The Development of your Letterbox

The Development of your Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering a letter; senders can be necessitated to create their mail to your Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It was in 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success with the experiment generated one more four being attached to Guernsey, info now forms part in 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 took over as 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, the box ended up being to be accessible in 2 sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes did not receive universal acclaim. It was against the backdrop of which criticism that this Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to make another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not a huge success so, another design started in 1879. This final design may be the one in which we have been familiar with today. It was 2 years before this the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most preferred colour option was green in order to blend in while using green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that this structures were to tough to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for 10 years.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for commercial letterboxes sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to some delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.