Before the reform
The postman delivered the letter and demanded payment from the person it was addressed to. You could refuse, and people did: they looked at the envelope, figured out who it was from, and returned it unread. The post office carried such letters for free and at a loss.
That led to a widespread trick. The sender put coded marks on the outside, the recipient read them, understood everything, and refused to pay. The message was delivered, but the post office received no money. Such tricks were widespread.
The recipient paid. The price depended on the distance and number of sheets, and you could refuse
The sender paid in advance. The price was the same across the country, and you could not refuse
Calculating the price was a separate ordeal. The distance and number of sheets were taken into account, so people wrote long letters in tiny handwriting and across text already written to fit everything on one sheet. The clerk had to weigh it all and calculate the price using tables.
What the reform changed
- 1837A proposal is published: the sender pays, and there is one low rate.
- 1840The first stamp appears. The attached piece of paper confirms that the letter has been paid for.
- 1841The number of letters rises sharply: they are cheaper, simpler, and no longer involve humiliating haggling at the door.
- After thatOther countries adopt the system, and it becomes the global standard.
The reformer's main argument was economic, not humanitarian. He showed that the post office's main costs came not from transportation, but from calculating charges and arguing with recipients. Eliminating the calculations meant saving more than was lost by lowering the price.
The calculation paid off. A cheap, uniform price turned letter writing from a rare event into an everyday activity, and the volume grew so much that revenues did not fall. At the same time, people who could not afford the old rates began writing to one another.
The stamp also solved a technical problem. There had to be proof of payment that could not be moved to another letter and could be checked at a glance. A gummed piece of paper with a cancellation mark was ideal: once canceled, it could not be used again.
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Sources
- The reform was proposed by Rowland Hill in 1837
- the first adhesive stamp was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840, and the system quickly spread to other countries