Mulready postal stationery

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Front of a Mulready envelope for 1 penny, which was subsequently colored by a private party

Mulready postal stationery refers to a postal postal stationery from Great Britain with an allegorical image and named after its designer, the artist William Mulready (1786–1863). The post issued them in variants as folded letter sheets ( Michel numbers F1 and F2) and envelopes (Michel numbers U1 and U2), in the two denominations of 1 penny and 2 pence. The form of the stamp imprint differs from most other postal stationery: It consists of the simple text POSTAGE ONE PENNY or POSTAGE TWO PENCEunder the large picture. The Mulreadys are considered the world's first postal stationery, although there were forerunners.

history

A Rowland Hill employee named Henry Cole contacted William Mulready , an English painter , on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer . Mulready had completed the design two days after receiving the order and received the enormous sum of £ 200 as payment. The design shows Britannia sending her messengers all over the world. John Thomson turned it into a steel engraving by April 1840, which was personally overseen by Mulready. Edwin Hill, a brother of Rowland Hill, oversaw the printing process at the Clowes & Sons print shop.

From May 1, 1840, they were sold. The first day of validity was May 6th. At the same time, the world's first postage stamp appeared in Great Britain . Protests arose over the design of the allegorical image, and caricatures of the envelopes by British artists John Doyle , John Leech , WM Thackeray and others appeared. Towards the end of 1840, those responsible withdrew the Mulready postal stationery. In January 1841 the British Post instead issued new postal stationery envelopes without a picture, which had a stamp imprint with the portrait of Queen Victoria based on a design by William Wyon.

literature

  • Mirror, mirror, on the wall - who is the oldest in the whole country? A contribution to the history of the (picture) post (view) card. (Part 2 from continuation article) In: philatelie - the collector's magazine of the Association of German Philatelists , issue 309 from March 2003, page 54 f
  • Karl v. Gündel: The Mulready envelopes, their caricatures, etc. (continuation article ) In: Illustrated Briefmarken-Journal in the issues No. 1/1889, No. 23/1889, No. 2/1890
  • Karl-Albert Louis: Mulready caricatures and illustrated envelopes: humor and art in the 19th century. In: philately issue no.336 from June 2005
  • Wolfgang Maassen, AIJP, FRPSL: An idea and its global success (3): The first worldwide valid postal stationery, the “Mulready envelope” . In: philatelie - the collector's magazine of the Association of German Philatelists , issue 398 from August 2010, page 54 ff
  • Wolfgang Maassen: Philately and associations in the 19th century , publisher: Phil Creativ, Schwalmtal 2006, ISBN 978-3-932198-69-4 , pp. 106-109

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mulready envelope. In: Wolfram Grallert: Lexicon of Philately. 2nd Edition. Phil * Creativ, Schwalmtal 2007, ISBN 978-3-932198-38-0 , page 253.
  2. ↑ LN Williams: Encyclopaedia of Rare and Famous Stamps. Volume 1 The Stories. Feldman, Geneva 1993, ISBN 0-89192-435-3 , p. 96