The Development of your Letterbox
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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main methods for delivering a letter; senders will be necessitated to create their mail to your 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 might wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was in 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, with a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to understand the newest system.
The success of the experiment triggered an additional four being attached to Guernsey, one of which now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was to date no universal pillar box design with which we have been currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, plus it was in 1859 that attempts were designed to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and had become the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the box would have been to be for sale in 2 sizes; a more substantial and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was click here up against the backdrop of such criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not really a huge success so, a further design arrived 1879. This final design will be the one in which we are familiar with today. It was two years prior to this the iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the preferred colour option was green to be able 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 their camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as decade.
For the population at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access with a delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.