GB Postage Stamps - The Great Post Office Reform of 1839 and 1840 was championed by Rowland Hill as a way to reverse the steady financial losses of the Post Office. Hill convinced Parliament to adopt the Uniform Fourpenny Post whereby a flat 4d per ½oz rate (equivalent to £1.18/kg for heavier items) was charged regardless of distance. The rate went into effect on 5 December 1839 but only lasted for 36 days. This was immediately successful, and on 10 January 1840 the Uniform Penny Post started, charging only 1d for prepaid letters and 2d if the fee was collected from the recipient. Fixed rates meant that it was practical to avoid handling money to send a letter by using an "adhesive label", and accordingly, on May 6, the Penny Black became the world's first postage stamp in use.

The stamp was originally for use only within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as such was in effect initially a local stamp. For this reason the name of the country was not included within the design, a situation which continued by agreement with foreign post offices, provided the sovereign's effigy appeared on the stamp. Envelopes sold with postage paid did not include this, so were marked with the country's name. In 1951, the special commemorative issue for the Festival of Britain included the name "Britain" incidentally. It could therefore be said that the name of the country then appeared for the first time on a stamp of the UK, although the word "British" had appeared on British Empire Exhibition commemorative stamps of 1924.

It soon became obvious that black was a not a good choice of stamp colour, since any cancellation marks were hard to see, and from 1841 onwards, the stamps were printed in a brick-red colour. The Penny Reds continued in use for decades.

Victorian era

The Victorian age saw an explosion of experimentation. The inefficiency of using scissors to cut stamps from the sheet inspired trials with rouletting (the Archer Roulette), and then with perforation, which became standard practice in 1854. In 1847, the (octagonal) 1 shilling (£0.05) became the first of the British embossed postage stamps to be issued, followed by 10d stamps the following year, and 6d (£0.025) values in 1854.

Surface-printed stamps first appeared in the form of a 4d stamp in 1855, printed by De La Rue, and subsequently became the standard type. ½d (halfpenny) and 1½d (penny halfpenny - pronounced pennyhaypny or threehaypence) engraved stamps issued in 1870 were the last engraved types of Queen Victoria; the next would not appear until 1913. Surface-printed stamps of the 1860s and 1870s all used the same profile of Victoria, but a variety of frames, watermarks, and corner lettering.

A 5 shilling (abbreviated as 5/- or as 5s.) (£0.25) stamp first appeared in 1867, followed by 10 shilling (£0.50) and £1 values in 1878, culminating in a £5 stamp in 1882.

Meanwhile, the age of the Penny Reds had come to an end along with the Perkins Bacon printing contract. The new low values were also surface-printed: first was a penny stamp coloured Venetian red in a square frame, issued in 1880. However, the passage of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1881 necessitated new stamps valid also as revenue stamps, and so the Penny Lilac was issued in that year, inscribed "Postage and Inland Revenue". This stamp remained the standard letter stamp for the remainder of Victoria's reign, and vast quantities were printed. Later issues were inscribed Postage & Revenue which became the more familiar Postage Revenue. 1883 and 1884 saw experimentation with stamps using fugitive inks with the "Lilac and Green Issue". These were rather plain designs, low values in lilac and high values in green, because those were the only colours available. They succeeded in their purpose - relatively few of the stamps survived usage, their colours fading away when soaked from the envelope - but they were not liked by the public.

The last major issue of Victoria was the "Jubilee issue" of 1887, a set of twelve designs ranging from ½d. to 1s., most printed in two colours or on coloured paper. (Although issued during the Jubilee year, they were not issued specifically for the occasion, and are thus not commemoratives).

Early 20th Century

When Edward VII succeeded to the throne, new stamps became necessary. The approach was very conservative however: most of the Jubilee frames were reused, and the image of the King was still a single profile. Edward's reign being fairly short, there were no major changes of design, but chalk-surfaced paper was introduced. (This type of paper can be detected by rubbing the surface with silver, which leaves a black mark).

By contrast, the stamps of King George V were innovative from the very first. The first issue made was of the ½d and 1d values, which were in the same colours as used in the previous reign. Although the main design feature remained the same – a central ellipse for the portrait, an ornamental frame, value tablet at the base and a crown at the top – a three quarter portrait was used for the first time. Subsequent designs reverted to the standard profile however.

The UK's first commemorative stamps were issued for the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. The pair of large-format stamps featured a lion in an imposing stance; they were issued twice, in 1924 and then in 1925, the stamps of each year being inscribed with the year of issue. A second set of commemoratives in 1929 marked the 9th Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), held in London that year.

Abdication and war

A set of four stamps was issued in 1936 for Edward VIII before he abdicated. George VI's coronation was marked with a commemorative: part of an omnibus issue which included every colony in the Empire. New definitives featured a profile of the King on a solid colour background, based on a plaster cast by Edmund Dulac. This was a precursor of the Machins three decades later: see below.

The century of the postage stamp was celebrated in 1940 with a set of six stamps depicting Victoria and George VI side-by-side. By the following year, wartime exigencies affected stamp printing, with the 1937 stamps being printed with less ink, resulting in significantly lighter shades. Post-war issues included commemoratives for the return of peace, the Silver Jubilee and the 1948 Summer Olympics in 1948, and the 75th anniversary of the UPU, in 1949.

In 1950 the colours of all the low values were changed. 1951 saw a new series of high values (2s 6d, 5s, 10s, £1), and two commemoratives for the Festival of Britain.

Modern Era

When Elizabeth II succeeded her father in 1952, new stamps were needed. The result was a collection of variations on a theme that came to be known as the Wilding issues, based on a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by photographer Dorothy Wilding.

Wildings were used until 1967, when the Machin issues were introduced on 5 June. The Machin design is very simple, a profile of the Queen on a solid colour background, and very popular, still being the standard British stamp as of 2009. They have been printed in scores of different colours; in addition, decimalisation required new denominations, and there have technical improvements in the printing process, resulting in literally hundreds of varieties known to specialists.