The Development of 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 some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post through the community. In order to distinguish himself, and to 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, with a trial proposed for that Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were set up on Jersey to test out the brand new system.
The success with the experiment led to one more four being attached to Guernsey, info now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland by 1853.
However, there was clearly confirmed no universal pillar box design in which we are currently familiar. Design and manufacture was at the discretion of local authorities, also it is at 1859 that attempts were designed 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 main included the addition in the protruding cap to shield the contents through the elements.
As of 1859, the lamp was to be available by 50 % sizes; a greater and wider size for highly populated areas, as well as a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes failed to receive universal acclaim. It was contrary to the backdrop of these criticism the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this became not just a huge success and thus, a further design were only available in 1879. This final click here design will be the one that we are acquainted with today. It was a couple of years just before this that this iconic red colour with the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time, the preferred colour option was green as a way to blend in using the green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints the structures were to challenging to locate because of their camouflage, it turned out agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for approximately a decade.
For people at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access with a delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.