Last updated at 14:53, Thursday, 16 August 2012

ALL over South Cumbria there are little pieces of history which we tend to take for granted – our red post boxes.

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Some are ultra modern but many have been quietly doing their daily work for 60 years or more.

Most towns in the county still have an odd Victorian wall box with the VR cipher below the slot for letters.

There are plenty more still around from the reigns of the two Edwards and two Georges who reigned in the last century.

Cumbrian can claim one special piece of postal history as it had the first letter box in mainland England.

It was set up in 1853 at Botchergate and the site is now marked by a plaque.

The story of our letter boxes and the men and women who empty them and deliver our post is being told in an exhibition.

It can be seen at the British Postal Museum and Archive at the Blists Hill Victorian Town, Ironbridge, in Shropshire.

It has a rare example of a Victorian five-wheeler cycle with twin wicker baskets for mail – there is a similar example at the Lakeland Motor Museum, based at
Backbarrow.

A spokesman said: “The changing nature and role of the Post Office within the community is looked at within the museum, including modern changes such as increased competition for Royal Mail and the ending of its monopoly after over 350 years.”

Our modern postal service dates back to the reign of King Charles I who in 1635 opened up his private Royal Mail service for public use.

The museum has an example of the hexagonal Penfold pillar box which was the work of architect JW Penfold and was first used in 1866.

Its basic design did not change for 13 years.

Pillar boxes were needed from the 1850s due to a massive increase in the sending of letters following the introduction of the penny post in 1840.

Today there are more than 1000,000 letter boxes in use in the United Kingdom.

Wall boxes were introduced in 1857 and satisfied a need for smaller, cheaper letter boxes for rural and suburban areas.

They were a quarter of the cost of the cheapest pillar box.

Manufacture of wall boxes stopped in 1980 – so most letter boxes in use today are at least 32 years old.

The museum also has a range of the uniform items which Furness postal workers would have worn on their rounds.

This includes a messenger’s shako hat of around 1920.

At this time telegram and express messengers would have been a common sight in places like Barrow and Ulverston.

During the First World War many women were employed to fill what had been traditionally male roles.

The same happened in the Second World War when slouch hats were introduced from 1940 for women driving mail vans.

Its design was changed in 1941 following complaints that it was easily knocked off by the over hanging roof of the vans.

First published at 14:23, Thursday, 16 August 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk