The 1840 Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system, is today’s #stampoftheday. The stamp, which features a profile of Queen Victoria, was issued in Great Britain on May 1, 1840, but it was not valid for use until May 6, 1840.

Before the stamp was issued, recipients, not senders, generally paid for letters. Postal rates were complex, depending on the distance and the number of sheets in the letter and the postal system was marred by fraud and inefficiency. As one critic noted, this was bad for business because “nothing contributes more to facilitate commerce than the safe, speedy and cheap conveyance of letter.”

In the 1830s, Rowland Hill, a well-known educator best known for reforms that improved education for the emerging middle class, became interested in the problem. (There is a story, probably apocryphal, that he did so after he saw a young woman too poor to claim a letter sent to her by her fiancé.). After extensive research, in 1937 he submitted a proposal for a comprehensive reform of the postal system. Contending that most of the costs in the postal system were for laborious handling procedures at letters’ origins and destinations, he called for a system of pre-paid adhesive stamps (already used on documents to show payment of taxes) as well pre-paid letter sheets. He also proposed lowering the postage rate to a penny per half ounce, without regard to distance.

The plan was not universally hailed, with one key official contending it “appears to be a preposterous one, utterly unsupported by facts and resting entirely on assumption.” But merchants, traders and bankers, who viewed the existing system as corrupt and a restraint of trade. formed a “Mercantile Committee” to advocate for Hill’s plan and pushed for its adoption. Finally in 1839 Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system and in May 1840 the new stamp was introduced. Within a year, the number of letters sent in the UK more than doubled and it doubled again during 1840s. Within a few years, Switzerland and Brazil began using postage stamps, as did the United States. By 1860, 90 countries had adopted the system.

In 1842, Hill was forced out by the Conservative Party, which had come back into power in 1841, He soon became chairman of the board of the London and Brighton Railroad. In that role, he lowered fares, expanded routes, offered special excursion trains, and made the commute more comfortable for passengers. He also became a member of the influential Political Economy Club, which had been founded by David Ricardo and other classical economists and included many powerful businessmen and political figures among its members. And when the Whigs returned to power in 1846, Hill was made Secretary to the Postmaster General, and then Secretary to the Post Office, a position he held until 1864. He also was knighted in 1860.

The Penny Black stamp was only used for about a year because the red ink used to cancel the stamp was hard to see and easy to remove; which made it easy to re-use cancelled stamps. In February 1841, the Treasury switched to the Penny Red and began using black ink for cancellations. The portrait of Victoria used on the Penny Black remained on British stamps until her death in 1901. And to this day, all British stamps still bear her portrait or silhouette somewhere in the design. Moreover, continuing the policy that started with the first stamp, the country’s name still isn’t on its stamps, which makes the United Kingdom the only country that does not include its name on its stamps.