The 1858 2d blue’s security
The early GB intaglio and letterpress stamps had check letters in the lower corners, from AA to TL – a security feature borrowed from the small monogrammed labels which secured the lead staples of the embossed stamps on parchment documents. This was regarded as sufficient security against fraud, until July 1857 when the postmaster of Anersham, J.R. Bettesworth, drew attention to the fact that he had often observed stamps on letters with imperfect obliteration, either at the top or bottom of the stamp, instead of covering it entirely. He stated that this tempted dishonest persons to soak off the stamps, cut off the obliterated portions and join them up to make an unblemished whole. This practice, popularly known as ‘piecing’, was apparently quite widespread.
To combat this loss to the revenue, Bettesworth proposed that stamps should be lettered in all four corners, although his system envisaged stamps lettered AB/CD, BC/DE, CD/EF and so on. Senior officials of the Post Office regarded this as a good idea, but that it was unnecessarily complicated. It was William Bokenham and Thomas Boucher who came up with the solution – put the letters in the upper corners, denoting the position of the stamp on the sheet (e.g. AB would be the second stamp in the top row) but reverse the letters (BA) in the lower corners. As a further precaution – in case anybody managed to find two pieces of stamps with the exact lettering for the purpose – it was decided that the actual plate number should be engraved at the sides.
Rowland Hill’s approval
The plate numbers and replacement of the stars in the upper corners of the line-engraved stamps by letters seemed a simple matter to Rowland Hill who gave approval for the change, but it entailed the construction of entirely new plates. In the case of the penny this was a mammoth undertaking and it took several years to produce them. Thus the introduction of the one penny stamps with letters in all four corners was delayed until 1864.
In November 1857 Rowland Hill’s brother Frederic wrote to the Board of Inland Revenue with a detailed plan. The Board gave its approval for the changes on January 28, 1858 and immediately Perkins Bacon began experiments. By late February it had worked out the costs of making new plates and in April it was told to go ahead with the 2d stamp, which required far fewer plates. By June 16 Perkins Bacon had completed the plates (numbered 7 and 8)and were ready to commence printing. These were registered on June 11 and July 7 respectively, and printing from plate 7 began on July 19.
The catalogues give the date of issue merely as July 1858 but, as the Post Office circular intimating their imminent release was sent to post offices on July 29, an August date seems more probable. Stamps from plate 8 appeared in late September, but later plates weren’t required until 1861. The success of this change led to the extension of letters in all four corners to the De La Rue stamps (3d to 1/-) in 1862, but it wasn’t until April 1864 that the first of the Penny Reds in this format appeared.
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