Check out the Linton-Archiv to detect an ancestor of Tempora, PRISM & Co: England´s 19th century postal surveillance program, which was visualized by John Leech and  W.J. Linton in a parody of the famous Mulready envelope. The original prepaid Mulready envelope was the world’s first postal stationery, issued in 1840, as the first postage stamp. It had been decorated by the painter William Mulready with a representation of Britannia at the centre top, sending out her winged emissaries to all corners of the British Empire. Punch cartoonist John Leech and radical wood engraver William James Linton turned this document of Imperial pride into the vision of a total surveillance state with Britannia as “Big Brother”, who sends out her winged flock of clerks to violate people’s privacy.

John Leech & W.J. Linton: The Anti-Graham Envelope, 1844 (MePri-Coll.)

Old School-Spies

New School- Spy