PLAQUE TO HONOUR SIR ROWLAND HILL.
Extract from the Kidderminster Shuttle 29th November 2016
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ONE of Kidderminster’s most famous sons who revolutionised the postal service has been honoured in the town.
A blue plaque was unveiled in Blackwell Street at the site of where Sir Rowland Hill was born. He was born in an upstairs, east facing room in what was his grandfather’s house on December 3rd 1795.
The plaque was erected by the Heritage Opportunities Group, chaired by Colin Hill, as a lasting legacy of the Rowland Hill Penny Post 175 project, which has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The plaque was jointly unveiled by Mayor, Councillor Mary Rayner, and Chairman of Wyre Forest District Council, Councillor Rose Bishop.
Other dignitaries who attended the ceremony included members of the town and district councils; Beverley Wootton representing the building owners, Kidderminster Civic Society, the Museum of Carpet, Friends of Broadwaters and historians Melvyn Thompson, Don Gilbert, Nigel Gilbert and Gay Hill.
The group also plan to erect an interpretation board about Sir Rowland near the famous statue outside the Town Hall.
The Hills were a long established, solid, nonconformist Kidderminster family – legend has it that Sir Rowland’s grandfather John Hill was the first person to grow potatoes in the town.
Sir Rowland himself was first a teacher and headmaster before becoming a nationally respected reformer.
His revolutionary idea of a standardised, national, postal service affordable by all , whereby a letter could be sent anywhere in Britain with a 1d 'postage stamp' attached, was introduced in 1840. The famous ‘Penny Black’ stamp, although only in use for some seven months, is one of the most famous objects in our history.
In the year of his death in 1879, 1,293 million letters were sent compared with just 72 million in 1839. Hill had changed the world and prevented poverty from keeping people apart.
Hill was knighted in 1860, and on his death was given the honour of being buried next to famous engineer, Sir James Watt.
David Laverty, of the Heritage Opportunities Group, said: 'One of our core aims is to encourage pride in the history and heritage of our town, and awareness of the great people who have come before us. Rowland Hill is undoubtedly one of our finest.
