The Development of your Letterbox

The Development of your Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main means of delivering instructions; senders can be necessitated to take their mail to a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from your community. In order to distinguish himself, and to make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It was 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 installed on Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success of the experiment resulted in yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland since 1853.
However, there is up to now no universal pillar box design that we have been currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, and yes it was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be around in 2 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 such 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 is not just a huge success and thus, a further Australian made security letterboxes 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 preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in while using green British pastures. However, after having a barrage of complaints that the structures were to challenging to locate because of their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the most suitable choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for about decade.
For the populace most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.