The event in the Letterbox

The event in the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main strategies to 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 through the community. In order to distinguish himself, and also to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It was at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, with a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success from the experiment triggered yet another four being set up on Guernsey, one of which now forms part of the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland by 1853.
However, there is up to now no universal pillar box design with which we are currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, and it what food was in 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, the box 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 create another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not a huge success therefore, an extra design arrived 1879. This final design will be the one in which we are familiar with today. It was a couple of years before this that the iconic red colour from the check here post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, preferred colour option was green in order to blend in with the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints that the structures were to hard to locate due to their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for approximately 10 years.
For people in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to some delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.