Time travel

A unique exhibition featuring 100 railway posters from bygone days is currently on display at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre. Railway enthusiast Mike Fowler, who contributed many of the artworks, shares their remarkable journey.

People often ask me, how has a 1933 poster survived in such good condition? There can be a variety of reasons, but the most common one goes back to their original distribution.

Posters were usually distributed to the relevant stations for the staff to post on the boards. Often there were some to spare. These were destroyed, put away in cupboards, put in a loft or taken home by the staff. There they remained until many years later, when they were discovered and acquired by collectors like myself.

If you look at late Victorian street scenes, in even the smallest of towns, then the poster stuck on a blank wall is very evident. They will often promote a product or occasionally an event. They were usually stuck on a blank gable end wall of a terraced property.

Often an enamel or cast iron sign ‘Bill posters will be prosecuted’ or ‘Stick no bills’ would be seen nearby. Later these walls were covered with a large wooden framed hoarding and administered by the owner whose name was at the top.

Following very closely was the enamel advertising sign, such as Fry’s Chocolate or Kiwi shoe polish. Of course, this is a completely different collecting subject to railway posters, though related in many ways.
The railways did not have a problem locating their posters as they had plenty of wall space at even the smallest of stations.

Generally, they put up their own poster boards with the company name above. This would be an enamel sign in red for the Great Northern Railway and different shades of blue for the LNER and British Railways. However, they did also just paste them on the brickwork and I suppose that added a touch of brightness to the environment.

Public information
By the turn of the 19th century, posters were giving the travelling public important information in the form of timetables. Some were of an incredibly small typeface in order to show all the possible journeys.
There were also statements relating to luggage, care to be taken on railway property, theft from carriages and a new 1929 national parcels service. These are known as letterpress posters.

The first known Lincolnshire railway poster was a promotion for Mablethorpe in 1909, now in the National Archive. Its imagery is very appealing and the language quite sophisticated with the use of ‘salubrious’. Shortly afterwards, the GNR commissioned John Hassell to promote Skegness. He came up with the Jolly Fisherman in 1910.

The Jolly Fisherman remained synonymous with Skegness, right into the late British Railways era. The image was re-worked by Frank Newbould in 1933 and two of his styles are in the Grimsby exhibition.

Imaginary art
During the 1930s and up to about 1965, we are in the era of simply beautiful and imaginative artwork by creative artists such as Frank Mason, Kenneth Steel, Freda Marston, Fred Taylor, Tom Purvis, Jack Merriott and Tom Eckersley. All these and more are represented in the exhibition and worthy of a close inspection.

Colourful Lincolnshire promotional posters continued through the 1970s and early ’80s and several of these are displayed in the exhibition. I particularly like ‘Rails round Lincs’ although no artist is credited, but it was commissioned by Regional Railways in 1980. You will notice in these 1970s examples that photography is used more and more and that Skegness hardly gets a look in.

Early railway posters served a number of different purposes with each important in their own way. They came primarily in three sizes: Royal, Double Royal and Quad Royal.

The main poster size was the Double Royal (1,100 mm x 649mm) often promoting a destination for a day trip or holiday.

These were generally very colourful and gave an ideal impression of the venue. In promoting a destination they were very successful and continued well into the late 1970s British Railways era. They were occasionally black and white line drawings, such as Lincoln’s Exchequer Gate by John Moody in 1948.

Less common was the use of photography. The wartime image promoting Skegness by Witherington was the very first poster I collected. In this form it was used for several seaside resorts by simply creating a different image through the window. I have a version for Great Yarmouth where the couple are reversed on opposite seats.

Poster promotions
Up until the early 1970s, it was the excursion that brought tourists to mainly the Lincolnshire coast where Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe and Skegness were the destinations.

A study of the promotional excursion posters reveals some interesting facts. Firstly, the journey from the Midlands could be very long; it was at a very reasonable price; the rolling stock could be quite ancient and without toilet facilities.

Coupled with the poster would be a handbill describing the excursion. These were available in the booking office of most relevant stations and are highly collectable today. There are some very rare examples on display in the exhibition.

In the days of 3rd class compartment coaches, there would be seating for six people on two bench seats. Opposite was a luggage rack and a mirror and either side was a picture known as a carriage print. These were often painted by the same artists who created the posters. They were another form of location promotion and 15 different views from 1934 were produced promoting Lincolnshire. The entire set is on display in the exhibition.

Collecting railwayana
I started collecting Lincolnshire railwayana on 5th October 1970. This was the day the 76 miles of the East Lincolnshire main line from Grimsby to Peterborough closed along with the branches to Mablethorpe and the Bellwater Junction to Lincoln line. Of course the Skegness branch just survived thanks to the influence of Billy Butlin.

The main source of Lincolnshire objects at that time was direct purchase from British Railways using the Stores Controller in York, former railwaymen and the two Scunthorpe Auctions in 1971 and 1972. My first object was a ‘Booking Office’ cast iron doorplate from Burgh-Le-Marsh station, which I still have today.

The auctions as we know them now had not really become established and so collecting was by buying, selling and swapping between collectors.

I purchased and myself removed several cast iron signs and enamel station names from East Lincolnshire stations. The latter being about £5. Again I still have those today.

Up to 1979, posters had never been part of the collection. But one day at Collectors’ Corner I was offered an LNER Skegness poster for 50p. I described this earlier and it’s the wartime photographic example of the couple in the coach compartment.

After then, my poster collecting became dormant until about 2010 when at the Derby Auction for Sheffield Railwayana I came across Jack Merriott’s work of Somersby Rectory. At £300 it was a shock but I purchased it!

Not long after, Richard Furness’s book Poster to Poster: The Eastern Counties came along and I now knew what I was looking for. The rest remains history, during which time I added further Lincolnshire posters and relics to the collection.

From 1990, I began giving Lincolnshire railway history talks in the county and beyond and continued until the Covid crisis. During this time I met many other collectors and dealers, including my good friend Bob Smith of the Original Railway Poster Company, who added to my knowledge and collection.

My greatest pleasure of collecting all forms of railwayana has been sharing knowledge and objects with others. To this extent I contributed to major exhibitions in Alford in 2015, Horncastle in 2021 and ELR50 in Wainfleet in 2020.

However, now a final ambition has been realised with the Grimsby Exhibition, which I hope visitors will enjoy. Several of the posters will be for sale after the exhibition and I hope they will go to good homes and continue to be cherished.

The Rambles in Lincolnshire exhibition is at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre until 4th May. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm. Admission free. For more information call 01472 323560 or visit www.fishingheritage.com

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