The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders can be necessitated to bring 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 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on Jersey to try out the modern system.
The success in the experiment resulted in a different 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 was clearly as yet no universal pillar box design with which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was on the discretion of local authorities, also it was at 1859 that attempts were made to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as 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, this area was to be accessible by 50 % sizes; a greater 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 Australian made security letterboxes formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to generate another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not only a huge success and so, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design could be the one that we are familiar with today. It was 24 months before this that the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the most well-liked colour option was green as a way to blend in with the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints the structures were to difficult to locate this can camouflage, it was agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for about ten years.
For the population at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail without difficulty. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, everyone was afforded access to some delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.