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By A.M. Goodwyn |
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For over a century picture postcards of all sorts have formed a fascinating adjunct to social occasions and holidaymaking, as well as an early, imaginative and useful means of advertising or for brief commercial correspondence. The names of many postcard publishers such as Valentine, Tuck, Frith, Judges and Bamford are as familiar as the brand names of breakfast cereals. |
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The collection and study of picture postcards, which has increased by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years or so, is pursued on an international scale. Those who specialise in the area are known as "cartologists" in the United Kingdom, where the more correct term of "cartophilist" has been mis-approiated by the collection of cigarette cards; in America the term used is "deltioloist" In many cases commercial picture postcards form an invaluable record of local history, and amongst the most endearing memorabilia of the Manx Electric Railway is the vast range of postcards depicting scenes on or associated with Railway over a period of nearly ninety years. The major series sold in such enormous numbers that it is still quite possible to find examples in all sorts of places, and are generally worth any reasonable asking price. Since by definition by far the majority of these cards were sent from the Isle of Man, the potential picking grounds are usually in England, Scotland and Wales. The postcard itself, in its traditional size of five and a half x three and a half inches (139.7 x 88.9 mm) first appeared in the United States of America where its official recognition by the U.S. post office was enshrined in a statue of February 27 1861. The primary use of these cards at that time, with the address (only) one side and a message or advertisement on the other, spread to Europe and elsewhere. From about 1870 it became the practise to use postcards bearing a picture, sometimes with a margin to write something on, and on September 1st 1894 Britain's General Post Office authorised the transmission of similar postcards in Britain, at a rate of less than the normal letter post. A somewhat later revision of the G.P.O. Regulations in 1902 permitted the reverse side to be divided into a space for a message and the address, pre-dating a similar facility in America introduced in 1907. The scale of the postcard business at that time was substantial, with the G.P.O. handling over 400 million postcards in 1900, whilst ten years later the U.S. post office claimed to be handling over 2 million postcards a day. Their use was and is enshrined in the provisions of the Universal Postal Union, and the associated regulations are in the post office guide: A postcard must be rectangular with the larger side of at least 1.414 times the shorter side, Corners may be either square or rounded to a maximum radius of 10mm… no card may exceed 105mm in length x 148mm in length, or be less than 90mm in width x 140 in length, standard of thickness of material to consist of ordinary cardboard or paper, the GPO standard being 250 micrometers, but tolerance to and absolute minimum of 230 micrometers is permitted,,,,,,,, but should not be more flexible than postcards sold by the post office, the right-hand half, at least of the front is reserved for the name and address of the recipient, the heading POSTCARD must be shown. Postcards embellished with cloth, embroidery, spangles or similar materials are permitted Many transport operators, and most notably, railway companies and shipping lines, were not slow to seize on to such a good thing when they saw one, and a wide and extensive range of cards, sometimes for their own use, was introduced. Occasionally, as in the case of the Great Eastern Railway, the cards were intended for the companies own use; the majority used the as an attractive form of advertising and sold them in considerable quantity. A very few, such as the Great Central Railway, made a practice of giving their cards away, evidently to customers in their dining cars. The cards themselves in all cases, ranged from fairly basic advertisements and timetables, through a very broad spectrum of pictures, from direct photographic reproductions, various forms of half tones and lithographs, collotypes and hand tinted colour pictures, to artists impressions. Indeed the imagination of certain postcard manufacturers seemed to know no bounds: Some featured linens and embroidered silks, bas relief, deckle edges and the embossed "plate-sunk" finish, where the picture was surrounded by a raised border, and other effects. The collecting and cataloguing of these interesting items of transport ephemera has, over the past years, become a science in itself. To the pursuit in this field, historical postcards of this nature are divided into three distinct categories, as follows: GROUP 1 Consists of official views, which were produced specifically and usually solely for the railway or transport company concerned. And either sold or distributed only by them or their direct agents. These cards invariably gave the name of the company and sometimes its crest or coat of arms, either on the front or the back. GROUP 2 Comprises of picture postcards produced and sold by commercial publishers showing scenes on or of the railway, but did not have any direct involvement with the operator concerned and were on general sale. GROUP 3 Consists of cards produced and sold by commercial publishers of local scenes, neighbourhoods and so on, in which the railway features as an incidental part of the normal environment. In the Isle of Man "official" postcards of group 1 were produced and sold in very substantial numbers from about 1904-1905 by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Co., The Midland Railway Co., The Isle of Man Railway Co., The Douglas Southern Electric Tramway (Marine Drive) and, most importantly to this account, The Manx Electric Railway Co. Ltd Official views of the Manx Electric were destined to run through several series by different manufacturers until the end of the 1930's; no new re-prints were known after WW2 although some residual stock, (presumably of less popular views) were still on hand at the end of 1977, but vanished shortly afterwards. After the nationalisation of the railway, and specifically following the appointment of Mr. George Lawson as Hotels manager, this formidable businessman lost little time in getting an entirely new series of ten official coloured postcards on sale in 1964, which proved to be immensely successful. Whilst the MER's official picture postcards were produced by a number of different manufacturers, some of the views in the early series are clearly identical and originate from the same photograph. This was because it was the practise of postcard manufacturers to buy in stock or taken to order pictures from local photographers. In this context, the work of a number of eminent Manx photographers such as T. Hough and T. Keig of Douglas, and George Cowen and C.J. Midwood of Ramsey, are evident. The very much later series introduced in 1964 was photographed by Mr. Percy Morrison, then of S.R. Keig & Co., and later, nowadays of Morrison Photographics, Douglas. Of the official picture postcards themselves, a goodly number show at least some signs of tramcars and their tracks, but there is a significant percentage of highly peripheral views in the various series. The Tholt-y-Will pine tress and Sulby Glen Waterfall are at least related to the bygone char-a-bane services of the M.E.R. but the view of a Manx cat and kittens was not even posted on the step-boards of a tramcar! All of the M.E.R. postcards are at least genuine depictions, albeit in some cases very heavily retouched, or having lost something in the process of hand tinting. These processed also do little to aid modern-day reproduction in these pages. However all the photographs of all the series, so far as it is known, true and show no signs of having been tampered with. Many instances are known of commercial postcards having suffered from "modernisation" by the publishers, leading to bizarre results, such as a number of Liverpool street scenes sold in the 1930's (and 1940's) with the tramcars daubed in the post-1932 green, even though the cars themselves continued to sport their original red livery until they got to the scrap yard. A more sophisticated attempt to update a stormy sea view by Valentine's resulted in the obliteration of a Blackpool standard car at the Gynn, by pasting over a cut -out picture of an English Electric balloon car. Indeed, the only instance of this sort of thing on the Island was the well-known view of Loch Promenade, Douglas, showing a horse-tram which had acquired a trolley pole instead of a horse, and some suggestion of overhead wires drawn in for good measure, all in anticipation of the electrification of the Douglas Corporation Tramways, which never took place. This postcard was reproduced on page 27 of MTR number 56, |
First Published In Manx Transport Review No.60 - Summer 1991