Penny Black Penny Black The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in Great Britain on 1 May 1840, but was not valid for use until 6 May. It features a profile of Queen Victoria. In 1837, British postal rates were high, complex and anomalous. To simplify matters, Sir Rowland Hill proposed an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage. At the time it was normal for the recipient to pay postage on delivery, charged by the sheet and on distance travelled. By contrast, the Penny Black allowed letters of
Penny & Giles Penny & Giles Penny & Giles (P&G) was a British engineering company in Dorset (former Hampshire) that made flight recorders (black boxes). The company was founded in 1956 by Prof William Alfred Penny and James Giles. It made high-reliability wire-wound potentiometers for aircraft in flight testing. In 1957 it made the first aircraft data recorder with magnetic recording on a stainless steel wire, known as a "black box". In 1963, the Ministry of Aviation informed the UK aircraft industry that all civil airliners would have to have flight data recorders. In April 1973, Penny and Giles Conductive Plastics received a