October 4, 2022

Sir Rowland Hill and the Stamp – Revolutionary Communication Methods

by: R Johnson

The postage stamp: a tiny piece of paper with a little glue on the back of it that most individuals would deem insignificant nowadays, but in the grand scheme of things, was a rather important innovation that revolutionized communication – this all began in the early 1840’s, when Sir Rowland Hill of Britain and Lovrenc Košir of Russia invented the stamp (independently, of course). We will focus on Sir Roland Hill’s discovery, as both Hill and the stamp that he invented relates to the theme of this course and the Creative Curation Project itself.

In 1837, Sir Rowland Hill revolutionized the postal service and sent a precedent that still stands today in terms of communication. You see, the postal system had been around for nearly two-hundred years before Hill came into the scene, and it was a rather messy affair before the postage stamp was invented. Prices were exuberantly high, which meant that the majority of citizens across Victorian England could not afford to send letters and packages in this fashion. Prices were also not uniform; the weight, size, and price based on the distance the item was traveling would be more or less expensive depending on when and where it was sent from. In addition, the person receiving the item was responsible for paying, which is not typical – refusal of payment by the sendee happened quite often, as they either could not afford to pay for the item or did not want to, which resulted in “heavy annual losses” for the postal service (Pruitt, 2020). If change did not happen soon, the service would have to be discontinued. . .

Image originally copied from website (linked below) and re-illustrated by Angel Hernandez and I (Riley Johnson):

(Inc., Dreamstime, et al. “Sir Rowland Hill – ‘The Posage Stamp’ (Redrawn from Website).” Dreamstime, Dream, Online, 2000, Raleigh, https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-stock-photo-sir-rowland-hill-uk-postage-stamp-great-britain-circa-used-depicting-portrait-english-teacher-inventor-social-image85184663. Accessed Sept. 2022. Re-drawn by Angel Hernandez and Riley Johnson).

This communication snafu caused a great many headaches for the British, that is, until Sir Rowland Hill came onto the scene. In addition to developing the adhesive backing on the postage stamp, Hill helped standardize the pricing for the postal service by making it a tad cheaper (based on location, weight, and size of the item), and declared that the sender should pay for the postage, not the sendee – not only did this help decrease and/or eliminate the annual losses that the postal service was facing, it helped the average citizen afford the use of this communication method, making the system much more profitable. This helped people from all over Europe, and eventually the world, connect with each other for a portion of what it costed before, and helped turn the postal service from a defunct system to a profitable communication powerhouse.

Because of the payment system that Sir Rowland Hill put into place, mail carriers no longer had to log and track each package individually; this helped further save time and money for the postal service, was greatly appreciated by the general public, and helped turn the form of communication into a mainstream staple that has still remained as a tried and true practice today. Within a decade, it became the mainstream form of communication in the general public when they could not reach another in person very quickly or easily.

Hill, once an “Average Joe” but can now be seen as the modern-day Hermes, completely changed how the modern man was able to communicate with family, friends, and peers that may have previously been too expensive or too difficult to reach. His contribution was so big, in fact, that the stamp above was created in honor of his invention and aimed to bring to light this fact and notify the general public of its importance. This brought forth a slew of other inventions in less than two centuries and led to some of our biggest technological breakthroughs to date; from various other physical ways of sending items using postage (i.e.: Airmail, Next Day Direct, etc.…) to electronic versions of mail (i.e.: Instant Messaging [IM] and Email, not to mention the technology it took to invent them as well), Sir Rowland Hill helped inspire the next generation of communication that is now both generally accepted and widely used in today’s world [in addition to “snail mail,” that is]. Without Hill’s contribution of the postage stamp and his reformation of the postal service and their outrageous pricing system during the Victorian Era, our society would never have been able to handle the amount of information and communication through various forms of “digital postage” that have become rather commonplace in the twenty-first century. Phones would not exist, and with that forms of electronic communications such as text messages and emails, and our society would still be very much in the dark.

Thank you for your contribution Sir Rowland Hill, for you have sincerely changed the game of communication for the better, and our world should thank you for it. I know I certainly do – I have moved more than a handful of times across the country, taken various trips and treks over the past two years, received many a cards for various birthdays and holidays, and went to two separate international boarding high schools which helped me form friends from around the globe – if it wasn’t for Sir Rowland Hill and the postage stamp all of those years ago, I would have no form of communication, digital or otherwise, to reliably maintain contact with some of the most important figures in my life. So while some folks may not find the invention of the postage stamp very useful or interesting, it has certainly made a significant impact in my life and I do not know what I would possibly do without it.

Link to Script:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AUF8iUERZeuuwz8BGW_8DJw7dGJx_n6yiLfJYxKe-XY/edit?usp=sharing

Link to Slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1D5iB8au4hKZWngZZS-F2UbS2psZ8sQyA31QTOAfbUZg/edit?usp=sharing

* Works Cited for both the slides and the script can be found at the bottom of each document that is linked to this website. *

Category: Art History

Category: Sir Rowland Hill

Category: Victorian Inventions

Category: Painting

Category: Presentation

Category: Communication

Category: Communication Methods