The event from the Letterbox

The event from the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders could be necessitated to get 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 might wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It was at 1852 that the 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 a different four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is confirmed 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 to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, this area would have been to be around by 50 percent sizes; a more substantial 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 these criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office here (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not just a huge success and thus, an additional design came in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are accustomed to today. It was a couple of years just before this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most well-liked colour option was green in order to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that this structures were to tough to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for 10 years.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.