The Scottish Pillar Box
by Yvonne Johnstone
Title
The Scottish Pillar Box
Artist
Yvonne Johnstone
Medium
Photograph - Digitally Enhanced Photograph
Description
The Scottish Pillar Box.
The first pillar box to be installed in Scotland, with a QEll cypher, was in Edinburgh in November 1952.
The day after the unveiling ceremony the story was reported in a Glasgow newspaper and the Scottish Covenant Society (SCA) objected to the numeral "ll".
By the end of November the offending numeral had been smeared by tar and in December gelignite had been posted in the box.
Despite such activities being objected to by the SCA, the box received several blows from a 7lb hammer.
The door and insignia were repaired and the box replaced, only to meet its final demise from a gelignite bomb - no injuries.
On December 14th a replacement box was installed without the QEll cypher.
From around Sep 1953, a new design of pillar box began to be installed in Scotland. This had a Scottish Crown, but no QEII cypher.
The objection was that Scotland had never been ruled by Elizabeth l .
Uploaded
January 15th, 2021
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