The Development of your Letterbox
The Development of your Letterbox
Blog Article
The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main strategies to delivering instructions; senders can 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 has on 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 set up on Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success in the experiment led to one more four being attached to Guernsey, info now forms part of the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing around the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there were as yet no universal pillar box design with which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, plus it was at 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits became the favoured option over vertical ones, and became the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the original included the here addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be around in 2 sizes; a bigger and wider size for highly populated areas, along with a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was against the backdrop of such 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 is not really a huge success and so, an extra design started in 1879. This final design may be the one with which were used to today. It was 2 years before this the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the most preferred colour option was green to be able 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 the people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail without difficulty. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.