The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main ways of delivering correspondence; 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 in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the brand new system.
The success in 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 was clearly as yet no universal pillar box design that were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, and yes it was in 1859 that attempts were built to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical website ones, and had become the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be around by 50 % sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was against the backdrop of these criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not really a huge success therefore, an extra design came in 1879. This final design may be the one that we have been acquainted with today. It was 2 years just before this the iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in using the green British pastures. However, after having a barrage of complaints how the structures were to challenging to locate due to their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about ten years.
For the people in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail without difficulty. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to your delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.