The event of the Letterbox

The event of the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main ways of delivering correspondence; senders could be necessitated to get their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from the community. In order to distinguish himself, also to make his presence known, the Bellman would 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 the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were attached to Jersey to understand the brand new system.
The success with 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 was as yet no universal pillar box design that we have been currently familiar. Design and manufacture was on the discretion of local authorities, and yes it was in 1859 that attempts were made to standardise the structures.
Horizontal slits had become the favoured option over vertical ones, and took over as norm in letterbox design. Further improvements upon the first included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents through the elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be available in two sizes; a larger 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 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 just a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final design will be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that the iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most well-liked colour option was green as a way to blend in with all the green British pastures. However, after a barrage of complaints that this structures were to more info tough to locate this can camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best option. The programme of re-painting lasted for as much as 10 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 with a delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.