The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp, used in a public postal system. In print
for just over a year with 68 million stamps It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for
use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of Queen Victoria, engraved by Frederick Heath based on the sculpture by
William Wyon, and printed by "Perkins, Bacon & Petch". Its upper left and right corners featured two star-like designs, with the
lower left and right corners containing letters, which helped to designate the position of the stamp in relation to the sheet
on which it was printed. Printed from engraved steel plates in sheets of 240, each Penny Black stamp came embossed with a small
crown watermark. The gummed paper was imperforated and each Penny Black was cut from the sheet with scissors. The Penny Black
was printed from eleven separate printing plates, each containing the 240 impressions arranged in twenty horizontal rows of twelve
(12 pence = One shilling, 20 shillings = £1) which was important for Post office accounting purposes.
Sir Rowland Hill created what became to be known as the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. He was answering the questions of a
parliamentary enquiry into the Post Office in February 1837 shortly after the publication of his pamphlet Post Office reform; It's
Importance and Practicality. The penny black standarised price regardless of distance. In this pamphlet Hill had challenged the
high, extremely anomalous postal rates then in force. He suggested a low uniform rate of postage based on weight and prepaid. At
this time the high rates were based on distance and the number of sheets in a letter, and normally they were paid by the recipient.
Many letters were also carried free. The penny black was in print for just over a year with 68 million stamps printed, until the
introduction of the penny red.
In February 1841, just nine months after the issue of the Penny Black, it was replaced by the Penny Red, and printed from
Penny Black plates with the same two stars in top corners, along with the two pence blue, all three were imperforate, the arrival of the first
officially perforated stamp appeared in 1854. So the imperforate stars in top corners lasted from february 1841 to 1854, from 1854 the perforate two
stars in top corners lasted till 1864, the perforated with letters in four corners lasted from 1864 to 1879, displaying plate numbers
71-225 in the ornate margins, this last penny red, in print for fithteen years had 13,430,000,000 stamps printed, the penny red ceased production
in 1879, after 38 years.
An original printing press for the Penny Black, the "D" cylinder press
invented by Jacob Perkins and patented in 1819, is on display at the British Library in London, , ,
JACOB PERKINS (1766-1849) - Perkins, Bacon & Petch
Perkins was an American inventor, mechanical engineer and physicist. On arrival
in London in 1819 accompanied by Gideon Fairman and Asa Spencer, Jacob Perkins commenced business as steel plate engravers under the title
of Perkins and Fairman at 29 Austin Friars in the City of London. In December 1819, an engraver to King George III, Charles
Heath joined the partnership, the company moved to 69 Fleet Street and became Perkins, Fairman & Heath. Soon after Fairman
relinquished his partnership and the firm changed to Perkins & Heath. In May 1829, Joshua Butters Bacon, who had married Jacob
Perkins' second daughter, joined the partnership and it became Perkins and Bacon. Finally, Henry P. Petch, an engraver who had
joined the company in 1823 was taken into partnership in 1834 and the company finally became Perkins, Bacon & Petch. Following
the death of Henry Petch, the firm became, in 1887, Perkins, Bacon & Co. Ltd. and in 1904 moved from 69, Fleet Street to Southwark
Bridge Road. Jacob Perkins had a weakness in that he often failed to follow up on a new project and, after he had set up his
banknote printing business, he paid little attention to it. He drew so much money out of it to finance his high-pressure steam
experiments that he owed considerable sums to his partners.
Sir Rowland Hill was a friend of Jacob Perkins and through him, Perkins, Bacon & Petch obtained the contract
to produce the first postage stamp, the Penny Black – at the price of seven pence halfpenny per thousand 'all gummed and ready
for use'. Experience showed that 400,000 imprints could be taken from a single plate without signs of wear and, within a few
years, twenty-two thousand million stamps for Great Britain and the Colonies had been printed by the Perkins process. Jacob's
'siderographic' plate brought to an end the possibility of loss of Government revenue through forgery.
