Britain issues the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive postage stamp
On this day · 1 May 1840
A small black stamp bearing the young Queen Victoria put the world's first adhesive postage on sale and flipped who paid for the mail.
On 1 May 1840, Britain put the Penny Black on sale in London — the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. It became valid for postage a few days later, on 6 May 1840.
The little black stamp carried a profile of the young Queen Victoria, based on a portrait sketched when she was just 15. The choice was practical as much as flattering: a familiar, finely engraved royal face was thought hard to forge.
The stamp was the centrepiece of Rowland Hill’s uniform penny post reform, which charged a flat one penny by weight and — crucially — had the sender pay in advance. Before this, recipients were billed on delivery, often refusing letters they could not afford.
The design’s success was also its undoing: red cancellation marks barely showed and rubbed off, so within a year it gave way to the Penny Red.
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