hill a copy of this very letter for the purpose of pointing out this fact to Mr. Hill. It was not until the propriety, and indeed necessity, of adopting Mr. Chalmers' plan--not until its final official acceptance--that, in a letter dated 18th January, 1840, Mr. Hill, then in despotic power, putting Mr. Chalmers aside upon the pretext afterwards mentioned, a.s.sumed the whole merit to himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Since publishing my evidence specifically proving what is here stated, I have been favoured with the following letter:--

"BRECHIN, _9th October, 1883_

"DEAR SIR,