The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering a letter; senders can be necessitated to create their mail to your Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It was in 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the new system.
The success from the experiment generated an additional four being placed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland by 1853.
However, there is to date no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, and it was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits had become the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp ended up being be for sale by 50 % sizes; a more substantial and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed get more info to receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop of these 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 came in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that the iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in using the 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 about decade.
For the population in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to your delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.