The Penny Post

Before 1840, sending a letter in Britain was expensive and complicated. The cost depended on how far the letter traveled and on how many sheets of paper it contained. In addition, the fee was usually paid not by the sender but by the person who received the letter. A single letter sent across the country could cost a large part of a working person's daily wage, so many people rarely wrote at all.

In 1837, a schoolteacher named Rowland Hill published a plan to reform the system. He argued that most of the cost of the postal service came from handling letters, not from carrying them, so distance should not affect the price. Instead, he proposed a single low rate for any letter sent within Britain, paid in advance by the sender. To show that the fee had been paid, the sender would attach a small printed label to the letter. In 1840, the government adopted his plan, and the world's first postage stamp, known as the Penny Black, went on sale.

The results were dramatic. In the first year of the new system, the number of letters sent in Britain more than doubled. Within a few decades, many other countries had introduced postage stamps of their own.