Rowland Hill

This man invented pre-paid stamps

In 1840, Hill noticed postal revenues failed to increase despite growth in the economy and analyzed the cost structure of mail delivery 12 cents a letter which was too high for everyone. He found that the majority of the costs were due to time for clerks to appraise how to price the mail by weight. The actual conveyance costs were a fraction of this price. He simplified the process by charging a uniform prepaid “Penny post” price which led to annual mail delivery to rise from 76-642 million letters over the next 25 years.