Search Engine Giant is celebrating 175th Anniversary of Penny black Stamp with a Google doodle on its UK, Australia and Canada homepages. It was world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system and was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria.
Google Doodle Penny Black Stamp
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.
The idea of an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage was part of Sir Rowland Hill’s 1837 proposals to reform the British postal system.
In 1839, the British Treasury announced a competition to design the new stamps, but none of the submissions was considered suitable. The Treasury chose a rough design endorsed by Rowland Hill, featuring an easily recognizable profile of 15-year-old former Princess Victoria.
Initially, Hill specified that the stamps should be 3/4 inch square, but altered the dimensions to 3/4 inch wide by 7/8 inch tall (approx 19 x 22 mm) to accommodate the writing at the bottom. The word “POSTAGE” appeared at the top of the stamp (revenue stamps had long been used in the UK) and “ONE PENNY.” at the bottom, indicating the amount that had been pre-paid for the transmission of the letter to which it was affixed. The background consisted of finely engraved engine turnings The two upper corners held Maltese crosses, at the centers of which were radiant solar discs, and the lower corners contained letters designating the position of the stamp in the printed sheet; “A A” for the stamp at the top left, and “T L” for the bottom right. The sheets, printed by Perkins Bacon, consisted of 240 stamps in 20 rows and 12 columns. In this way, one full sheet cost 240 pennies or one pound sterling. One row of 12 stamps cost a shilling. As the name suggests, the stamp was printed in black ink.
Although 6 May was the official date that the labels became available, there are covers postmarked 2 May, due to postmasters selling the stamps from 1 May.
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 Penny Blue.
Nevertheless, Penny Black Stamps marked a new era in the history of postal service. The modern postal stamps find their ancestry to Penny Blacks and are still very similar to them.