# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chalmers, James

​CHALMERS, JAMES (1782–1853), post-office reformer, was born in Arbroath on 2 Feb. 1782, and at an early age became a bookseller in Castle Street, Dundee, and was for some time the printer and publisher of the ‘Dundee Chronicle.’ He took a prominent part in public matters, first as dean and afterwards as convener of the nine incorporated trades. At a subsequent period he was returned to the town council, and held the office of treasurer for several years. In local charities and in every philanthropic movement he was ever ready to lend a helping hand. In 1825 he applied himself to the acceleration of the mails, and mainly through his efforts the time for a letter to travel between London and Dundee was lessened by a day each way.
Having turned his mind to the subject of post-office reform, Chalmers suggested a uniform rate of postage, and drew out a sample of an adhesive stamp, had it set up in type, and a few copies printed and gummed; these he exhibited to several merchants in Dundee in August 1834.
He laid this plan before Mr. Robert Wallace, M.P. for Greenock and chairman of the fifth committee on post-office reform, in December 1837, and he also corresponded on the subject with Joseph Hume, M.P., Patrick Chalmers, M.P., and with Rowland Hill himself, in 1839 and 1840. His letters to the latter gentleman show that Chalmers laid claim to the invention of the adhesive label, but he finally admitted that his claim to priority of publication was not tenable. On 1 Jan. 1846, at a public meeting of the citizens of Dundee, he was presented with a silver claret jug, a salver, and a purse of fifty sovereigns for his successful efforts in reducing the time required for the transit of the mails and for his plans of a uniform postage rate and an adhesive stamp. He was an excellent man of business, and in all his commercial transactions was well known for his integrity and upright character. He died at Comley Bank, Dundee, on 26 Aug. 1853, aged 71, and was buried in the old burying-ground on 1 Sept. He married Miss Dickson of Montrose. After the death of Sir Rowland Hill, in 1879, Mr. Patrick Chalmers, son of James Chalmers, inserted advertisements and letters in newspapers and published several pamphlets in which he stated that his father anticipated Rowland Hill in suggesting the use of adhesive stamps, but had been fraudulently deprived of the credit of the invention. Mr. Pearson Hill replied, and satisfactorily showed that his father (Sir Rowland Hill) had contemplated the possible use of the adhesive stamp before Chalmers' plan was made known. Chalmers was the first inventor, but it does not appear how the plan was suggested to Rowland Hill. Mr. Patrick Chalmers has published several pamphlets endeavouring to prove the importance of his father's suggestions, especially ‘The Adhesive Stamp: important additional evidence in behalf of James Chalmers, in papers bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum Library by Sir Henry Cole,’ 1885.
[James Chalmers, the Inventor of the Adhesive Stamp, by Patrick Chalmers, 1884; The Citizen, 16 April 1881; Athenæum, 30 April 1881, p. 578, May 14, p. 654, May 21, p. 690; Philatelic Record, iii. 194–201, iv. 27, 68, 167, 169–72, 184–6.]