Part 3

"Only a fortnight before his examination by the above-named Commissioners Mr. Hill, in his letter to the late Lord Monteagle (then Mr. Spring Rice, and Chancellor of the Exchequer), seems to have had no thought of the _adhesive_ stamp. He recommends to the Treasury 'that stamped covers and sheets of paper be supplied to the public from the Stamp Office or Post Office ... and sold at such a price as to include the postage.... Covers at various prices would be required for packets of various weights. Each should have the weight it is entitled to carry legibly printed with the stamp.... Should experience warrant the Government in making the use of stamped covers universal,[14] most important advantages would be secured. The Post Office would be relieved altogether from the collection of the revenue.'[15]

"Then, upon suggestion, it would seem, of some possible difficulty that might arise from the occasional bringing to a post-office by persons unable to write, of unstamped letters, he added: 'Perhaps this difficulty might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash.' It is a quite fair inference that this alternative had been suggested from without.[16] In reviewing the subject, long afterwards, in his 'History of Penny Postage,' Sir R. Hill says: 'The Post-Office opinions as to the use of stamps for ... prepayment were on the whole favourable.'[17] In a paper of 1839, entitled 'On the Collection of Postage by means of Stamps,' the author continued to look upon 'stamped covers or envelopes as the means which the public would most commonly employ; still believing that the adhesive stamp would be reserved for exceptional cases.'[18]

"Mulready's well-remembered allegorical cover came into use on 1st May, 1840, together with the first form of the stamped letter-paper, and the adhesive labels. They all met at first, but only for a few days, with a large sale. That of the first day yielded £2,500. Soon afterwards the public rejection of the 'Mulready envelope,' writes Rowland Hill, 'was so complete as to necessitate the destruction of nearly all the vast number prepared for issue.' Whilst, on the other hand, the presses of the Stamp Office were producing more than half a million of [adhesive] labels, by working both night and day, they yet failed to meet the demand.[19] It was only after many weeks, and after the introduction of a series of mechanical improvements and new processes, due to the skill and ingenuity in part of Mr. Edwin Hill of the Stamp Office, in part of Mr. Perkins, an engraver, that the demand could be effectually answered."

The above emphatic decision on the part of eminent men whom I have never seen in favour of James Chalmers as having been the inventor of the adhesive postage stamp, will give much satisfaction in those numerous quarters from which I have already met with countenance and support. After a full consideration of the respective statements put forward by myself and by Mr. Pearson Hill on the subject, James Chalmers at length obtains a recognition of which he has, as a rule, been only too long deprived. And that the same man who invented this stamp also first proposed its adoption has been already too clearly shown to require repetition here. Surely Sir Rowland Hill's "paper of 1839," mentioned in this article, was a trifle behindhand, when I have just proved from Sir Henry Cole's papers that Mr. Chalmers had already laid his plan before Mr. Hill himself in February, 1838. Did Mr. Hill tell us _that_ in his paper of 1839? No. Did he tell us that he drew up this paper of 1839 under a pressing demand for the adhesive stamp from all quarters? No. _Was it fair of Sir Rowland Hill to allow the readers of his "History of Penny Postage," or of his paper of 1839, to conclude that this proposal on his part of 1839 was put forward of his own initiation, and this with Mr. Chalmers' plan and statement of February, 1838, already in his possession?_ A plan which, in his reply to Mr. Chalmers of 3rd March following, Mr. Hill had pooh-poohed! Moreover, in referring to this "paper of 1839" in his "History of Penny Postage," vol. 1, page 346, Sir Rowland Hill takes special credit to himself for having therein recommended that the adhesive stamps "should be printed on sheets," putting same forward as a further idea of his own, and wholly ignoring the fact of such having been a special feature, "for sale in sheets or singly," in that plan of Mr. Chalmers _which lay before him_. (See _ante_, page 24.) It is unfortunate that the writer of this article was not at the time of writing in possession of the whole facts of the case, when doubtless Mr. Hill's "paper of 1839" would have been characterised as it deserved. Sir Rowland Hill's mode of obtaining credit for "inventions" or proposals of other men will now be better understood.

If Mr. Hill alluded to this adhesive stamp (the admitted invention of Mr. Chalmers in 1834) in February, 1837, while Mr. Chalmers urged its adoption officially only in December, this, it will be seen, arose from Mr. Hill having been privileged to give evidence on postal affairs before the Commissioners of Inquiry. The proposal of 1834 with respect to newspapers came to nothing; consequently there was no opening _then_ for Mr. Chalmers to send in his invention _officially_. In sending in his plan to the Select Committee of the House of Commons in December, 1837, Mr. Chalmers was still a year and a half before the Penny Postage Bill was even introduced into Parliament. Mr. Hill did not adopt same until he issued his "paper of 1839." Mr. Hill's allusion to this stamp in February, 1837, this "publishing" of the idea "very hesitatingly," had no practical effect whatever on the cause in hand; such only shows that Mr. Hill had heard of the invention of 1834, without seeing its value or proposing to adopt it. Moreover, Mr. Chalmers was publishing his own invention, while Mr. Hill was only publishing an acquired idea, "suggested from without." It is to the man who not only invented the adhesive postage stamp, but who further first urged the adoption of same in its entirety for the purpose of carrying out the Penny Postage scheme, that the merit of this plan and of its results are due and will be ascribed.

But if I was to stop here I should be told now, as I have been told before on obtaining important recognitions, that the present decision in my favour was again got upon mere _ex-parte_ statements--that had Mr. Pearson Hill only been given the opportunity, a very different aspect would have been put upon the matter. No choice, consequently, is left me but to show that it is to Mr. Pearson Hill himself I am indebted for the introduction which has led to my success, and without which introduction, now reproduced, I should have remained in entire ignorance as to any forthcoming article upon postal affairs, or have been most courteously afforded an opportunity of stating my case:--

[_Copy._]

"ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA." "50, BELSIZE PARK, LONDON, N.W., _15th March, 1883_.

"GENTLEMEN,

"As you are now issuing a new edition of your 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' and as for years past a Mr. Patrick Chalmers has persistently been making false and groundless charges against my father, the late Sir Rowland Hill, I think it well to send you the enclosed printed documents for your information, as it is by no means improbable that he may strive to get you to insert some untrue statement when you deal with the question of the Post Office and Postal Reform.

"I need hardly say that I shall be happy at any time to submit to you the original documents which are in my possession, which disprove the claims put forward in behalf of Mr. James Chalmers of Dundee, if you would desire to see them.

"Your statistical information about the Post Office, as given in my copy of the Encyclopædia (the eighth edition) is of course now much behindhand. I dare say you have already on your staff of contributors some gentleman well able to supply you with fresh information; but should you be in want of any such help, I feel sure that my cousin, Mr. Lewin Hill, head of the statistical branch of the Secretary's office, General Post Office, London, would gladly undertake the work if you desired it.

"I am, Gentlemen,

"Your obedient servant, "(Signed) PEARSON HILL.

"MESSRS. A. & C. BLACK, Edinburgh."

It is thus manifest that, in having obtained this conclusive recognition, I have taken no undue advantage of Mr. Pearson Hill, while it will also be manifest that Mr. Pearson Hill's statements have found acceptance in other quarters only because I have not been afforded an equally impartial hearing as in the present case. His printed documents, his statements, with all the advantage of being sole possessor of the correspondence betwixt his late father and mine, have been put forward, and yet the decision is against him.

Again, as respects the penny postage scheme itself, the proofs are conclusive that _originality of conception_ formed no element whatever in any one of the proposals of Sir Rowland Hill, preceded and heralded as the penny postage reform had been by the labours of a whole band of pioneers. Special reference may be made to the statements of the Rev. Samuel Roberts, whose biography as the pioneer of uniform penny postal reform is given in the _Times_ of 30th September last. The "Rowland Hill Memorial Fund" Committee have themselves admitted, after what has been laid before them, their sense of this non-originality by the change made in the inscription upon the City statue of Sir Rowland Hill, thereby confirming the accuracy of my statements. Moreover, a Treasury Minute of 11th March, 1864, distinctly states that uniform penny postage had been urged upon the Government prior to the proposals of Sir Rowland Hill. Thus, independent and conclusive testimony, as distinguished from the mere family tradition with which many writers have hitherto been content, leaves the question of plagiarism beyond dispute. As with the stamp, so with the scheme, the ideas were _acquired, not original_. Here, then, is the justification of my statements. So far from having been "persistently making false and groundless charges," I have been stating facts and elucidating the truth, and the aspersions of Mr. Pearson Hill are thus scattered to the winds.

For Mr. Pearson Hill, however, every allowance will be made, though his style of controversy will not be admired. That gentleman forgets that my motives and objects are just as legitimate as his own, and should be met in a legitimate way. This leads me to mention that some time ago Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P. (at one period chairman of the "Sir Rowland Hill Memorial Fund" Committee) was good enough to suggest that this controversy should be decided by arbitration, and to which I agreed in principle, subject to due preliminaries, but met with no response. At a later period, in a letter already published, after pointing to my own evidence, I invited Mr. Morley's good offices, seeing that Mr. Pearson Hill declined to reply to or even to open any letter from me, to ascertain from Mr. Hill if he could produce any evidence, or anything beyond mere assumption, to the effect that the adhesive postage stamp was at any period an invention on the part of Sir Rowland Hill, but I was equally unsuccessful in obtaining any reply, there being, in fact, nothing beyond assumption in the matter. Nowhere does Sir Rowland Hill directly profess that this stamp was his invention.

My friends, both in and out of the press, who have been puzzled at the silence of many of the London papers on this subject, will now be in a position to form some conclusion as to the cause of this silence. What has been sent to the Messrs. Black and to the Commissioners of City Sewers, may have been sent to the London papers; indeed, I have been given to understand has been generally circulated in these quarters, already compromised in their expressed opinions, and so in no way disposed to entertain fresh views.[20] My opponents, some of them in high position, others themselves connected with the press, are desirous, and naturally so, that public attention should not be drawn to my statements.[21] In this way, crushed beneath the weight of a hitherto great name, statements have been disregarded which, when read and investigated as in the case of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," have been found substantiated.

I ask my supporters and others, therefore, to read and judge for themselves. Whether the London papers, hitherto silent, seeing the important recognition my claim has now met with, and the fresh and conclusive evidence now disclosed from the papers of Sir Henry Cole, will also now read and admit some discussion of this matter of public interest in their columns, remains to be seen. In any case, an enduring record of my father's share in the great postal reform of 1837-40 is secured. A work of the highest standing, and a reference to which is the first act of historical writers, has recorded James Chalmers as having been the originator of that adhesive postage stamp which saved the reformed scheme. Moreover, in lands beyond the sea, an interest is taken in this subject wholly unknown here; individuals and learned societies collect for their own information, and hand down for future perusal, everything published on the great Penny Postage reform, and in some of these quarters amazement is expressed at the single-hero-worship which prevails in this country with respect to a subject which investigation shows to have been the offspring of many minds, the result of the labours of not a few zealous but unassuming men.

The services of Sir Rowland Hill, already cordially recognised in my pamphlets, it would be superfluous again to dwell upon here. And if, while cordially pointing out these great services, it has also fallen to my lot to put a fresh and less favourable aspect upon their nature and extent than hitherto understood, to bring to light his great failing of assuming or allowing to be assumed as conceptions of his own what were only acquired ideas, of omitting to notice what it was not convenient to notice, let it be remembered that such has been forced upon me as a necessity solely in the pursuit of what is now declared to have been a just claim. At one period, indeed, I had withdrawn from the whole matter, until recalled to it by Mr. Pearson Hill himself in a published statement to which I was challenged to reply. My replies, under ever-increasing and conclusive evidence, have now been put forward. Should the result not have proved such as the best friends of Sir Rowland Hill could have desired, upon his own son, and not upon me, rests the responsibility. It is enough for me that my father's memory as the originator and inventor of the adhesive postage stamp has been successfully vindicated.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Patrick Chalmers, Sir Rowland Hill, and James Chalmers, Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp (London, 1882), _passim_." See also the same writer's pamphlet, entitled "The Position of Sir Rowland Hill made plain (1882)," and his "The Adhesive Stamp; a Fresh Chapter in the History of Post-Office Reform (1881)." Compare Mr. Pearson Hill's tract, "A Paper on Postage Stamps," in reply to Mr. Chalmers, reprinted from the "Philatelic Record," of November, 1881. Mr. Hill has therein shown conclusively the priority of _publication_ by Sir Rowland Hill. He has also given proof of Mr. James Chalmers' express acknowledgment of that priority. But he has not weakened the evidence of the priority of _invention_ by Mr. Chalmers.

[This admission on the part of Mr. Chalmers, obtained through an obscuring and consequent misapprehension of the facts, was, of course, wholly invalid. Even if valid, it will be seen at page 44 that such priority of publication of an idea "suggested from without" was of no practical consequence.--P.C.]

[12] "Ninth Report of Commissioners of Post-Office Inquiry, 1837," pp. 32, 33, reprinted in Sir R. Hill's "History of Penny Postage" ("Life," &c., ii. 270).

[13] [That Mr. Chalmers had not made an earlier offer of his stamp _officially_ is accounted for by the proposals of 1834 with respect to a penny postage on newspapers, in place of an impressed stamp of fourpence on the sheet, having come to nothing.--P.C.]

[14] _I.e._, by prohibiting the prepayment of letters in money.

[15] "Ninth Report," as above.

[16] Moreover, what Sir Rowland Hill does _not_ tell in his "History," is that the compulsion to use a stamp in all cases was, in his _original evidence_ in this Ninth Report, at once _withdrawn_, the permission to pay the penny in cash being restored, so that the person "unable to write" was at once relieved of all "difficulty," and no bit of gummed paper required even in the exceptional case supposed. (See my former pamphlet, page 56.) Keeping this fact in view, there is thus only a passing "allusion" here in February, 1837, to the adhesive stamp, and nothing more, not even a partial proposal to use it. This clause restoring the permission to pay the penny in place of using any stamp, is taken no notice of by Sir Rowland Hill "in reviewing the subject long afterwards."--P.C.

[17] "History of Penny Postage," as above.

[18] _Ibid._

[19] Hill, _et supra_, p. 398.

[20] In lately replying to Mr. Pearson Hill in the columns of the _Whitehall Review_, I have put this query, which has not been denied, "Will Mr. Pearson Hill undertake to say that he has not made a communication, written or verbal, similar to the above letter to Messrs. A. & C. Black to every editor in London, if not throughout a wider sphere?"

[21] One mode of stifling the subject has been to circulate the impression that I am a person under the hallucination that "his father invented the _Penny Postage scheme_," thus rendering my claim too ludicrous to obtain attention. See, amongst others, the _Times_ and _Daily News_ of 13th July, 1881.

VALUE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE ADHESIVE STAMP.

"Why should we be called upon to pass this Penny Postage Bill," said the opponents of that measure in August, 1839, "when no mortal being had at that moment the remotest conception of how it was to be carried into execution?" Mr. Rowland Hill's plan of the impressed stamp had not satisfied the Committee. This plan, as amended by the Committee, had not satisfied the Government. (See _ante_, page 13.) The paper makers and stationers were in a state of protest and alarm. "This part of the business must stand over," said the Government of the day, "How to carry out the scheme will require much consideration." It was here that James Chalmers, through Mr. Wallace, Chairman of the Committee, stepped in--the adhesive stamp saved the scheme. _That_ was the value and importance of his invention and proposal. It satisfied the paper trade; "Let the stationer, not the Stamp Office," said Mr. Chalmers, "sell the paper, the Post Office the stamp." He saved the scheme of Mr. Hill to the country by relieving and setting agoing the clogged wheels of penny postage--he supplied the engines to the much admired but immovable craft and sent her speeding smoothly and swiftly upon her beneficent mission.

No wonder Sir Rowland Hill determined that no name but his own should be heard of in connection with the adhesive stamp, for of what use is a scheme, however desirable, if you cannot carry it out in practice? This is what he admits on the subject soon after the simultaneous introduction of the Mulready envelope and the adhesive stamp--"The public rejection of the former was so complete as to necessitate the destruction of nearly all the vast number prepared for issue." On the other hand--"Though the presses of the Stamp Office were producing more than half a million of adhesive stamps by working both night and day, they yet failed to meet the demand." Up to this day, after over forty years of public service, and notwithstanding the improvements in the production of impressed and embossed stamps, the adhesive stamp remains indispensable to our postal, inland revenue, telegraphic, and parcel-post systems--"Eighteen hundred millions are issued _yearly_ from the office of the Controller of stamps. These range in value from a halfpenny to twenty pounds, covering postage and inland revenue from a halfpenny to two shillings and sixpence; postage proper from five shillings to five pounds; inland revenue proper (such as foreign bills, sea policy stamps, &c.) from one penny to ten pounds; and fees (such as judicature, &c.), from one penny to twenty pounds. The penny stamp takes the first place amongst the numbers issued. Of these, as many as thirteen hundred millions and a half were despatched from Somerset House in the course of a recent twelvemonth."[22] Twenty-five millions of parcels are now annually conveyed by Parcel Post, a business only practicable through prepayment by adhesive stamp.

Thus, ever increasing in utility, thus indispensable to the carrying out of all or any of these great public services, the value of James Chalmers' invention and proposal--the importance of this "powerful mechanism of the stamp"--may be best felt by the consideration that its suspension, even for a day, would paralyse the entire commercial and social system of the nation, it may be said "of the world" for in all other lands, one after another, has the adhesive stamp become an institution for similar purposes as in our own, and in corresponding numbers.

In this sense an eminent writer has lately stated, "Whoever discovered the adhesive stamp, the discovery has socially revolutionised the world." "Should my plan be adopted," was the prophetic saying of Mr. Chalmers when he sent his plan to London and to Mr. Hill himself, long before the Penny Postage Bill was even introduced into Parliament, "should my adhesive stamp be adopted, the demand for these will in time become so vast, that I am only puzzled to think where premises can be found to get them up." Surely the man who rescued the Legislature from such a complication as has been described, surely the originator of this indispensable and ubiquitous adhesive stamp has done the State some service.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "Chambers' Journal," March, 1885.

CONCLUSION.

Objections have been raised, both in and out of the press, to the effect that my claim comes "too late in the day." Such objection will, I believe, be found effectually met in my preface and former pamphlets, to the satisfaction of any impartial mind favouring me with a perusal.

With those who decline to read my statements, amongst whom may be named several writers of biography wrapt up in a blind worship of pre-conceived ideas, nothing, of course, can be done.

Others say, "Get an official recognition of your claim from the Post Office, then we will recognise you." This, again, is taking matters in the reverse order; if the Post Office is ever to recognise me, the pressure must come from outside, as the Post Office, under its late chief, Mr. Shaw Lefevre, simply declines to read or cause to be read for its information anything I may lay before it, as "not being deemed necessary." As I have nothing to ask from that quarter, having now gained a recognition promising to be sufficient for my purpose, I have no present intention of again troubling the Post Office on the subject. The feeling of _esprit de corps_, if nothing else, will probably render the Post Office the very last body to admit that any mistake by the late Sir Rowland Hill has been made.