The first postage stamp in history was issued in the United Kingdom on May 1, 1840 and was used for the first time to frank a letter on May 6 of that same year. To date, the cost of sending the correspondence had to be paid by the recipient and depended on the distance that had to be traveled for its delivery. Its creation is due to the British parliamentarian Rowland Hill , which in 1837 he presented to the Royal Mail (British Postal Service) a project that included the postage of correspondence by means of adhesive stamps that the sender had to pay. In addition, it also included a drawing with the model of the first stamp, the Penny Black . It was a profile drawing of Queen Victoria on a black background with the text Postage at the top and the One Penny fee (a penny) at the bottom. A committee was created in the House of Commons to study the proposal and in 1840 it was approved. How did Rowland Hill come up with the idea?
A couple of years before, on one of his many trips around the country and due to a severe storm, he had to spend the night in an inn on the road. While the innkeeper was serving him dinner, a member of the Royal Mail appeared to deliver a letter. The innkeeper picked it up, looked carefully at the sender and returned it saying…
I can't pick it up, I don't have enough money to pay for it.
Rowland Hill, who was watching the scene, paid the price and handed it over to the innkeeper. When the postman left, he thanked him but told him that he didn't need to pay for it because the envelope was empty. Before the parliamentarian's surprised face, she explained the story:when her boyfriend left to work outside, they agreed that through a system of signs and signals on the outside of the envelope he would let him know how he was doing and when he was coming home... because she didn't know how to read . For that reason, she had taken the envelope and after looking at the signs she returned it to the postman without paying the postage. Even so, and after this moment Earth, swallow me!, Rowland continued to think about the matter and understood that, regardless of that particular situation, it could have been a letter with important news and could not be delivered because the recipient did not have the corresponding amount. .
In Spain it took barely 10 years to establish this, then modern, payment system and the first postage stamps were issued on January 1, 1850. Correos also opted to use the image of a queen for those first stamps, in this case that of Queen Elizabeth II.
And since then, the stamps have become a showcase for publicizing cultural, social, historical events and, in general, the promotion and image of a country and its people. Even today, with the TUSELLO service, you can have your own images printed on real Postage stamps, valid both nationally and internationally. Logically, you have to own the rights to the image and respect certain criteria for it to be accepted. Something that was surely not taken into account, with a stamp that was issued in 1930.
King Alfonso XIII authorized the issuance of a collection of 1, 4 and 10 pta stamps. in which Goya's painting “The Naked Maja was represented “. It was the first stamp in which a female nude appeared and, logically, for the time it was a scandal… and a bestseller. According to legend, in societies as puritanical as the United States, such audacity could not be tolerated and the letters that were sent to the United States with these stamps were returned to the sender. This story has all the ballots of not being true, but, knowing the American society, it is plausible.
Post celebrates its 300th anniversary this 2016 and we celebrate it with a series of articles related to the Postal and Parcel Service.