The event on the Letterbox

The event on the Letterbox

Blog Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were 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 understand the brand new system.
The success with 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 designed 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 main included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be accessible in two sizes; a larger 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 up 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 the iconic red colour in the website 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 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 the population in particular, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to your delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.