The event of the Letterbox

The event of the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main strategies to delivering correspondence; senders will be necessitated to take their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was in 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, using a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success with the experiment led to yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part of the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is confirmed no universal pillar box design with which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, and it is at 1859 that attempts were built to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became the favoured option over vertical ones, and had become the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition in 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 more substantial and wider size for here highly populated areas, as well as a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of which criticism that this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to make another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this is not really a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are accustomed to today. It was two years ahead of this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most well-liked colour option was green in order to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints how the structures were to hard to locate because of the camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the most suitable choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for about 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 Great Britain.