The Irishman Henry Archer, who worked for the railways, is considered to be the inventor of perforation.
Perforations are the rows of punched holes separating stamps from one another in a sheet.
Archer sold his patents to the British Ministry of Finance. Archer completed thereafter his invention. Some prototypes were build. The greatest problem was how to get rid of the remains from the holes. These little pieces of paper caused the machine to a standstill over and over.