Brislington Community Museum

George

A real photograph postcard that gives no indication of its publisher or anyone else involved in its production, has a clue to the photographer in the sender's message. Writing to Miss Rose Lockwood of Waterloo Buildings, Hanham, the sender says 'Our George' took the photo. The signature is a little difficult but appears to be Lills. This is a valuable snippet of information but is still tantalisingly insufficient to provide a sure identification. The 'our' certainly includes Lills (so if we knew who she was we could more easily trace her George), and it may also apply to Rose. Although it has been possible to trace Rose's family history, no photographer George has yet been found.

Like a modern postcard, this postcard has a divided back (where the address and stamp are on one half, and the other half is blank for the sender to write their message). The divided back allows the postcard publisher to fill the whole of the 'front' with their eye-catching picture. Prior to the introduction of the divided back in 1902, nothing but the address was allowed on the side with the stamp, so publishers had to leave plenty of space on the front beside the picture, for the sender's message. This postcard falls between the two types - despite its divided back, the picture occupies only about two thirds of the available space, leaving a broad border (which was actually used by the sender for an additional message on the front).


Brislington postcard

West Town Lane - [ Untitled ]. Earliest known picture: 30 Apr 1905.


Ken Taylor


We can't exhibit this postcard until we have permission from the copyright owner, and regrettably we don't yet know who that is.