The Development of the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there have been two main methods for delivering a letter; senders will be necessitated to bring their mail to your Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post in the community. In order to distinguish himself, and make his presence known, the Bellman dons a uniform and sounds familiar.
It what food 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 placed on Jersey to understand the new system.
The success from the experiment triggered a different four being placed on Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing on the mainland as of 1853.
However, there is to date no universal pillar box design in which were currently familiar. Design and manufacture was with the discretion of local authorities, and 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 main included the addition of the protruding cap to shield the contents from the elements.
As of 1859, the box ended up being to be accessible in two sizes; a larger and wider size for highly populated areas, and a smaller version for elsewhere. However, the standardised pillar boxes would not receive universal acclaim. It was up against the backdrop for these criticism how the Liverpool Special was formulated.
This prompted the Post Office (opened in 1861) to create another standard letter box here in 1866. Again, this was not only a huge success therefore, an additional design came in 1879. This final design could be the one that we're accustomed to 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, the preferred colour option was green so that you can 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 ten years.
For 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 to some delivery service no time before witnessed in Great Britain.