The Development of the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering correspondence; 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 from your community. In order to distinguish himself, and also 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, having 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 from the experiment led to yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland by 1853.
However, there were up to now no universal pillar box design in which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, also it what food was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and had become the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the box would have been to be available in 2 sizes; a greater and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to 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 produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not only a huge success and so, an additional design started in 1879. This final design is the one with which we have been acquainted with today. It was 2 years ahead of this how the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in with the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints the structures were to difficult to locate this can camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for a decade.
For people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to some delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great check here Britain.