The event of your Letterbox

Wiki Article

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there were two main methods for delivering correspondence; senders could be necessitated to get their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post through the community. In order to distinguish himself, and also to make his presence known, the Bellman might wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It was at 1852 that the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success of the experiment resulted in yet another four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is to date no universal pillar box design in which were 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 became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the initial included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp ended up being be for sale by 50 % 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 such criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not a huge success and so, an extra design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one in which we have been used to today. It was 24 months just before this that the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that the structures were get more info to challenging to locate this can camouflage, it absolutely was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for approximately decade.
For the people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to your delivery service nothing you've seen prior witnessed in Great Britain.