Mulready stationery describes the

postal stationery A piece of postal stationery is a stationery item, such as a stamped envelope, letter sheet, postal card, lettercard, aerogram or wrapper, with an imprinted stamp or inscription indicating that a specific rate of postage or related serv ...

letter sheet In philatelic terminology a letter sheet, often written lettersheet, is a sheet of paper that can be folded, usually sealed (most often with sealing wax in the 18th and 19th centuries), and mailed without the use of an envelope, or it can also ...

s and envelopes that were introduced as part of the British Post Office postal reforms of 1840. They went on sale on 1 May 1840, and were valid for use from 6 May. The Mulready name arises from the fact that

William Mulready William Mulready (1 April 1786 – 7 July 1863) was an Irish genre painter living in London. He is best known for his romanticising depictions of rural scenes, and for creating Mulready stationery letter sheets, issued at the same time as the P ...

, a well-known artist of the time, was commissioned to illustrate the part of the letter sheets and envelopes which corresponded with the face area.

Design

The design incorporated a munificent

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Grea ...

at the centre top with a shield and a reclining lion surrounded on either side by a representation of the continents of Asia and North America with people reading their mail in the two lower corners, bestowing the benefits of

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

services to the countries of the world under British control. The Mulready illustration, engraved by John Thompson, was printed such that it appeared on the face of the sheets when folded. The Mulready letter sheets followed the traditional letter sheet design and could be folded as normal while the envelopes were a diamond-shaped sheet which, when the sides were folded to the center, became an envelope and the overlapping edges were then sealed. The Mulready illustration was effectively a very elaborate frank indicating that postage had been pre-paid. In the same way that the first

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the f ...

s were issued in two values (

Penny Black The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom (referred to in philatelic circles as Great Britain), on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May ...

and

Two Penny Blue The Two Penny Blue or The Two Pence Blue was the world's second official postage stamp, produced in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and issued after the Penny Black. Initial printing took place from 1 May 1840, and in all 6,4 ...

) both the letter sheets and envelopes were issued in sheets of twelve, called Formes. The one penny and two penny values were in the same black and blue colours as the same value postage stamps.

Demise

Rowland Hill Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS (3 December 1795 – 27 August 1879) was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his solut ...

expected the Mulready stationery to be more popular than the postage stamps but the postage stamp prevailed. The design was so elaborate and misunderstood that it generated widespread ridicule and lampooning, and in addition was perceived in some areas as a covert government attempt to control the supply of envelopes, and hence control the flow of information carried by the postal service (which had become a government monopoly under the reforms). Many

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

s (or lampoons) were produced by stationers whose livelihood was threatened by the new letter sheet. Only six days after their introduction, on 12 May, Hill wrote in his journal: "I fear we shall have to substitute some other stamp for that design by Mulready ... the public have shown their disregard and even distaste for beauty." Within two months a decision had been made to replace the Mulready designed stationery and essentially they were a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

. As a result of the uproar the Mulreadys were replaced with a simple design which is commonly known as the Penny Pink. The Penny Pinks were issued on 10 February 1841. Contrary to often published accounts, the Mulreadys were not withdrawn at that time. Supplies in post offices were eventually exhausted. Large supplies remained in the hands of stamp distributors and sub-distributors. In November 1842, the Inland Revenue decided that those stocks should be withdrawn. The withdrawal notice was sent gradually over a period of time so that the store keepers at Inland Revenue would not be overwhelmed with the volume of returned Mulreadys. The withdrawal period lasted several years. The returned Mulreadys were stored at a warehouse until it was decided to destroy them. The first attempt was to burn them. That failed. Eventually a machine was designed and built to destroy them by punching out the center of the design. The Mulready stationery suffered an inglorious demise. The design was to write on the inside or to enclose a letter written on ordinary paper. The Mulready letter sheet was fundamentally akin to the present-day aerogram. Pre- gummed envelopes as we know them today did not exist. The diamond-shaped sheet and the geometrically more complex short-arm cross-shaped sheet remain essentially the staple designs to this day. (All mechanical printing devices from the

Gutenberg press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...

on are primarily designed to process flat rectangular sheets. Hence the illustration would have been printed using a press and then cut to a diamond shape. The number produced from any one sheet naturally depended on the size of the printing bed and to this day envelope printing and envelope manufacture have maintained a symbiotic relationship.)

References

External links

First Day of Issue, 6 May 1840, Mulready letter sheetRoyal Insight (British Monarchy website)

(wayback machine link)

(wayback machine link)
Proof of One Penny Mulready lettersheet (details)Larger image
British Postal Museum and Archive
Proof of One and Two Penny Mulready envelopes (details)Larger image
British Postal Museum and Archive Postal history Postal stationery Envelopes Postage stamps of the United Kingdom

Design

Demise

References

Further reading

External links