The event on the Letterbox

The event on the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main strategies to delivering instructions; senders would be necessitated to take 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, and to make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sound familiar.
It is at 1852 how 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 test out the brand new system.
The success with the experiment generated an additional four being placed on 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 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 larger 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 how the 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 arrived 1879. This final design is the one in which we're accustomed to today. It was two years ahead of this that the iconic red colour in the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before now, the most well-liked colour option was green as a way to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints how 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 in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail effortlessly. With the more info exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to your delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.