The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering instructions; senders can be necessitated to bring their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post through the community. In order to distinguish himself, and to make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to understand the brand new system.
The success in the experiment resulted in yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part of the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland by 1853.
However, there were as yet no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, plus it was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and had become the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp ended up being be accessible by 50 percent 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 up against the backdrop of these criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not really a huge success therefore, an extra design came in 1879. This final design may be the one that were acquainted with today. It was 24 months ahead of this that this iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, the most preferred colour option was green so more info that you can blend in while using green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints that the structures were to hard to locate because of their camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about ten years.
For the population most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to some delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.