Information About ™James Chalmers |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT JAMES CHALMERS | |
| 1782 births | |
| 1853 deaths | |
| people from angus | |
| scottish inventors | |
| scottish businesspeople | |
| publishers people | |
| scottish printers | |
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James Chalmers (1782 Arbroath , Angus - 1853) was the Scottish inventor of the Adhesive Postage Stamp and the Uniform Postage Rate . Initially a weaver, he moved to Dundee in 1809 and established himself there as a bookseller, printer and Newspaper publisher, eventually serving as a Burgh Councillor and becoming Convener of the Nine Incorporated Trades . Like many mild-looking people, he seems to have been a slayer of the ''"dragons which retard progress"'', battling repeatedly in the cause of Burgh Reform , and fighting for the Repeal of Tax es on newspapers and newspaper Advertisement s, and the removal of the Excise Duty on paper. His most burning enthusiasm, however, was Postal Reform , and to the delight of his fellow businessmen, he managed to induce the authorities to speed up the Mail between Dundee and London by a day each way, convincing them that this could be done without extra cost. That he was far advanced in his scheme for an Adhesive Postage Stamp in 1834 , six years before the Penny Post was introduced, was later borne out not only by Dundee and Arbroath men of standing, but by employees in his printing-works. These afterwards recalled their work in applying gum to the slips and clipping the sample stamps apart, for the perforation was a subsequent refinement and came from another source. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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