Before the invention of the postage stamp, letters were usually paid for by the person receiving them. If the sender did prepay the postage, the letter would be marked "Paid " by hand or by a hand stamp. Sometimes, wrappers preprinted with a stamp were used. Postage rates were high, and varied depending on how far a letter had to travel and how many sheets the letter contained.

A retired English schoolteacher, Rowland Hill (1795-1879), published a pamphlet in 1837 titled Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability, in which he demonstrated that the cost of delivering a letter in Great Britain had less to do with the distance sent than with the amount of time spent for handling and calculating and collecting postage. He proposed an inexpensive, universal postage rate based on the weight of the letter. Hill also suggested that postage should be prepaid by the...