The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering a letter; senders will be necessitated to bring their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from the community. In order to distinguish himself, also to make his presence known, the Bellman would wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It what food was in 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success in the experiment led to yet another four being set up on Guernsey, one of these now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland by 1853.
However, there were as yet no universal pillar box design that were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also it was at 1859 that attempts were made to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits had become the favoured option over vertical ones, and took website over as norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be accessible by 50 percent sizes; a greater and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop of which criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not just a huge success therefore, an extra design came in 1879. This final design is the one that we're used to today. It was two years before this that this iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, 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 that this 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 approximately 10 years.
For the population at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.