The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main strategies to delivering a letter; senders will be necessitated to bring their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from the community. In order to distinguish himself, also to make his presence known, the Bellman would wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was in 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the brand new system.
The success with the experiment generated one more four being attached to Guernsey, info now forms part of 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 with 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 contents from the elements.
As of 1859, this area 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 this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this is not really a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that this iconic red colour with 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, from a barrage of complaints website the structures were to hard to locate because of the 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 effortlessly. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, individuals were afforded access to a delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.