The event in the Letterbox

The event in the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main strategies to delivering instructions; senders would be necessitated to take their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post through the community. In order to distinguish himself, and also to make his presence known, the Bellman has on a uniform and ring a bell.
It was at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success of the experiment resulted in yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland since 1853.
However, there was up to now no universal pillar box design that we have been currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, and yes it 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 norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents through the elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be available in two sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, as well as a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of which criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to create another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not a huge success so, another design arrived 1879. This final design is the one in which we're familiar with today. It was two years ahead of this the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, the most preferred colour option was green in order 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 turned out agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as a decade.
For people most importantly, the introduction and click here 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 a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.