Brislington Community Museum

Lilywhite

This publisher produced a series of postcards of Brislington printed as real photographs, and provides an incidental link to a pivotal moment in postcard history.

The trademark for Lilywhite Ltd was registered in 1909, and grew out of a firm manufacturing photographic paper which belonged to Arthur Frederick Sergeant who had developed a photographic emulsion that a firm in Belgium - Bevaert & Co - used to print the first photographic postcards (Byatt 1978, 153). Arthur F Sergeant is known to have travelled widely, taking photographs as he went, so it's possible that he may have visited Brislington and produced the pictures in at least some of these postcards (Ibid, 154).

Arthur F Sergeant was born in 1882 and the 1891 census shows him as the eldest of four children of Elizabeth (aged 30) and Arthur E Sergeant (34), a railway clerk, living in the village of Burley, near Leeds. A decade later the census shows the family, with an additional daughter aged 5, living in Halifax. Arthur F worked as a railway goods clerk.

In the final quarter of 1905, in the registration district of Halifax, he married Alice Horsfall, who was born in Derby in 1881. The 1911 census shows the couple with two daughters living in Halifax - he was an employer and his occupation was described as master photo printer and manufacturer. Their subsequent children included Frederick Ulphus, whose birth was registered in 1911, and Trevor, registered in 1912.

The 1939 register finds Alice living with son Trevor in Halifax, while Arthur F is apparently away on business in Reigate, Surrey, where his occupation is aptly described as travelling sales.

Alice, while living in Halifax, died in January 1948. In October 1952 Arthur Frederick Sergeant, now a resident of Reigate, died and probate was granted to his sons Frederick Ulphus and Trevor (reluctantly, regarding this date I must disagree with Anthony Byatt, who put his death in 1959).


Brislington postcards (in order of their series number)

The Square (Bath Road, A4) - THE OLD VILLAGE, BRISLINGTON. Published in print by Fisher, Janet & Derek undated, page 14; and also by Chard, Judith et al 1995, page 12. Series number BLTN 1.

Church of St Luke - THE CHURCH, BRISLINGTON. Series number BLTN 2.

Brislington Hill - THE WHITE HART HILL, BRISLINGTON. Published in print by Fisher, Janet & Derek undated, page 29; and also by Fisher, Janet et al 1983, page 46; and Palmer, Andrew 1983, page 109; and Chard, Judith et al 1995, page 17; and Crimmins, Graham et al, 2008, page 27. Series number BLTN 3.

School Road - THE OLD SCHOOL. BRISLINGTON. Published in print by Small, A et al 1979, page 25. Series number BLTN 6. Earliest known picture: 1932.

Hollywood Road - NEW SCHOOL AND CHURCH. BRISLINGTON. Published in print by Chard, Judith et al 1995, page 14. Series number BLTN 7. Earliest known picture: 1932.

The Square (Bath Road, A4) - TRAM TERMINUS, BRISLINGTON. Published in print by Chard, Judith et al 1995, page 13. Series number BLTN 8. Earliest known picture: 1932.


Ken Taylor


Bibliography

Byatt, Anthony 1978, Picture Postcards and their Publishers, Malvern, Golden Age Postcard Books.


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