The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders could be necessitated to bring 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 to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was in 1852 how 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 test out the modern system.
The success from the experiment generated 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 up to now no universal pillar box design in which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was on the discretion of local authorities, also it was at 1859 that attempts were made 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 lamp ended up being to be for sale in 2 sizes; a more substantial and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar more info boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of such criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not just a huge success so, a further design started in 1879. This final design could be the one with which we're used to today. It was two years prior to this the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most well-liked colour option was green so that you can blend in with all the green British pastures. However, after having a barrage of complaints how the structures were to challenging to locate this can camouflage, it turned out agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about a decade.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to some delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.