Tag Archives: pillar box

Once everyday objects, now souvenirs of times long past

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CLOSE TO POSTMANS PARK in the City of London, there are two restored items on the pavement of the street called St Martin’s Le Grand. One of these would have been commonly seen all over the City a few decades ago. The other is rarer.

One of the objects is a restored Police Call Post. Free to use, these slender items topped with a red, light signal could be used by members of the public to call a police station. If a police station wanted to call the policeman on the beat, the red light would flash to attract his (or her) attention. Fortunately, I never had cause to use this service. Designed and made in the early 1930’s by British Ericsson, these telephone posts were decommissioned in the 1960s because of the availability of mobile police radio transmitters and receivers. Most of these posts were sold during the 1980s, but eight remain in the City. These have been carefully restored by Rupert Harris Conservation Ltd, and are now protected heritage items. According to the company’s website (https://rupertharris.com/products/police-call-posts-1):

“A few examples of similar posts exist in Westminster and throughout the country, but those differ slightly in design and colour. The Westminster models bear a Royal crest above the front ‘POLICE POST’ panel, and are painted dark blue.”

Ony a  couple of days ago, I noticed one of the Westminster models at Piccadilly Circus outside of what was once the magnificent Tower Records shop.

Standing close to the Police Call Post near Postman’s Park, there is a Victorian post box (pillar box). Painted black rather than the usual red, it resembles other Victorian post boxes I have seen in London (e.g., on Ladbroke Grove) and in Fort Kochi (India). A plaque on the black post box (near the defunct Police Call Post) states that this kind of pillar box was designed by John Penfold in 1866, and that this particular example commemorated 500 years since Brian Tuke (1472-1545), the first Master of the Post, was knighted by Henry VIII in 1516. It stands outside the building that was the GPO’s headquarters from 1894-1984. Unlike its neighbour the Police Call Post, this venerable letter box is still in use. Within a short distance from the much-visited St Pauls Cathedral, these less well-known sights and the nearby Postmans Park (see: https://adam-yamey-writes.com/2023/05/21/self-sacrifice-remembered/) are well worth investigating

Looking familiar in Funchal

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THEY STAND SIDE by side on a pavement outside a post office on the sloping Avenida Zarco in central Funchal. There are two sets of them. In each pair, one is painted red, the other is blue. They are postboxes (letter boxes). These cylindrical mailing boxes have a familiar look about them, especially if you live in England.

Having seen several old British style post boxes in various places in India, seeing these boxes in Funchal aroused my curiosity. I looked at their bases. The two red boxes had no manufacturer’s marks. However, both the blue ones had the following on them in English: “Cooperative Industrial Society”. This suggests that at least these two boxes were made in the UK. It appears that many Cooperative Industrial Societies have existed. So just by looking at them, it cannot be said exactly where these boxes were made. In any case, it seems that these items were imported from the UK.

As for the two colours – red and blue – there are two postal methods/speeds in Portugal. Red boxes are for normal mail, and blue for priority or express mail.

Oldest post box in Bangalore

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WHEN MRS BRONSON OPENED her 10 bed boarding house in Bangalore in 1887, it became the city’s first hotel. Her establishment became The West End Hotel. It was, and is still, the best hotel in Bangalore. Set in beautiful grounds, the West End is home to Bangalore’s supposedly oldest letter box.

The cast-iron cylindrical pillar box is surmounted by a royal crown, below which are the words “post office”. The word “letter” is below the crown and above the slot for inserting mail. Below this slot, there is a large plate with mail collection times engraved on it. The plate seems to be newer than the rest of the pillar box.

Beneath the plate, there is a circular cartouche with lettering that has become difficult to read because it has been painted over so many times. However, I could make out the word “Greenock” and other wwords including “suttie”, “tho”, “street”, and “??thga??”. These indistinct words allowed me to direct my search of the Internet.

I discovered that Thomas Suttie of Greenock manufactured pillar boxes identical to the one at The West End in 1858. Only one of these has survived in the UK, but 7 or 8 of them can still be found in India. They are at The West End, in Vire, in Darjeeling, in Shimla, and two in Kasauli. There are also a few in Pakistan. One example, dated 1856, stands in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The year 1858 is of interest. It was when the Indian Uprising, which commenced in 1857, was coming to an end. It was also when the British Government decided to take over the governig of India from the East India Company.

The Suttie pillar box at The West End is still in use. Mail is collected from it three times a day. Given its date of manufacture, it is much older than The West End Hotel. Why it stands there is a mystery to me. Maybe the hotel acquired it as an antique curio. This is the third functioning historic post box I have seen in Bangalore. The other two are at the Bangalore Club and its near neighbour, The Bowring Institute.

A postman and his spear

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Happy New Year!

NEXT TO THE POST OFFICE on the corner of Bangalore’s Museum and State Bank of India Roads, there is a recently opened Museum of Communication. Housed in an old-fashioned Bangalorean bungalow, it is effectively a museum of the Indian postal services. This well laid out museum contains a variety of exhibits ranging from postage stamps to large pieces of mechanised equipment. I will describe a few of the many exhibits that interested me.

There is a photograph of the world’s highest post office (somewhere in the Himalayas). There is an enormous piece of equipment, which occupies the whole of a room. It was used for transmission of money orders. Several panels described the history of the Indian freedom struggle and that of the Indian Post.

Outside on the museum’s shady verandah, there is a collection of old letter boxes. They include boxes of various shapes, sizes, and colours. One of them bears the Portuguese words “CAIXA POSTAL”. Once upon a time, it must have been used in one of Portugal’s Indian colonies, but there was no information about its original location.

Outside the museum, and still in use, there is a hexagonal pillar box, very similar to one placed at the Bowring Institute in the late 1880s. Unlike the one at Bowring, which bears the British Indian postal insignia, the box near the museum has been modified to make it look like a post-Independence Indian Post pillar box.

Next to the entrance to the museum, also on the verandah, there is aalifesize model of an Indian postman of yesteryear. Wearing a green and white uniform (including a turban) with some red trim, he has a sack slung over his left shoulder. His right hand is stretche out in front of him. In it he holds a wooden shaft tipped with a sharp metal spear tip. Four small bells are attached to the base of this tip. A lantern hangs from his right wrist.

In the past, the postman mafe his way from village to village along paths through the jungle. The spear tip and its staff were used to ward off wild animals. The lantern was used to light his way, and the bells were rung to alert villagers to his arrival.

Visiting the museum was an interesting experience. Seeing the hardships that postmen used to face should make us pleased that we can now communicate using fax, email, and other modern inventions.

An unusual letter box in Bangalore

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A FRIEND IN BANGALORE, Mr Aggarwal, alerted me to the existence of an historic pillar box (letter box) in the city’s Bowring Institute. This private club has been located in its current position on St Marks Road since 1888, when it’s elegant clubhouse was constructed.

In front of the main entrance to the clubhouse, there is a hexagonal pillar box, which is still in use. This six-sided box is topped with six sloping triangular panels which meet at the highest point of the letter box.

The box bears a crest or emblem on the side where the slot for posting letters is located. This consists of a lion and a unicorn facing each other. Their forecast rest on a circle contains a cross. The circle is surmounted by a crown with two crosses. There is also a small crown with a cros on the lion’s head.

Below the crest, there is a diamond shaped lozenge containing the letters R, N, C, I (or possibly O). What these letters signified (or whether this was the manufacturer’s name) has not yet been revealed by an Internet search.

It had been suggested to me that the pillar box was a British East India Company (‘EIC’) letter box. This is unlikely to be the case because, from what I have managed to ascertain, the EIC crests included two lions facing each other, but no unicorns. Furthermore, by 1888 India was governed by the British Government rather than the EIC (which was in charge of governing India prior to 1857).

The letter box is believed to be contemporary with the construction of the Bowring clubhouse. In 1888, Queen Victoria was the Empress of India. The post box is therefore likely to have some connection with the British Indian postal service. I have yet to discover whether I am right about this. A quick search of the Internet did not reveal any examples of historic pillar boxes bearing the crest on the box at the Bowring Institute. If anyone knows more about this particular crest, please do inform me.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS