The Development from the Letterbox

The Development 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 a letter; senders could be necessitated to create their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and also to make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sounds familiar.
It is at 1852 the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, having a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were placed on Jersey to test out the new system.
The success of the experiment led to an additional four being installed on Guernsey, info now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was clearly to date no universal pillar box design that we're currently familiar. Design and manufacture was in the discretion of local authorities, and it was in 1859 that attempts were created to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits took over as the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as the norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition with the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, this area was to be available by 50 % sizes; a greater and wider size for highly populated areas, plus a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes didn't receive universal acclaim. It was from 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 were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we are click here acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just 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 with the green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints how the structures were to tough to locate due to their camouflage, it turned out agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for about decade.
For the people in particular, 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 a delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.