This print by C.T. Dolby shows the envelope-folding machine, invented by Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue. The machine operated at the rate of 2,700 envelopes an hour. Previously, envelopes were folded by hand with a bone ‘folding stick’and a good output was 3,000 per day. Before Rowland Hill’s postal reforms of 1839, envelopes were little used in England, although they were common in France. This machine was produced in direct response to the increase in the number of letters sent.

The stationery exhibited by De la Rue included envelopes (various), embossed and lace letter papers, writing papers, cards for wedding and mourning, ‘at home’ cards, surface-coloured and enamelled papers, playing cards and message cards. A specimen book of printing was on show (including box-tops, tickets and book-covers) and the firm had a display of their bookbinding with tools cut from designs by Owen Jones. These bindings were used for albums, pocket books, blotting cases, etc. The firm exhibited in Class 17: ‘Paper, printing, and bookbinding’.

De la Rue’s stationery exhibits at the Great Exhibition were arranged in accordance with Michel Eugène Chevreul’s influential work, De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs, first published in 1839 but not translated into English until 1854.