The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main strategies to delivering a letter; senders would be necessitated to take their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman has on a uniform and ring a bell.
It is at 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the brand new system.
The success of the experiment triggered an additional four being attached to Guernsey, one of these now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing around the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was to date no universal pillar box design in which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was on the discretion of local authorities, and yes it is at 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits had become the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as norm in letterbox website design. Further improvements upon the main included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, this area was 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 failed to receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop of which criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not only a huge success and thus, another design arrived 1879. This final design may be the one with which we are accustomed to today. It was 2 years before this that this iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, the most preferred colour option was green in order 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 was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for decade.
For people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to your delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.