Uk Stamp

The epic saga of the introduction of Britain's first universal stamp, the Penny Black, is now a legend to philatelists. It all started in 1834, when James Chalmers suggested a simpler rate system for the post office. (Incidentally, a Slovenian by the name of Lovrenc Kosir came up with similar ideas to reform the Austrian postal system in the following year, but he failed to galvanize any response from officials.)In 1837, Rowland Hill's now famous tract, ''Postal Reform: Its Importance and Practibility,'' was published. Hill argued that the system of forcing recipients to pay for delivery was absurd. He suggested that the government adopt a uniform UK stamp system, by which senders could pay a flat fee and trust the government to deliver packages (under a certain weight) anywhere within the country's borders.Today, this concept seems intuitive. At the time, however, it was revolutionary. No one in Parliament disagreed that the 1830s British postal system was somewhat disordered. That said, representatives protested vehemently against this universal UK stamp idea, suggesting that it could bankrupt the government. Hill and his supporters argued that the government could save millions a year as a result of better bureaucratic efficiency.Of course, Hill, Chalmers, and others convinced Parliament to give the penny stamp a try, and, in 1839, the legislature gave its blessing. The great success of the Penny Black and the subsequent Penny Red stamps has been well-documented. The UK stamp revolution led to the wide adoption of stamps across the world and eventually to the formation of the Universal Postal Union in 1874.