Darlington letters, posted to Shildon and Edinburgh, among examples of Mulready design

THE Rowland Hill reforms of the Postal system in 1840 gave affordable mail to the majority of the population and while the One Penny Black is well recognised as the very first postage stamp, the Mulready letter sheet which was issued at the same time is not so well known.

The official term for these letters is Postal Stationery, and Rowland Hill suggested an improvement to the postal service could include a pre-paid envelope which did not need to have a gummed stamp applied to it.

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Hill believed – incorrectly as it turned out – that people would prefer these pre-paid letter sheets and envelopes rather than buy separate stamps and use their own envelopes and paper.

He commissioned William Mulready RA, a famous Irish artist living in London, to design the stationery, and so the envelope was named after him.

The Mulready design depicted Britannia in the centre of the world with a shield and lion at her feet, her arms outstretched dispatching winged messengers to all corners of the empire. Figures at upper left and right suggest the continents of Asia and North America. In the lower corners, idealised family members are engrossed in reading their mail.

Mulready letter sheet posted from Darlington addressed to Edinburgh was dated November 5, 1840 and received in Edinburgh on the November 6. It was cancelled by a red Maltese cross of Darlington, over the figure of Britannia

Rowland Hill expected the Mulready stationery to be more popular than the postage stamps. So with great anticipation, the envelope and letter sheet with its elaborate design in values of one penny and two pence was issued on the 6 May, 1840.

However the design was immediately ridiculed by the general public, the press and artistic communities alike as it was perceived to be pompous, overly idealised and pretentious.

Just a few days after the Mulready envelopes and letter sheets had been issued, postal reformer Rowland Hill wrote: “The public have shown their disregard and even distaste for beauty” – and as he feared, the invention was already doomed.

Such was the height of public feeling that a number of Stationers in London published humorous and politically fuelled caricatures of the envelope.

Caricature Envelope published June 1, 1840, by J.W. Southgate No 1 in a series, showing Britannia with a patch over her eye, scattering messengers afar, with drunken men lying on the ground

So plans began for a new postal stationery. In February 1841 the Mulready was replaced by the so-called Penny Pink, a pre-paid envelope that followed the same premise as the Mulready, but replaced the elaborate sketch with a simple portrait of Queen Victoria within a circular frame, along with the words ‘Postage One Penny’.

The Mulready envelopes were not initially withdrawn, but remained on sale at Post Offices up to November 1842, then the remaining stocks were eventually destroyed.

There is still a mystique regarding these items and they are still very popular with collectors today.

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