The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been 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 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 this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on Jersey to try out the newest system.
The success in the experiment resulted in yet another four being set up on Guernsey, one of which now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is to date no universal pillar box design in which we are currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also 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 from your elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp ended up being be for sale in two sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes did not receive universal acclaim. It was against the backdrop of such criticism that read more 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 so, an extra design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we're familiar with today. It was 24 months prior to this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in using the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints that this structures were to difficult to locate because of their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as a decade.
For the population most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to some delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.