The event with the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there are two main methods for delivering instructions; senders will be necessitated to take their mail with a Receiving House, or would await the Bellman. The latter would patrol the streets, collecting post from your community. In order to distinguish himself, also to make his presence known, the Bellman has on a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was at 1852 how 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 try out the brand new system.
The success from the experiment led to an additional four being installed on Guernsey, one of which now forms part in the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing for the mainland since 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 made 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 started in 1879. This final design will be the one with which we are acquainted with today. It was a couple click here of years just before this how the iconic red colour from the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before this time around, the most preferred colour option was green so that you can blend in with all the green British pastures. However, from a barrage of complaints that this structures were to hard to locate due to their camouflage, it had been agreed that bright red was the best choice. The programme of re-painting lasted for a decade.
For the people most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the ability for sending and receiving mail with ease. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded access to a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.