The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main means of delivering a letter; senders could be necessitated to get 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, also to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It is at 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success in the experiment led to an additional four being placed on Guernsey, info now forms part with 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 in the discretion of local authorities, plus it what food was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal mail boxes for flats 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 from the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be for sale in 2 sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, as well as a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop for these criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not a huge success so, an extra design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one with which we have been accustomed to today. It was 2 years before this the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the most preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in using the green British pastures. However, after having a barrage of complaints that this structures were to hard to locate because of the camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about 10 years.
For people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access with a delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.