Post box

A Victorian era Type B pillar postbox in Hull

In 1653, the first post boxes are believed to have been installed in and around Paris.[1] By 1829, post boxes were in use throughout France.[2] The first public post boxes in Poland were installed in Warsaw in 1842.[3]

A post box originally installed in the wall of the Wakefield Post Office is dated 1809 and is believed to be the oldest example in Britain.[4] It is now on display at the new Wakefield Museum.[5]

In Britain, the first red pillar postboxes were erected in Guernsey in 1852.[6] Roadside wall boxes first appeared in 1857 as a cheaper alternative to pillar boxes, especially in rural districts. In 1853 the first pillar box in the United Kingdom was installed at Botchergate, Carlisle. In 1856, Richard Redgrave of the Department of Science and Art designed an ornate pillar box for use in London and other large cities. In 1859 the design was improved, and this became the first National Standard pillar box. Green was adopted as the standard colour for the early Victorian post boxes. Between 1866 and 1879 the hexagonal Penfold post box became the standard design for pillar boxes and it was during this period that red was first adopted as the standard colour. The first boxes to be painted red were in London in July 1874, although it would be nearly 10 years before all the boxes had been repainted.[7] In 2012, to celebrate Olympic gold medals for Team GB, selected boxes were painted gold.[8]

The first public letter boxes (post boxes) in Russia appeared in 1848 in St. Petersburg. They were made of wood and iron. Because these boxes were lightweight and easy to steal, they disappeared frequently; later boxes were made of cast iron and could weigh up to 45 kilograms (99 lb).

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  First Paris Street letter box from c. 1850
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  A British Lamp Box post box of the circa-1954 pattern in Eaves, Lancashire.
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  French wall box of the 1977 pattern now on display at the Colne Valley Postal History Museum, Essex
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  A Dutch "Post-NL" postbox in orange at different heights
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  Modern postbox in Estonia
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  Modern postbox in Poland
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  Post box in Lanzarote, (Canary Islands), Spain
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  Post box in Belgium
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  "Priority Postbox", designated for returning COVID-19 home testing kits,[9] Birmingham, England, November 2020
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  A note attached to an old private posting box in St John University (York)

The post box arrived in the late 19th century Hong Kong and were made of wood. In the 1890s, metal pillar box appeared in Hong Kong and remained in use until the late 1990s. From the 1890s to 1997 the boxes were painted red and after 1997 were painted green.[10]

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  A public (though unconventional) post box in Japan shaped as tea caddy
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  Japanese post box in Matsuda
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  Singapore AA style sheet metal mail box in Hong Kong
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  Hong Kong Post box bearing insignia of King George V
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  PB27/1 type post box in Hong Kong with "EIIR" cypher
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  Post boxes in Taipei, Taiwan
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  A post box in India

The United States Post Office Department began installing public mail collection boxes in the 1850s outside post offices and on street corners in large Eastern cities.[11] American collection boxes were initially designed to be hung or supported, and were mounted on support pillars, lamp-posts, telegraph poles, or even the sides of buildings.[11] By the 1880s, these pillar boxes were made of heavy cast iron to deter theft or vandalism.[11] As mail volume grew, the Post Office Department gradually replaced pillar mailboxes with larger free-standing models, though many of the pillar boxes continued in service as late as the 1960s.[11]

The four-footed, free-standing U.S. Mail collection box was first suggested in 1894, following the successful use of such designs in Canada, and quickly became a fixture on American city street corners.[11][12]

Unlike Canadian mailboxes, which were painted red,[13] American mail collection boxes were originally painted in red or green. Beginning in 1909, all mail collection boxes were painted a dark green to avoid confusion with emergency and fire equipment.[11] Dark green gave way to olive drab green after World War I, when the United States Army donated a large supply of olive drab green paint to the Post Office. Olive drab green subsequently became the standard colour for all American mail collection boxes until 1955. On 4 July 1955, Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield announced that the Post Office would begin painting all mail collection boxes in red, white, and blue to make them easily identifiable. Subsequently, the Post Office began painting mail collection boxes in red and blue, with white lettering.[14][15] In 1971 the United States Postal Service changed mail collection boxes to the current USPS Dark Blue with contrasting lettering.[12][15][16] The coming of the automobile also influenced American mailbox design, and in the late 1930s, an extension chute or "snorkel" to drive-up curbside collection boxes was adopted.[11]

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  USPS "Snorkel" collection boxes for drive-through access in Los Altos, California
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  A USPS collection box without a "snorkel"
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  A USPS storage box in Venice, Los Angeles, California, in 2018 with the olive green USPS colouring scheme used between World War I and 1955
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  Post box in Markham, Ontario, Canada, decorated with postal codes

[17] In 1500, a Portuguese sea captain named Pêro de Ataíde lost much of his fleet in a storm off the Southern Cape. He wrote a message reporting the damage and a warning relating the state of affairs in India, for future Portuguese captains to avoid Calicut, which was now hostile. Ataíde tucked the message in a boot dangling from a milkwood tree near a spring where sailors often drew water, Aguada de São Brás (Mossel Bay).

Miraculously, the message was retrieved by its intended recipient, João da Nova, admiral of the outgoing 3rd armada, the very next year. The tree became a de facto post office box, where sailors would exchange letters protected in boots, iron pots, or beneath rocks. Seamen would leave their messages behind, trusting that their countrymen would pick them up and deliver them to their correct destination, albeit very slowly.

The Post Office Tree, now believed to be approximately 600 years old, still continues to send and receive mail. A large post office box shaped like a giant boot has been constructed beneath the tree, where people can send letters anywhere in the world and receive a special stamp. Presumably, delivery now takes less than a year.

In 1952, a number of post boxes were attacked in Scotland in a dispute over the regnal number adopted by Queen Elizabeth II, which was displayed as the EIIR cypher. This included at least one damaged in Gilmerton Road, The Inch, Edinburgh by a homemade explosive device. This was because many Scottish people did not believe Queen Elizabeth II should take that title. Rather Elizabeth Queen of Scots as Scotland had never had a Queen Elizabeth before.[27][28]

Following a civil case in the Scottish courts, a compromise was reached where the Crown of Scotland was placed upon Scottish pillar boxes in place of the St Edward's Crown, without any reference to the particular reigning monarch. To this day Scottish post boxes and Royal Mail vans use the Scottish Crown with no mention of Queen Elizabeth II.[27][28]

During 1939 a number of bombs were put in post boxes by the IRA as part of their S-Plan campaign. When the Provisional IRA blew up the Arndale shopping centre in the 1996 Manchester bombing, one of the few things to survive unscathed was a Victorian pillar box dating from 1887 (a type A Jubilee pillar).

In Northern Ireland several red Royal Mail post boxes were painted green by Irish Republicans in early 2009, in order to resemble An Post's post boxes in the Republic of Ireland.[29][30][31]

Nearly 7,000 USPS collection boxes were removed following the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks in which letters containing anthrax spores were placed in public collection boxes. Since that time, a decrease in first-class mail volume and the onset of online bill payment processing has resulted in lower demand for collection box service in the United States.[11]

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  Royal Mail lamp box type LB3426 showing the Crown of Scotland on a steel plate
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  The surviving pillar box from the 1996 Manchester bombing
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  Irish Republicans painting a Royal Mail postbox in Derry for the Green Post-Box Campaign in 2008

Colors of post boxes for standard mailings.

Red

Argentina, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Denmark (Post Danmark), Gibraltar, Greece (express post), Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, India, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy (domestic post), South Korea, Japan, Jersey, Macau, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands – surviving heritage and PTT boxes, New Zealand, Norway (national and international mail), Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain (express mail), South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan (airmail and prompt delivery), Thailand, Uganda (Posta Uganda), United Kingdom[32]

Yellow

Algeria, Australia (Express Post), Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus (red before 1960), D.R.Congo (scpt), Finland (2nd class), France, Germany (Deutsche Post), Greece (regular & international mail), Iran, Lithuania, Malaysia (Express Post), Montenegro, Morocco, Norway (local mail), Russia (1st Class), Rwanda (iposita), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain (regular mail), Sweden (national and international mail), Switzerland (& Liechtenstein), Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City, Vietnam

Blue

Belarus, Finland (1st class), Faroe Islands, Germany (many private postal companies), Guernsey, Alderney, Dominican Republic, Sark, Italy (Air Mail only), United Kingdom (Air Mail – 1933–1940), Portugal (1st Class (Blue Mail) only), Sweden (local mail), Russia, United States

Green

China, Hong Kong (red before 1997), Taiwan (regular mail), Sudan (SudaPost), Republic of Ireland (red before 1922), Some heritage boxes in the United Kingdom, notably Stoke on Trent, Rochester & Scunthorpe

Orange

Czech Republic, Estonia, Indonesia, Netherlands (TNT N.V./PostNL (red before 2006))

White

San Marino, Singapore

Gray

Philippines

Gold

United Kingdom (only for 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics gold medal winners)[33][34][35]

Black

United Kingdom (only for 2020 Black History Month)[36][37]

Farrugia, Jean (1969). The letter box: a history of Post Office pillar and wall boxes. Fontwell: Centaur Press. p. 282. ISBN 0-900000-14-7.