FOUNDER -- of the Penny Post, Sir Rowland Hill, King Edward Street, London, UK
N 51° 30.980 W 000° 05.927
30U E 701290 N 5711236
The statue of Rowland Hill, who conceived of and introduced the Penny post and other postage reforms, along King Edward Street
Waymark Code: WMTBQM
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/29/2016
Views: 2
This statue of Rowland Hill is made of bronze and stands on a red granite plinth, which is inscribed as follows:
"ROWLAND HILL
He founded uniform penny postage
1840"
From wikipedia: (
visit link)
"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 solution of prepayment, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap transfer of letters. Hill later served as a government postal official, and he is usually credited with originating the basic concepts of the modern postal service, including the invention of the postage stamp.
. . .
Hill has two legacies. The first was his model for education of the emerging middle classes. The second was his model for an efficient postal system to serve business and the public, including the postage stamp and the system of low and uniform postal rates, which is often taken for granted in the modern World.[23] In this, he not only changed postal services around the world, but also made commerce more efficient and profitable, notwithstanding the fact that it took 30 years before the British Post Office's revenue recovered to the level it had been at in 1839. Uniform Penny Post continued in the UK into the 20th century, and at one point, one penny paid for up to four ounces.
There are three public statues of Hill. The earliest is in Birmingham: a Carrara marble sculpture by Peter Hollins unveiled in 1870.[24] Its location was moved in 1874, 1891 (when it was placed in the City's General Post Office) and 1934. In 1940 it was removed for safe keeping for the duration of the Second World War.
A marble statue in Kidderminster, Hill's birthplace, was sculpted by Sir Thomas Brock and unveiled in June 1881. It is at the junction of Vicar and Exchange Streets. Hill is prominent in Kidderminster's community history. There is a J D Wetherspoon pub called The Penny Black in the town centre and a large shopping mall linking Vicar Street and Worcester Street is named The Rowland Hill Shopping Centre.
In London a bronze statue by Edward Onslow Ford, also made in 1881, stands in King Edward Street."
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