The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main ways of delivering instructions; senders will be necessitated to get their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from your community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sounds familiar.
It what food was in 1852 that the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, with a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the modern system.
The success of the experiment triggered a different 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 as of 1853.
However, there is up to now no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also it was at 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became the favoured option over vertical ones, and had become the 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, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop for these criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not only a huge success therefore, an additional design came in 1879. This final design is the one in which we have been familiar with today. It was 2 years before this how the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, preferred colour option was green so that you can blend in using the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints that this structures were to difficult to locate because of their camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the most suitable choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for ten multi unit letter boxes for flats years.
For the population most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability 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.