In May 1840, post offices all over the UK were besieged with customers wanting to take advantage of a new innovation: the penny post. On the first night of the service, 112,000 letters and circulars were dispatched.
Rowland Hill, the brains behind the idea, had applied the principles of utilitarian economics to the development of a postal service. In other words, he had considered the most cost-effective and efficient method of funding a mass communications system. Hill quickly realised that the existing system was elitist, inefficient and widely bypassed. For example, only one-sixth of the letters between Manchester and London passed through the post office.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
