How the Victorians Sent Secret Messages Using Stamps

The language of stamps was devised by the Victorians along with the use of colored paper and flowers as a way of sending secret messages by mail without the use of words.

The language of stamps and the secret messages they conveyed

According to The Postal Museum, which opened in 2017 in Central London (formerly The British Postal Museum & Archive), Victorians would angle stamps in certain ways on a postcard to convey secret messages. The location of the stamp on the postcard itself and its angle determined the meaning of the code. The keys to cracking these postal puzzles were many, and using a standardized code to crack them was crucial to the understanding of their meaning.

Victorian mourning stationery messages

Mourning became the basis for a series of material goods in Victorian times, with grief and upset being displayed publicly through various means and objects. Victorian women in particular bought post-mortem photographs, mourning handkerchiefs, and mourning rings containing messages. There was in fact a bereavement market.

Even mourning stationery became a common commodity. It comprised black-bordered paper and envelopes, which were used by people who had lost a family member. The black border was immediately recognizable to recipients.

Mourning stationery was used not only in Great Britain but also in the US, where, in 1897, country music singer Hattie Nevada wrote “The Letter Edged in Black,” a song which has since been covered over 20 times, as per The Postal Museum. This song tells the tale of a jovial day ruined by the arrival of the postman, who brings a black-edged envelope.

The messages of flowers in Victorian times

Postcards provided the space for yet more secret messaging, but this time it was through the “language of flowers,” or floriography. Flowers were imbued with meaning in Victorian times, and one of the ways these meanings were portrayed and distributed was through postcards.

Flowers were also printed on writing paper. The Postal Museum possesses an example of this in the form of a series of letters written by a man named Robert Abbott to his lover, Mary, in the mid-19th century.

As The Postal Museum states:

“His letters discuss his daily activities and at first appear quite unromantic. However, the floral writing paper, adorned with hand-painted rosebuds and forget-me-nots, reveals a coded romantic message, read and understood widely in Victorian society. The format of the letter allowed for further romantic sentiment. Robert’s letters are addressed to ‘to my beloved Mary,’ and signed ‘yours in unalterable love.’”

The language and secret messages of fans among Victorians

A far more complex form of secret messaging in Victorian times was the language of the fan. Women would wave their fans in specific ways to communicate messages ranging from requests to be kissed to ones the likes of “I wish to get rid of you.”

However, according to The Postal Museum, there is ample evidence that the language was not frequently used and was actually a bid to increase fan sales.