The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main strategies to delivering instructions; senders can 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 to 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 that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success in the experiment led to one more four being attached to Guernsey, info now forms part of the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing around the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there were as yet no universal pillar box design with which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, plus it was at 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became the favoured option over vertical ones, and became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the initial included the addition from the protruding cap website to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, this area would have been to be around by 50 percent sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was from the backdrop of such criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this is not just a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one with which were acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that this iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the preferred colour option was green so that you can 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 populace in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to a delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.