History Shorts: snippets of local history

Though he reigned for less than a year* before abdicating , Edward VIII, or more accurately, his royal cypher, appeared on more than 200 post boxes around the UK (The Letter Box Study Group reports 271). That might sound a lot, but these post boxes are relatively rare. Fewer than 170 remain today, accounting for less than 0.2 per cent of all the ~115,000 postboxes in the country. (Not surprisingly, Queen Elizabeth II post boxes are by far the most numerous and I'm guessing Charles III are by far the rarest...) Though I do enjoy spotting Victorian post boxes (see my blog post here ) simply because they are the oldest, I have to admit I was thrilled when I encountered this 1936 Edward VIII pillar box on the Great North Road near East Finchley. But, gosh, it is in a bit of a sorry state!  Edward VIII's crumbling facade There are a few EVIII boxes around outer London, hinting perhaps at the development of a commuter belt. *  Edward's reign is counted as 326 days from the death ...

Familiar, but not mundane They are among our most familiar items of street furniture; indeed there are more than 115,000 throughout the UK. Yet how many of us walk past a post box without considering how long it might have been there? Letter boxes have been a feature of our streets since the 1850s, when demand for postal services grew following the introduction of the Penny Post in 1840. The novelist Anthony Trollope is remembered as the Post Office official responsible for recommending the introduction of pillar boxes to allow for easier posting of private letters. These were first installed on the Channel Islands in 1852, and were introduced to the mainland the following year. Wall boxes started to appear a few years later. Early boxes were green, but red had become the standard colour by 1879. Scroll down for a selection of boxes, of both the pillar and wall variety, from the Victorian era, all bearing the VR (Victoria Regina) cipher. One of this selection is green, though not b...