The first postal stamp

The one inventor who can truly be said to have left his "stamp" on the future is almost unknown in the world of inventors. Indeed, who ever heard of Rowland Hill (1795-1879), the man who invented the postage stamp, that little piece of gummed paper which everyone uses today?

The son of an English schoolmaster, Hill thought up a way to reform the postal system that was currently in use - an impractical system in which the postage, based on weight and distance, was charged to the addressee. He advocated a uniform rate of postage to be paid by the sender instead - using stamps.

As is often the case with inventions, several people claimed to have had the same idea. Yet one thing is certain: Hill, who was later knighted by the queeen, is the one who finally carried the project through. As the universally recognized inventor of the postage stamp, Sir Rowland has since been honored over and over again by postal services throughout the world, in particular on the centenary of his death (1979), the bicentenary of his birth (1995) and the 150th anniversary of the invention of the postage stamp (1990). Among the most beautiful commemorative issues printed on those various occasions are a truly magnificent one from Portugal and others from Chile, Ghana and the United Kingdom.

The first postage stamp thus saw the light of day in England - on 6 May 1840 to be precise. Its name? The Penny Black. Printed in black and white, it bore the profile of Queen Victoria, who was so pleased with her likeness that she had the drawing maintained on all the subsequent issues that were put out of the stamp throughout her sixty-year reign.

Postage stamps quickly spread from England to the rest of the world. In 1843, they were adopted in Brazil and in the Swiss cantons of Zurich and Geneva, and in 1845 the canton of Basel issued its famous Basel Dove - the first stamp to be printed in three colors. France, Belgium and Bavaria started putting out stamps in 1849, and other countries soon followed suit.

The first stamps were imperforate: perforated stamps, which are easier to detach, were only invented in 1851. The originator of this idea was Henry Ascher - an Englishman as well.