The Penny Black Changed the World
Organisation: The British Postal Museum & Archive
Grant Award: Your Heritage (£47,000)
A HLF grant of £47,000 means the world-famous R M Phillips philatelic collection can be digitised and made available online. This collection tells the story of the development of the postage stamp in the 19th century.
This digitisation work will help the BPMA produce education resources for Key Stage 2, based on history, art and design from this fantastic collection of stamps and other postal material.
Background to the project
In an age when we can communicate at the push of a button, it can be hard to imagine that using a pre-paid label to stick on a letter was once such an incredible idea. Yet telephones, text messages, and email all owe a debt to the power of the first postage stamp - the Penny Black - and to the postal reforms which inspired mass communication.
Rowland Hill's Big Idea
The stamp seems such a simple notion, and yet it wasn't until the late 1830s that social reformer Rowland Hill suggested 'a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash'. Hill matched this with the radical principle that a standard letter could be sent anywhere in Britain for one penny, opening up the world of letters and literacy to millions of people.
The R M Phillips collection charts the development of this idea, from design to different experiments with production, and from the iconic Penny Black to the 'Jubilee issue' of 1887. It contains rare examples of original stamps, experiments with paper and ink and documents on postal history.
Outcomes
Preserving the past for the future
The fragile nature of this vital collection means that it is currently accessible to the public only by appointment, and with one-to-one supervision. When digitised, this national treasure will be readily available to an international audience through this website. It will also be possible for visitors to The Royal Mail Archive to see the collection in even greater detail on computers in our Search Room, using higher resolution images than we can make available through the internet. This will reduce the use of the original material, ensuring its long-term preservation for future generations.
Stamps into schools
The digitisation work will also form the basis for a learning and outreach programme. We want to encourage teachers to look beyond the conventional in finding sources for the learning & understanding of history, and this project is perfect for the important 'Victorian Britain' part of the Key Stage 2 curriculum. The project will produce a resource pack for educators, BPMA school visits and, moving beyond history, art and design workshops for Key Stage 2.
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