TIL that in Victorian London mail delivery routes would go by every house 12 times a day.
TIL that in Victorian London mail delivery routes would go by every house 12 times a day.
I just came across a great New York Times piece on the mail service in the Victorian era. It's full of trivia: for example, did you know that in 1889 London, mail was delivered TWELVE TIMES A DAY? Read this: In Victorian London, though service wasn't
In Germany mail was delivered two times a day, in the city district even more often, up until the 1960s.
Nowadays the mailpeople show up two times a week.
65It blows my mind that they don’t pick mail up from peoples houses. I live in a city, so it could be different in more rural areas, but I my closest mailbox is almost a half kilometer away.
30I mean if nothing else, the need for it has just utterly collapsed. Even in a largely still print-driven country like Germany.
Parcels, that's an entirely different thing. And you will notice that DHL, UPS, they all do at-home pickup. Or DHL and Hermes have drop of spots in what feels like every single little kiosk, bakery or ice cream parlor.
But mail? Actual, proper, snail-mail? That's mostly on the way out, actually. It's no longer a big need for virtually anybody. Most people I know check their physical mailbox at most once a week, sometimes once a month (since invoices arrive monthly usually).
31Yeah I explained the flag thing to my German friend and they thought it was brilliant. I always took it for granted.
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Britain still had this until early 2010s I believe, early post and late post. Daily in the city, not Sundays, is the norm now. You still find prioriry post boxes which are collected twice a day too
10It certainly ended somewhere between 2001 and 2007. I remember where I was living when they stopped it.
When mail came twice a day, I used to get my post in the afternoon, consistently, and none in the morning, ever.
When they changed it, my post started turning up earlier, in the morning.
So it was weirdly an improvement. It seems strange now that there was ever two deliveries a day, given I get one letter a week at most now. (parcels are another matter, but again you don't need Royal Mail delivering parcels twice a day even if you get a lot, so the fact they did this with letters is weird)
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There were 3 deliveries a day in Paris and probably elsewhere until the 70s.
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The original article by the NYTimes:
The Birth of Cheap Communication (and Junk Mail) - By Randall Stross
9I’m lucky if I get mail once a week. I literally get a pile of stuff with a rubber band around it once a week at best. I’m not in a rural area.
3Ah, the good old days!
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