John Johnson Collection Exhibition 2001

This exhibition of the ephemera of trade in the British Isles from 1654 to the 1860s draws primarily on the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera in the Bodleian Library. Trade cards and bill headings, in spite their small format, contain a wealth of information both in their textual and iconographic content.

De la Rue’s Stationery Stand and Envelope Machine (1851)

This print by C.T. Dolby shows the envelope-folding machine, invented by Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue. The machine operated at the rate of 2,700 envelopes an hour. Previously, envelopes were folded by hand with a bone ‘folding stick’and a good output was 3,000 per day. Before Rowland Hill’s postal reforms of 1839, envelopes were little used in England, although they were common in France. This machine was produced in direct response to the increase in the number of letters sent.
[more]

  thanks to wood s lot