The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main means of delivering correspondence; senders will be necessitated to take 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, also to make his presence known, the Bellman has on a uniform and sound familiar.
It was at 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, using a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to try out the brand new system.
The success from the experiment resulted in an additional four being installed on Guernsey, one of which now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland since 1853.
However, there were to date no universal pillar box design that we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, also it was in 1859 that attempts were made to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. read more Further improvements upon the main included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, this area ended up being to be available in two sizes; a greater and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was from the backdrop of such criticism that this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this is not really a huge success and so, an extra design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in with the green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints the structures were to hard to locate this can camouflage, it absolutely was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for approximately decade.
For the people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to your delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.