The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders could be necessitated to get 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 also to make his presence known, the Bellman might 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 in the discretion of local authorities, also it was at 1859 that attempts were built to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became 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 here contents in the elements.
As of 1859, this area would have been to be around by 50 percent sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was from the backdrop of these criticism that the 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 and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before 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, following a barrage of complaints that this structures were to tough to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as ten years.
For the people 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 with a delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.