The event from the Letterbox

The event from the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main methods for delivering correspondence; 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 what food was in 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, using a trial proposed for the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to understand the new system.
The success from the experiment generated an additional four being placed on Guernsey, one ofthese 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 in which we are currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also it is at 1859 that attempts were built 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 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 generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not just a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are accustomed to today. It was two years just before this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most preferred colour option was green in order to blend in while using green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that the structures were to difficult to locate due to their camouflage, it absolutely was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as ten years.
For people at large, get more info 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 never before witnessed in Great Britain.