The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main ways of delivering instructions; senders would be necessitated to take their mail to 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 make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, with a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to test out the newest system.
The success of the experiment resulted in a different four being installed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing around the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was up to now no universal pillar box design that were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, plus it what food was in 1859 that attempts were made to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the original included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be around by 50 % sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop of which criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to create another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this is not just a huge success so, a further design came in 1879. This final design may be the one that we have been acquainted with today. It was 2 years prior to this that the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in while using green British pastures. However, from a barrage read more of complaints that this structures were to hard to locate due to their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about ten years.
For the populace in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to some delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.