The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering a letter; senders will be necessitated to get their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from your community. In order to distinguish himself, and to make his presence known, the Bellman would wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It is at 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the modern system.
The success from the experiment led to a different four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was clearly to date no universal pillar box design that we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, and it what food was in 1859 that attempts were built to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as favoured option over vertical ones, and became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being be available by 50 percent sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, as well as a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was from the backdrop of which criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not just a huge success and thus, an additional design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we are accustomed to today. It was check here a couple of years before this that this iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in while using green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints the structures were to hard to locate because of the camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the most suitable choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for 10 years.
For the population most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access with a delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.