The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main means of delivering instructions; senders will be necessitated to create their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from the community. In order to distinguish himself, and to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It is at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, using a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to try out the new system.
The success with the experiment resulted in a different four being placed on Guernsey, info now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland by 1853.
However, there were up to now no universal pillar box design that were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, plus it what food was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the initial included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents through the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be around by 50 percent 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 against the backdrop of which criticism that this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not just a huge success therefore, an additional design arrived 1879. This final design is the one in which we have been familiar with today. It was 24 months before this how the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, 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 challenging to locate because of their camouflage, it turned out agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for approximately a decade.
For the population 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 nothing you've seen prior witnessed in website Great Britain.