The Development of the Letterbox

The Development of the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering a letter; senders can be necessitated to create their mail to your Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It 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 understand the new system.
The success with the experiment generated an additional four being placed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland by 1853.
However, there was clearly confirmed no universal pillar box design in which we are currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also it is at 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the original included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be accessible in two sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of such criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not a huge success therefore, another design arrived 1879. This final design will be the one with which we're familiar with today. It was two years just click here before this that the iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the preferred colour option was green in order to blend in while using green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that the structures were to difficult 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 decade.
For the populace most importantly, 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 a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.