In the mail!

One of the major changes resulting from new technology in the past decade is the massive reduction of mail by post. 

Postal services had been introduced into Victoria in the early 1840s and the first official post office for the Port Phillip District was opened in Elizabeth St in 1841. 

Those seeking to send or receive had to attend the post office. Mail was also collected by “letter carriers”, first appointed in Melbourne in 1841, equipped with leather bag, hand bell, a red coat with brass buttons and a black top hat!

But changes soon took place, when letterboxes were installed throughout the British Empire, including the colony of Victoria. 

In the early 1860s the “low door round” design posting box was introduced. They were replaced by cast iron boxes, with two installed in South Melbourne in 1885. 

They were a distinctive fluted circular design, painted red and adorned with two broad embossed bands around their circumference. 

Essentially a standard colonial long door format box, they were highly visible and embossed with the lettering “RECEIVING PILLAR” (Victoria was perhaps the only Australian postal service to use the term extensively) and included a decorative dome cap (sometimes in the shape of a crown) and a slot for the mail. 

The postie accessed the box to clear the contents through a hinged door low down at the front of the box via a handle shaped as a clenched fist and a crossbar. 

Also attached to the box was a maker’s plate, in oval shape, such as that of the firm “ALLIANCE IRON WORKS” believed to have been located in South Melbourne. 

Two remain in the district, including one in Southbank on St Kilda Rd (outside Victoria Barracks), and one in Clarendon St in South Melbourne. 

They were still in service until 1967, when they were replaced by a square modern type, but fortunately they remain, even if only for decorative purposes and no longer used for mail. •