Edward VIII Pillar Box, North footpath of Crown Road South, Glasgow

A 1936 pillar box style, cast iron post box, probably made by the Carron Company, Stirlingshire. It is located on the north footpath of Crown Road South, opposite the junction with Hyndland Street in the west end of Glasgow.

The cylindrical cast iron pillar box is painted black at the base with a red shaft above. There is a swept frieze under a shallow domed cap which is dentilled at the rim. The full height left hinged door has a cup handle and lock to the right. The lower part of the door bears the cipher 'EVIIIR' in raised gothic lettering, with a crown above and 'Post Office' embossed below. There is a rectangular opening for letters and notice frame above.

Historical development

The current pillar post box was installed during the brief reign of Edward VIII in 1936. It is first shown on a National Grid map (surveyed 1949, published 1950) and its position has not been changed since this time.

A post box is shown in this location on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1896 (revised 1893 to 1894), 1913 (revised 1909) and 1935 (revised 1932). However, this appears to be an earlier post box that was replaced by the current Edward VIII type in 1936.

The Royal Mail letter box was introduced following the reforms of the Postal Act of 1839. Rowland Hill was a social reformer who championed a single postage rate, paid for in advance, for any standard weight letters. Hill's postal reform model led to the creation of post offices and roadside letter boxes in all towns and villages in the country and standardised the cost of sending letters. The first free standing pillar box in the United Kingdom was introduced in 1852 in Jersey, the Channel Islands, and the boxes were extended to mainland Britain by 1853. The first cylindrical design pillar box was cast in 1879. The royal cipher forms part of the branding of the post box and the current monarch's monogram is normally added to every box erected during their reign. Exceptions to this include Scottish boxes erected from 1952 onwards, where the Scottish crown is used in place of the royal cipher.

Edward VIII came to the throne on 20th January 1936 and reigned for less than a year before his abdication on 10th December 1936. The majority of the wall post boxes that bore his royal cipher had their doors replaced with ones bearing that of George VI. However, the doors on pillar boxes were mostly left unaltered.