Penny Post He circulated mail to 17 shops in the city (effectively post offices) and employed 4 uniformed postmen. Their hats read "Penny Post" and were numbered 1,4,8 and 16 to make the business look bigger. On 5 December 1839 the Uniform Fourpenny Post was introduced by the General Post Office but lasted only 36 days until 9 January 1840 when the Uniform Penny Post was introduced. The penny post box was green. In 1835 Rowland Hill published a pamphlet entitled 'Post Office Reform' which led to various reforms and the introduction of the first postage stamp and convinced Parliament to implement
Penny dreadful killed the penny dreadful by the simple process of producing the 'ha'penny dreadfuller'". The quality of the Harmsworth/Amalgamated Press papers began to improve throughout the early 20th century, however. By the time of the First World War, papers such as "Union Jack" dominated the market in the UK. Two popular characters to come out of the penny dreadfuls were Jack Harkaway, introduced in the "Boys of England" in 1871, and Sexton Blake, who began in "the Half-penny Marvel" in 1893. In 1904, the "Union Jack" became "Sexton Blake's own paper", and he appeared in every issue thereafter, up until the