From pillar to post in hunt for rarest of them all
IT’S the photographic hobby that ticks all the boxes.
And the first-class scheme will, hopefully, save the country’s rarest postboxes for posterity.
Peter Wilcox is on a mission – somewhat stalled by lockdown – to chronicle the region’s red letter boxes.
They don’t carry dates, but they do bear the moniker of the monarch at the time.
The Gloucester snapper longs to track down the true Holy Grail for spotters – the livid red Edward VIII box.
During the king’s brief reign, from January 20, 1936, to December 11 of the same year, only 271 were manufactured. Six were wall boxes, 161 traditional pillar boxes and 104 were placed inside sub-post offices.
After Edward VIII’s abdication, many had the royal cypher on their bellies removed.
Mr Wilcox, aged 73, said: “They are a real rarity as his reign was so short, there are possibly barely 100 left in the UK.
“I believe there are two in Birmingham and one in Worcester.”
Mr Wilcox is also hunting Olympics post boxes, painted gold and located in the 2012 Games winners’ communities.
For him, the landmarks are important
historical signposts. He explained: “Apart from the ones relating to our current Queen, they are all at least 70 years old and, much to my surprise, some of them go as far back as Queen Victoria. Each one has an embossed
insignia relating to the reigning monarch at the time.”
The history is certainly rich. The firstever four postboxes were trialled on the Channel Islands in 1852. Three years later, the first one appeared in
London. Hexagonal boxes, known as Penfolds after the designer, were installed nationwide from 1866 to 1879. But a number of glitches led to the cylindrical shape we still see today being introduced in 1879.
They’ve not always been red. Originally they were painted a rather dingy bronze-green. It was decided, in 1874, a more striking colour scheme was needed.
Pyrford, Surrey, is home to one of the oldest surviving boxes. The wall box, cast by Birmingham company Smith and Hawkes of Broad Street, dates back to 1861.
To date, Mr Wilcox, a former accountant, has snapped around 50 postboxes, including a very rare Victorian wall box in Chipping Campden. There’s also a Penfold box at the Black Country Living Museum. He added: “We started doing a walk round the block and I saw one at the far end of a car park with ‘GR’ on it. I thought that had to be George V. I found three Victorian ones in Gloucester. There are a number of Elizabeth II boxes and you wonder how many older ones they replaced. I am a bit of a history nerd.”