The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main means of delivering a letter; senders would be necessitated to take 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 to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to try out the new system.
The success of the experiment led to yet another four being installed on Guernsey, info now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland since 1853.
However, there was clearly confirmed no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, and it what food was in 1859 that attempts were built to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as favoured option over vertical ones, and became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp was to be for sale in 2 sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes did not receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of these criticism that this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, here this is not only a huge success and thus, an extra design arrived 1879. This final design will be the one with which we're accustomed to today. It was two years prior to this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in using the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints how the structures were to hard to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about 10 years.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail without difficulty. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to your delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.