Bill sticker's receipt, 1838

Billhead, including receipt, of G. Avriall.
Printer unknown, copper engraving, 90 x 170mm (Rickards Collection, University of Reading, Billhead 43)

Evolving in the eighteenth century from trade cards, billheads were the forerunner of commercial letterheads of the later nineteenth century. Billheads were pre-printed slips, featuring the details of a trader: often including an image, they invariably gave the name and address of the trader – in this case, G. Avriall, a bill sticker working in London. Billheads left room for individual messages – demands for payment, or, as seen here, receipts for payment.

People like Avriall were employed to paste in prominent locations advertising notices, called ‘bills’ – and hence were known as ‘bill stickers’. Avriall’s bill sticking business was evidently profitable enough to warrant the production of billheads. Presumably this billhead was hand delivered to Foster and Son, the employing company, as it lacks an address. The handwritten portion of the billhead records that Avriall received a payment of five shillings for ‘posting Bills for Sale at the Rooms on Saturday Feby 10th’. We do not know how many bills were posted for this price.

Avriall appears to have been literate in some measure, writing out the details of the payment received in pen. Literacy – reading and writing of both words and numbers – was clearly important at every level of business, from the large joint-stock company to the independent entrepreneur.

This billhead is revealing about notions of respectability in the 1830s. Many people regarded bill stickers as unrespectable, as they despoiled the urban environment. This image of the bill sticker (see detail below) attempts to create an aura of respectability. He is well-dressed and well-groomed and carries the tools of his trade. The image is reasonably accurate in its portrayal of dress and equipment: it tallies with an account of urban advertising, written in 1843, that described the ‘bill-sticker … with his tin paste-box and wallet of placards’. The long-handled brushes enabled him to reach high surfaces: any space was valuable to businesses selling products in an increasingly competitive world. The same 1843 account noted that any wall space was quickly covered with posters and bills; bill stickers such as Avriall played a significant role in flooding the day-to-day urban environment with visible words and images.