GB 1850 Prince Consort Essay

Henry Archer was a Businessman of Irish extraction but based in London. He submitted various trials of perforating machines to the Postmaster General, initially with rouletting and then with line perforation.
1d Reds from plates 70 and 71 were rouletted and plates 90-116 have been reported P16 (mainly 92-101)

Having experimented with the current stamps he became convinced that the Line Engraved printing method was associated with the failure of his trials. As a result he produced a trial stamp using Surface Printing.
Edwin Hill, Supervisor of the Stamp Department of Somerset House, advised the engraver (Samuel Reynolds) not to use the Queens head and as a result a drawing of the Prince Consort was used. There is some debate about the engraver, it may have been Ferdinand Joubert who worked with De La Rue and that would explain the lettering FJ.
A master plate of 12 was produced and the stamps were printed in blocks of 36, 240 and 252. Stamps in Black, Red-Brown and Blue were produced.
Very few exist perforated. The royal Collection has one Rouletted stamp and there are less than 40 perforated P16 in various collections.

Perforated 16

As a result of his experiments Archer offered to produce stamps cheaper than Perkins Bacon using surface printing. This was not accepted but led to Perkins Bacon being forced to reduce their price.
Archer was unhappy about the payment offered for his inventions and petitioned Parliament for redress. In the investigation that followed in 1852 De La Rue submitted evidence that eventually led to GB stamps being printed by the Surface printing method starting in 1855.