Revenue stamps of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has been a heavy user of revenue stamps. The first revenues were issued before postage stamps were introduced, starting in the mid-eighteenth century. The last British revenues were Television Licence stamps issued in 1997.

The first revenue stamps used in the United Kingdom were impressed duty stamps following the introduction of Stamp duty in the 1694 Stamp Act.

The Act was An act for granting to Their Majesties several duties on Vellum, Parchment and Paper for 10 years, towards carrying on the war against France (5 & 6 Will. & Mar. c. 21). The duty ranged from 1 penny to several shillings on a number of different legal documents including insurance policies and documents used as evidence in courts. It raised around £50,000 a year and although it was initially a temporary measure, it proved so successful that its use was continued.

Successive Acts have created new duties up to the present day and impressed duty stamps have been used until recently to collect the taxes with electronic methods now taking over.

The tax was enforced by making the documents unenforceable in court if they had not been properly stamped. The tax was either a fixed amount per document or ad valorem where the tax varied according to the value of the transaction being taxed.

Stamps were issued by the newly created Board of Commissioners of Stamps. Distributors of stamps were appointed throughout the country. Later, the poet William Wordsworth was the distributor in Westmorland. The stamps were embossed on to the document directly, at first without any inking (known as albino), and later using colour. In the case of parchment the stamp was first applied to paper which was attached to the document using glue and a tin metal strip.

General duty embossed adhesive stamps were issued in the mid-1850s, and some were also underprinted for a number of different taxes, like Bankruptcy and Customs. A few taxes used similar embossed stamps but these were inscribed directly and were not underprinted, like early Consular Service and Patent issues.

From the 1870s to the 1980s most British revenue stamps were keytypes portraying the reigning monarch. Keytypes were used for many purposes, such as Contract Note and Passports.

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