The event of the Letterbox

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The Development of the Letterbox
In the pre-post box era, there was two main means of delivering correspondence; senders would be necessitated to bring their mail with a 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 would wear a uniform and sounds familiar.
It was at 1852 how the suggestion of road-side boxes finally became a reality, which has a trial proposed to the Channel Islands. Three cast-iron pillar boxes were installed on Jersey to test out the new system.
The success from the experiment resulted in one more four being attached to Guernsey, one ofthese now forms part with the British Postal Museum & Archive collection. Letter boxes then began appearing about the mainland at the time of 1853.
However, there was clearly to date no universal pillar box design in which we have been currently familiar. Design and manufacture was on the discretion of local authorities, plus it was at 1859 that attempts were built 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 first included the addition from the protruding cap to shield the contents in the elements.
As of 1859, the box 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 make 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 may be the one in which we have been familiar with today. It was 2 years before this the iconic red colour of the post boxes became a standard feature.
Before on this occasion, the most preferred colour option was green in order to blend in while using green British pastures. However, following a barrage of complaints that the structures were to difficult 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 the population most importantly, the introduction and refinement of letter boxes enhanced the capacity for sending and receiving mail easily. With the exception of oversized parcel delivery, people were afforded website access with a delivery service never before witnessed in Great Britain.