Colonial Postboxes

Hi there,

I believe I have seen one right opposite the Cheung Chau Ferry Pier in Cheung Chau.  That was about two months ago.  It is right in front of an apparel store.  The box had been painted Green, however.

Best Regards,

T

Moddsey, you are king of the post box! I remember seeing something old and post-related recently in the wall of the old post office in Stanley. I can't remember if it was a post box or stamp-vending machine though.

How many of the old colonial post boxes are still standing?

I came across this interesting map:  Hong Kong Old Postboxes Map

The Xanga blog describes postboxes around the world.

okay, I admit, not quite in the same league as the ones above but an interesting find nonetheless way out there in Lau Fau Shan (NW NT).

You can find it next to the entrance to the carpark just off the main town roundabout.

Hi Lemonrunner, good job with the map, and thanks for the update on press coverage.

It's a good time to post up a couple of documents Guy Shirra has requested from HK Post.

The first is described as 'location of the old posting boxes (excl. the box no. 256 at Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma Island)':

The second is a list 'of old post boxes still "in store" with HK Post'.

great job compiling the list. Does this mean there are no longer any left from Queen Victoria's era?

Great map and list - many thanks.

Just for completeness: the Box Type of No. 239 is "Oval / ER II". I found the lack of royal cipher a bit intriguing and came across the following comment about Scottish Crown post boxes on the website of an expert in the UK (http://www.wicks.org/pulp/part2.html):

“In 1954, after it had been pointed out that Elizabeth II of England was only the first Elizabeth to reign over Scotland, the EIIR cipher was not used in Scotland. Letter boxes were made with just a Scottish Crown on instead.”

i.e. No. 239 was probably made in or after 1954.

Incidentally, Singapore seems to be the only place where you can buy souvenir miniatures of old HK post boxes (http://www.spm.org.sg/gifts_souvenirs/post_boxes_hk.html).

The first post office pillar box was erected in Bonham Strand in April 1878; the Daily Press of 6 April 1878 reported: “A postal pillar box is being placed in Bonham Strand as an experiment to shorten the distance that Chinese have to carry their Australian, San Francisco and Singapore correspondence. Stamps will be sold at a shop close by where also letter scales, tariffs in Chinese etc will be kept.”

It was relocated in late 1878, as evidenced by the 19 December 1878 edition of the Daily Press, due to dissatisfaction with the original positioning, to the south frontage of the Harbour Department (Praya West) i.e. in Wing Lok Street at or nearby the junction with Morrison Street. A new pillar box was erected at the West Point Police Station (Police Station No. 7) located between Western Street and Pokfulam Road opposite the Sailors Home in Queens Road West. The two locations were confirmed in the Postmaster General’s notice dated 14 January 1879:

The pillar boxes were cleared three times daily and the mails at the General Post Office, the only post office at that time, were kept open until the messenger arrived with the letters collected there from. Furthermore, those who kept a postage account with the post office could post local correspondence in the boxes without stamps, provided that the sender’s name or recognised device appeared on each article.

The two pillar boxes were not, by any stretch of the imagination, an instant success; the Postmaster General in his annual report for 1878 issued on 12 April 1879 stated “they must be, with regret, pronounced to be failures. If however, they are failures in Hongkong, it may be some consolation to know that Pillar Boxes have not (it is believed) succeeded anywhere in the East.”

He explained that “when there was only one Box in Bonham Strand and that was cleared but once a day, the collections averaged about 60 letters a week, almost all on mail day. With the removal of the box to the Harbour Department, and its clearance three times a day, the number of letters dwindled to less than half! The reason was that before the extension of mail hours (which took place about the same time) Chinese got half an hour longer at the Pillar Box free of late fee, showing that they prefer to bring their correspondence to the general office.”

The two pillar boxes remained as the only such facilities for letters until 1892, some thirteen years later. In the annual report for 1891, the Postmaster General suggested, in response to the Governor’s request to improve the available postal facilities, to install 12 new pillar boxes at certain locations – six in Victoria, five at the Peak instead of the existent wooden letter boxes and one in Kowloon. The pillar boxes were delivered by the Crown Agents, tenders were called for their installation by Government notification of 16 July 1892 and the new facilities went into operation in August of that year.

The pillar boxes were set up in the locations suggested by the Postmaster General in 1891 except that one was placed at the East end of the town in Percival Street instead of near the tramway station. This change was made because letter boxes had been attached to the tramcars some years previously and it was therefore considered that a pillar box at the tramway station was unnecessary. The wooden letter box at the Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station was retained but those formerly affixed to the police boxes at the Peak were withdrawn from service.

A notice from the General Post Office dated 12 August 1892 set out the locations of all 14 existent postal pillar boxes in the Kowloon and Peak Districts, Town District (from Ship Street to Bonham Strand West and up to level of Robinson Road) and Suburban Districts; clearances were effected twice daily for the Kowloon and Peak Districts boxes, three times daily for the Suburban Districts boxes and five times daily for the boxes in the Town District. Users were advised to reduce the risk of theft of the stamps affixed to letters etc by cancelling them by writing the date across them. The 14 locations were:

Kowloon and Peak Districts

• Pillar Box No 1 Kowloon, near Wharf and Godowns
• Pillar Box No 2 Magazine Gap, at the Gap
• Pillar Box No 3 Victoria Gap
• Pillar Box No 4 Mount Kellett, near “Myrtlebank”
• Pillar Box No 5 Junction of Mount Gough Road with Road to Aberdeen West of Government Villas
• Pillar Box No 6 Plantation Road at Junction of Roads between Rural Building Lots 14 and 27

Town District

• Pillar Box No 7 Junction of Queens Road East and Arsenal Street
• Pillar Box No 8 Near the Harbour Master’s Office *
• Pillar Box No 9 Junction of Albany, Robinson and Garden Roads
• Pillar Box No 10 Junction of Seymour and Castle Roads
• Pillar Box No 11 Junction of Old Bailey and Caine Road

Suburban Districts

• Pillar Box No 12 Junction of Robinson and Bonham Roads
• Pillar Box No 13 East Point, Junction of Percival Street and Praya
• Pillar Box No 14 West Point near No. 7 Police Station *

* indicates the two pillar boxes of late 1878.

Collections from Pillar Box No. 1 at the Kowloon Wharves commenced on 8 August and up to 20 August the letters collected amounted to 448. The collections from Pillar Boxes Nos. 2 to 6, at Magazine Gap and the Peak, commenced on 12 August and up to 20 August a total of 64 letters were collected. The collections from the pillar boxes in the town between 15 and 20 August amounted to 201 letters.

The number of letters collected from the pillar boxes in the town from 15 August until the end of 1892 was 3,072 broken down as follows:

• Box No. 7 Arsenal Street 804 letters
• Box No. 8 Harbour Office 479 letters
• Box No. 9 Albany and Robinson Roads 98 letters
• Box No. 10 Seymour and Castle Roads 174 letters
• Box No. 11 Old Bailey Street 403 letters
• Box No. 12 Robinson and Bonham Roads 146 letters
• Box No. 13 Percival Street 19 letters
• Box No. 14 No. 7 Police Station 949 letters

In the following year, 1893, a total of 7,266 letters were collected:

• Box No. 7 Arsenal Street 2,271 letters
• Box No. 8 Harbour Office 1,148 letters
• Box No. 9 Albany and Robinson Roads 340 letters
• Box No. 10 Seymour and Castle Roads 381 letters
• Box No. 11 Old Bailey Street 424 letters
• Box No. 12 Robinson and Bonham Roads 448 letters
• Box No. 13 Percival Street 45 letters
• Box No. 14 No. 7 Police Station 2,209 letters

The pillar box at Percival Street seems to have particularly poor patronage; less than one letter per week !! The pillar box at Arsenal Street as well as the original boxes at the Harbour Office and No. 7 Police Station seems to have been reasonably well used by comparison with the others.

There is a dearth of “official” information regarding pillar boxes after 1893 until the Postmaster General’s annual report for 1905 when it was confirmed that there were 5 pillar boxes on the Peak, presumably as set up in 1892 (see above), 10 pillar boxes in Victoria, being two more than in 1892, and 6 pillar boxes in Kowloon, being an increase of five from the initial box set up 13 years previously.

The number of articles posted in the pillar boxes during 1905 was 92,170 as against 66,746 in 1904 and 48,110 in 1903; almost a doubling of usage in two years. Furthermore, it can be seen that there was a more than 6 fold increase of usage between 1893 and 1903 despite the opening of branch post offices at Kowloon and Western during the period. The Postmaster General observed that “This is a complete justification of the appointment of special messengers to clear these boxes instead of leaving that duty to postmen whose punctuality had to be sacrificed to the varying demands of deliveries.” It seems that the once unpopular and unsuccessful pillar boxes were now anything but; indeed they warranted dedicated personnel to clear them.

Further pillar boxes were erected and daily deliveries started at Pokfulam on 21 March 1906 and at Kowloon City on 3 October 1906. In Victoria, three new pillar boxes were placed at certain points on the higher levels in the same year.

New pillar boxes were erected at the Star Ferry Company’s wharves and at the Lower Peak Tramway Terminus in 1909; a new pillar box was erected at the Victoria Hospital in 1910.

The total number of articles collected from all pillar boxes during 1909 was 183,152 against 161,933 in 1908, an increase of 21,219 on the total of the previous year and a 25 fold increase since 1893.

We can see that, after a decidedly sluggish start and contrary to the strong opinion of the Postmaster General in 1879, the humble post office pillar box became, in time, an essential and popular part of the infrastructure of the Hong Kong and Kowloon postal administration.

Good Spot !!

Inspection of the referenced photograph shows to the right of the post office pillar box, affixed to the wall of the Harbour Department building, an iron letter box installed at the same time as the pillar box (January 1879 PMG Notice).

There were two iron letter boxes installed at that time, the other was at Sai Ying Pun Police Station; in both instances "letters removed 3 times per day except Sunday (at 10, 2 and 4 o'clock) and safely carried to the Post Office for despatch." Letters delivered in Hongkong were charged postage of 2 cents each.

With regard to pillar boxes 4 and 5 on the 1892 list, where exactly was "Myrtlebank" on Mount Kellett Road and where was Mount Gough Road - is it called something else these days ...... my current day street maps do not show it.

With regard to Pillar Box No 1 of the 1892 list, which was located at Kowloon near Wharf & Godowns - I assume this was reference to the premises of Wharf & Godown Co; would this have been on what is now Salisbury Road (roughly opposite where the YMCA is) or on the seaward side of what is now Canton Road where there were a number of godowns ??

Any ideas ??

Hi there,

Walked by this postbox on my way to Ho Hok Shan.

Best Regards,

T

Thanks to Guy Shirra for this clipping from the SCMP, 23 Sep 2012:

[...] the Antiquities and Monuments Office (AMO) wants some of the most colourful reminders of British rule to stay on the streets.

Vintage postboxes - once painted red but now green - are dotted over the city, many still in use. Among the 58 colonial-era postboxes in operation, nine have been selected by the AMO for conservation. Hongkong Post has been working closely with AMO on preservation work.

"Postboxes, irrespective of their year of commissioning, are part of the postal network for service delivery. We will therefore continue to maintain them in good and serviceable condition until they are beyond repair," Hongkong Post spokeswoman Mary Chung said.

"We think the best way to preserve these iconic items is to keep them in use rather than putting them in museums as historic exhibits. Nevertheless, we have also arranged a display of some vintage posting boxes at the Postal Gallery [in the General Post Office] and the Hong Kong Museum of History."

The display will include traditional pillar and lamp-type boxes that have been used since long before the handover.

Hongkong Post will dispose of any unserviceable postboxes bearing royal insignia, and will consult the Director of Government Logistics to arrange for them to be destroyed.

According to one lawmaker, miscellaneous leftovers from colonial times are a fact of life in Hong Kong and it has to be accepted that there are still numerous colonial influences visible in its architecture and appearance.

"Many British-given street names remain unchanged and lawyers are still required to wear white wigs in court," Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong lawmaker Ip Kwok-him said.

Ip said similar British postboxes were still being used in former colonies such as Malaysia, and did not think it necessary to have them replaced in the city when still in working order.

"Anyway, they will be replaced when they are worn out," he said.

Hi!

I'm looking for a couple of these old flat ones...do you know which ones are still around?

Cheers,

David

This map can perhaps help: 

http://goo.gl/maps/lhVw

This postbox, which is a developer of this project, is directly imported from the UK and is not the property of Hongkong Post. It belongs to the “private possession of the box”.

There used to be a number of old colonial postboxes behind the Kowloon East post office. I wonder what happened to them. You can see them here:

Just by chance, I stumbled over this list in the Chronicle & Directory for 1898

6. —Pillar Letter Boxes have been placed at the following localities and are cleared daily at the following hours, except on Sundays and Holidays:—

Town  District.

From Ship Street to Bonham Strand West and up to level of Robinson Road.

Clearances: 8.30 a.m., 10.30 a.m., 0.30 p.m., 2.30 p.m., 4.30 p.m.

Pillar Box No.  7    Victoria, junction of Queen’s Road East and Arsenal Street.

Pillar Box No.  8   Victoria, near the Harbour Master’s Office.

Pillar Box No. 9    Victoria, junction of Albany, Robinson and Garden Roads.

Pillar Box No 10   Victoria, junction of Seymour and Castle Roads.

Pillar Box No 11   Victoria, junction of Old Bailey and Caine Road.

Suburban Districts.

Clearances: 9.30 a.m., 0.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m.

Pillar Box No. 12  Victoria, junction of Robinson and Bonham Roads.

Pillar Box No 13   Victoria, East Point, junction of Percival Street and Praya.

Pillar Box No 14   West Point, near No. 7 Police Station.

Kowloon and Peak District.

Clearances: noon and 4 p.m.

Pillar Box No. 1    Kowloon, near Wharf and Godowns.

Pillar Box No. 2    Magazine Gap, at the Gap.

Pillar Box No. 3    Peak District, at Victoria Gap.

Pillar Box No. 4    Peak District, at Mount Kellett, near “ Myrtlebank.”

Pillar Box No. 5    Peak District, at Junction of Mount Gough Road with road to Aberdeen West of Government Villas.

Pillar Box No. 6    Peak District, at Plantation Road, at junction of roads between Rural Building Lots 14 and 27

There is also a Letter Box fixed in the Charge Room at Tsim Sha-tsui Police Station.

Only the one at the Police Station has been added since 1892.

From the Chronicle & Directory for 1913

PILLAR BOXES

8.-Pillar Boxes in Hongkong and Kowloon are placed in the following Districts and places, and are cleared daily at the hours marked thereon, except on Sundays and holidays, when one clearance only will be made at the first hour indicated on each.

NOTE: It looks as if some pillar letter boxes have different numbers compared to the e.g. 1892 numbering.