The Sorter’s School

 A highly dangerous job…

In bygone days, postmen used to carry pistols and blunderbusses to stop highwaymen and robbers from stealing highly valuable letters. Nowadays postmen and women are unarmed, although robberies still happen even in modern times. In 1963 £2.6 million was stolen from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London in a raid known as ‘the Great Train Robbery’.

 

 

A fortune for a stamp

You might have heard about the rare ‘Penny Black’, but the world’s rarest stamp is the British Guiana 1c Magenta. It was found in 1873 by 12 year old Louis Vernon Vaughan from Scotland, on an old letter in his uncle’s attic.  He sold it for six shillings. It last sold at auction for almost ten million US dollars!

 

 

Bizarre letter carriers

In the past people tried all sorts of imaginative ways to send letters, including rockets, balloons, underwater capsules, pigeons, dogs and even cats! (The cats all ran away).

 

 

 

Post boxes began green

Britain’s first postboxes were introduced to the Channel Islands in 1853 by a British author called Anthony Trollope, who worked for the Royal Mail at the time. They were painted green originally, before being changed to red in 1874, to make them easier to see. During the second world war, many postboxes had their caps painted yellowish green with gas detector paint.

 

People in the post

Once there were even human letters! In 1909 two suffragettes posted themselves to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. Although they were stopped at the front door, their effort paid off as the newspapers made a big fuss. Between 1913-15 in America, several children were mailed to relatives through the postal system as a cheap, convenient method of travel, as there was no rule against it. Fortunately, this practise is no longer allowed!