I found this piece tonight while browsing the internet and thought I would share it with you. You may have read it before, or know of the story. Interesting all the same I hope, to read it again.
If the writer Coleridge is to be believed, in 1836 Rowland Hill, then aged 40, was walking through a Scottish village when he saw the postman offer a letter to a young countrywoman: she refused it on the grounds that the postage was too much to pay. Rowland Hill offered to pay it for her but the young woman declined with thanks. The postman went away, carrying the letter which, since it had not been delivered, would be returned to the sender. Rowland Hill had watched what had gone on attentively, suspecting that the girl's refusal concealed a secret. Intrigued, he questioned her and taking him into her confidence she explained that her fiancé lived in
A year later Rowland Hill published a pamphlet entitled Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability. As soon as it appeared, this pamphlet became the talk of the town. Hill proposed that inland letters should be subject to a prepaid postage.
The results of this reform were that on 6 May 1840 small pieces of paper with gum on one side and an effigy of the Queen Victoria on the other, were sold at post office counters for the very first time. The sale received very favourable public reaction. These were the stamps, penny blacks and twopenny blues, for prepayment of postage.
If you want to know more about the history of letters and postage I suggest you have a look at http://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/Cultures/en-NZ/Stamps/MoreAboutStamps/HistoryOfPhilately/