GWR publicity collection

Lantern Lectures

The 'Magic Lantern' was once a very popular means of entertainment, education, and publicity with commercial firms and organisations making sets of lantern slides, often with accompanying lecture notes, available to any interested club, society or individual. Railway companies made great use of this form of publicity to promote the various regions that they served, and the Great Western Railway was no exception. The sets of lantern slides varied in size from about thirty slides up to over 100, each accompanied by a set of lecture notes which could be read out as each slide was shown. The glass slides were about 3¼" square and would be packed in special wooden boxes for safe shipment. No charge was made for borrowing these slides and carriage was free within the GWR delivery area.

Holiday Haunts bookmarkers

A series of six card bookmarkers branded with the Holiday Haunts name was published from the late 1920s. Each of these carried an illustration of a place of interest taken from the many thousands of possibilities afforded by the annual holiday gazeteer of the same name. On the reverse was a description of that particular destination and the name of the station which served it.

The bookmarkers are known to have been produced in two different sizes with the smaller (6⅝" x 2") thought to be the earlier, and the larger (7¼" x 2⅛") being more common. We have been able to collect original examples of all six of the larger sized bookmarkers and one of the smaller bookmarkers
Tintern Abbey which are all described in detail on the 'Holiday Haunts' book page which can be found under the 'Book collection/GWR books and booklets' menu tab.

Menu card

Several different styles of menu card were produced during the late 1920s and early 1930s for use in restaurant cars and GWR hotels. These illustrated holiday destinations at the top with a large space below where the day's menu could be added. The opportunity was taken to advertise other services or special tickets on the rear. We are not sure how many different series were produced, or how many different illustrations were used in each series, but we have seen examples of four distinct styles so far. Two examples have been seen which feature pencil sketches of Dolgelley - Precipice Walk,and Pembroke Castle. These appear to carry the signature of the same artist, but we have not been able to decipher it. A similar series looks to have been produced for use in GWR hotels, again featuring pencil sketches believed to be by Claude Buckle. Those seen include two different views of Tregenna Castle hotel. Coloured views of Newquay and Falmouth feature on another series, and look to have been taken from existing frontispiece illustrations used in Holiday Haunts and other travel books.

Our example comes from yet another series which feature coloured illustrations of similar styles, many signed by the artist Michael Reilly or simply initialled MR. These include Newquay, Paignton, and Perranporth. Our example carries the title St. Michael's Mount, and is initialled CRJ. These particular cards are about 6" x 10" tall and advertise "Holiday Season Tickets" for the relevant area on the back.

Bowling score cards

Perhaps one of the more unusual items to be published during the 1930s was the Scores Of Bowlers card. We are fortunate to have found two unused examples for our collection as they were, by their very nature, a disposable item. They are different in size and the score card differs slightly in design. The smaller card measures about 3" x 7" and advertises holiday season tickets on the back. It is undated and we presume it dates from the early to mid 1930s. The larger card is about 3½" x 7½" and promotes the 1939 edition of Holiday Haunts.

Travel Savings cards

A once popular way of saving towards purchases was by means of savings stamps. Many shops offered such schemes providing specially printed stamps and cards onto which they could be fixed. The cards would be redeemed in part payment for goods, such as groceries, to the value of stamps attached. These schemes were flexible and popular with savers as they allowed stamps to be purchased whenever they could be afforded. Unused postage stamps always retained their face value and so they too could be used as a means of saving, sometimes utilising pre-printed savings cards supplied by businesses. The Great Western Railway operated such a scheme which it promoted with this Travel Savings Cards flyer
Author's collection

Click or tap link to enlarge image from the mid 1930s.

Holiday Savings card

This savings card, which is about 4¼" x 6½", was printed in 1938 and is designed to record contributions to a holiday savings scheme run by an organisation or club rather than being administered by the GWR. Presumably, regular contributions would be collected and recorded on the card and could be withdrawn in cash at some point by the contributor. Whilst the operation of any of the Holiday Savings Card schemes was independent of the GWR the cards would have served as useful publicity as they carried the message For IDEAL HOLIDAYS or ANNUAL OUTINGS GO GREAT WESTERN.

GWR Hotels matchbook cover

It may be surprising to learn that until 1868, smoking in a railway train or on a railway station was a criminal offence. A Bill for the Regulation of Railways before parliament at the time had an amendment introduced which compelled railway companies to provide smoking accommodation on every passenger train. Thereafter passengers were allowed to smoke provided they travelled in one of the designated compartments. Since 2007 smoking has again been forbidden both on trains and at stations. The GWR had sold small ‘Vesta’ tins containing non-safety matches with a striking ridge on the base and carrying various advertisements on the lid. These were superceeded in the 1920s by the book match, by now of the safety variety, and all made by Bryant & May. Advertisements printed both on the inside and outside of these matchbooks promoted many of the services offered by the GWR and many millions were sold. By their very nature these were disposable items and examples are therefore quite rare. We are fortunate to have in or collection an example, probably dating from the early 1930s, promoting the four hotels which the GWR ran at that time.

Race to the Ocean Coast board game

As well as producing all the jigsaw puzzles for the GWR, in the very early 1930s Chad Valley also manufactured a board game for them called Race to the Ocean CoastClick or tap to see the game being made. There was a choice of destination and the routes, all starting from Paddington, were laid out on a board which opened out to be about 21" x 14½" in size. Players' counters took the form of metal locomotives each painted to match the colour of one of the routes on the board. The game sold for half a crown (2/6) but only appears to have been available from early 1930 until 1931. With total sales in the region of 5,500 it may not have met expectations and so was quietly dropped. So far we have not been able to buy a complete game, but there is an example of the board in our collection. The game was advertised in the 1930 and 1931 editions of the publicity booklet Literature of Locomotion
Literature of Locomotion, 1930
Author's collection. The artwork used in these adverts shows the early box lid illustration as used for the Speed jigsaw puzzle, but the box lid was soon changed to that used for Britain's Mightiest jigsaw, also the game board is shown fitting flat in its box but when produced it was much bigger and folded in half to fit.

L&NWR branded cigarettes

In 1908 the GWR introduced its own brand of Virginia cigarettes made for them by Lambert and Butler. They were sold at Paddington Station, in restaurant cars and in the Company’s hotels but this promotion ceased in 1914. Packets of this brand are exceedingly rare with very few being thought to have survived. Whilst not one of the GWR packs, we feel very fortunate to have in our collection this cigarette pack promoting the London & North Western Railway Company. It would have contained five plain cigarettes and was manufactured for them by H.L.Savory of London. The large Royal Warrant on the reverse states By secial Warrant of Appointment to His Late Majesty King Edward VII. He died in 1910, so this pack probably dates from late 1910 or 1911.

As a digresssion, there is a loose local connection. Messrs.H.L.Savory and Company was founded by Harry Lindsay Savory, sometime between 1885 and 1890, as an importer and retailer of cigars and they soon began manufacturing cigarettes. The business continued to operate after his death in 1921 before being bought out by Alfred Dunhill Ltd. As well as a shop in New Bond Street London, Savory's also opened one in Oxford in 1936. This was at number 137 The High, very close to the Carfax and remained in operation as a tobacconist until the mid 1990s but has changed use several times since then. The 'Oxford' name was used with several different Savory's product lines there being an 'Oxford' line of pipes which included the 'Oxford Memory' and the 'Oxford City', and a tobacco blend also called 'Oxford Memory'.