A monument to the penny post
A statue of Rowland Hill
Rowland Hill used imagination, management skill and new technology to transform the postal service in 1840.
The big new idea
Rowland Hill realised that it would be cheaper and more efficient if the person sending a letter paid the postage instead of the person receiving it.
He also came up with the idea of a pre-paid gummed label. This was the start of the postage stamp.
On the first day that the penny post was launched the number of letter was more than three times the letters on the same day in the previous year. The new system was cheaper, faster and more reliable. For the first time the cost of sending a letter was the same throughout the country.
It was only possible to launch the penny post because of advances in printing machinery. Within a few years the postal service had to print hundreds of millions of stamps each year.
Submitted by: Andrew Hunt, 21 January 2007
