The event from the Letterbox
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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders would be necessitated to take 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, also to make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sounds familiar.
It what food was in 1852 that this suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, using a trial proposed for your Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to understand the newest system.
The success from the experiment generated a different four being set up on Guernsey, one of these now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland by 1853.
However, there was clearly up to now no universal pillar box design in which we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, also it was in 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the initial included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents from your elements.
As of 1859, the therapy lamp ended up being to be for sale by 50 % sizes; a more substantial 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 up against the backdrop for these criticism that the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, it was not only a huge success and thus, another design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one that we're familiar with today. It was 2 years ahead of this the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in with the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints how the structures were to tough to locate this can camouflage, it absolutely was agreed that bright red was your best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as 10 years.
For the populace most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access with more info a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.