Welcome To The
Hamilton Stamp Club Web Site
The Club meets every 2nd, 4th and 5th
Monday of each month from
September to June
with one meeting in July & December.
Doors open from 6:00pm to 9:00pm.
Lots of FREE parking.
There are two auctions at each meeting.
Coffee and cookies will be served free.
Coffee and Donuts once a month too.
Visitors and new members are
always welcome.
The club is
WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE
New Visitors To Our Site This Year.
Last Year we had 2110 unique user hits.
What Is A Stamp; click picture to find out.
The Penny Black
The first stamp, the penny black, was put on sale on 1 May, to be valid as of 6 May 1840; two days later the two pence blue was introduced. Both show an engraving of the young Queen Victoria, with smooth, unperforated edges. At the time, there was no reason to include the United Kingdom’s name on the stamp; the UK remains the only country not to identify itself by name on postal stamps, as it simply uses the current monarch’s head as implicit identification. Following the introduction of the postage stamp in the UK, the number of letters increased dramatically as the use of the stamp rapidly accelerated. Before 1839 the number of letters sent was 76 million. By 1850 this had increased fivefold to 350 million and continued to grow rapidly thereafter, until the end of the 20th century when newer methods drastically reduced the use of delivery systems requiring stamps.
Rowland Hill
The Englishman Sir Rowland Hill started to take an interest in postal reform in 1835. In 1836, a Member of Parliament, Robert Wallace, provided Hill with numerous books and documents, which Hill described as a "half hundred weight of material". Hill commenced a detailed study of these documents, which led him to the publication, in early 1837, of a pamphlet entitled "Post Office Reform its Importance and Practicability". He submitted a copy of this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Spring-Rice, on 4 January 1837. This first edition was marked "private and confidential" and was not released to the general public. The Chancellor summoned Hill to a meeting during which the Chancellor suggested improvements and changes to be presented in a supplement, which Hill duly produced and supplied on 28 January 1837.
