The Development of your Letterbox

The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main means of delivering correspondence; senders would be necessitated to bring their mail to some Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from your community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman would wear a uniform and ring a bell.
It is at 1852 how 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 installed on Jersey to try out the newest system.
The success with the experiment generated a different four being installed on Guernsey, one of these now forms part from the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there were confirmed no universal pillar box design with 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 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 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 the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to produce another standard letter box in 1866. Again, this was not a huge success and so, a further design came in 1879. This final design is the one in which were acquainted with today. It was two years before this how the iconic red colour with the post boxes check here became a standard feature.
Before now, the most preferred colour option was green to be able to blend in using the green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that the structures were to hard to locate this can camouflage, it turned out agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for ten years.
For the populace at large, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability 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.

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