The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main strategies to delivering correspondence; senders would 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 set up on Guernsey, one of which now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is 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 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 with the protruding cap to shield the contents from commercial letterboxes your elements.
As of 1859, the lamp ended up being be available by 50 % sizes; a greater 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 for these criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to create another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not only a huge success so, another design arrived 1879. This final design is the one in which we're familiar with today. It was 2 years ahead of this the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, 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 your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as 10 years.
For the people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail without difficulty. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.