The Development of the Letterbox

The Development of the Letterbox

Blog Article

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 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 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, using a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to understand the new system.
The success from 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 built 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 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 2 sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes did not receive universal acclaim. It was against the backdrop of such 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 is not really a huge success and so, an extra design started in 1879. This final design may be the one with which were used to today. It was 24 months prior to this how the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, preferred colour option was green so that you can blend in with the green British pastures. However, after having 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 in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access website to your delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.