Royal Envelope - History of the Envelope

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The First Real Envelopes

As history goes, the envelope is a comparative newcomer, but its predecessors go back as far as recorded history. Perhaps the first of these "envelopes" was the clay wrapper used by the Babylonians in 2000 B.C. to protect documents such as bookkeeping accounts, deeds, mortgages, and quite possibly letters as well. The clay in its plastic state was folded over the original message, crimped together, then baked. It was a foolproof system, for the outside wrapper had to be completely destroyed in order to gain access to the tablet hidden under it. This was hardly a convenient kind of package to transport, and such messages as had to be carried came to be written on lighter materials: tile, skin, leaves, papyrus.

Little is known about how these later documents were protected from prying eyes, but it is doubtful that anything like our present day envelopes were made of parchment or papyrus. Lengthy scrolls were sometimes rolled on thin wood, then wrapped in a covering of the same material on which the massage was inscribed.

Paper came into use in the 10th Century, and by the 15th Century posts were considered a necessary part of each well-run kingdom. From the very first the Crown, or central government, not only organized the posts but operated them as a monopoly of the state.

Henry VIII of England appointed Brian Tuke as his Master of the Posts in 1510, and from that time on such terms as royal posts and King's Highway are encountered in literature. The modern postal system was at least on its way!

In the 16th Century official letters, and letters sent by important people, were mailed, as Grand-Cartiret puts it, "under cover or envelope." The message was enclosed in a paper that was folded and sealed.

Each sender had to take care of his own "enveloping," and would cut the paper as he saw fit.

The few specimens that have come down through the years are obviously individually made, with no uniform cut or pattern.

No one will ever know who it was that first conceived the idea of cutting paper for envelopes from a standard pattern. No doubt it was a stationer who sold paper, and realized that there was a need to be filled. The stationer who first folded and fabricated envelopes by hand has no monument to mark his achievement, unless the hundreds of envelope-producing plants all over the world be considered as such.

On July 31, 1635, King Charles I issued a proclamation from his court at Bagshot establishing the first State postal service for the conveyance of private letters in England and Scotland, and appointing one Thomas Witherings, Esquire, to organize and manage the new system.

A strikingly modern idea was tried out in France in 1635. M.de Valayer obtained the permission of King Louis XIV to establish a postal system in Paris. He set up boxes at street corners, and announced by handbill that he was prepared to deliver any letters placed in them provided they were enclosed in the envelopes that he place on sale at certain stores.

These envelopes were in the nature of wrappers, but as they contained a printed receipt for postage paid, they were, at least in idea, amazingly like the government stamped envelopes that came along nearly 200 years later.

De Valayer's scheme failed, and it is generally thought that it was sabotaged by certain interests who feared its success. At any rate the whole idea was ridiculed, and any chance for success that it might have had was ruined by the dumping of refuse and live mice into the receiving boxes. Naturally, the public would not use a service so undependable, and de Valayer had to give up.