The Postcard
A Comic Series postcard that was published by Bamforth & Co. Ltd., Publishers, of Holmfirth and New York. The artwork was by Taylor.
The card was posted in Bournemouth on Sunday the 10th. September 1939 to:
Miss Bertha Hoar,
'Framber',
Connaught Road,
Fleet,
Hants.
The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Many thanks for your
thoughtful visit.
Rather windy & stormy
here today.
Will write a letter later
this week.
Nellie".
Bamforth & Co. Ltd.
Bamforth & Co. Ltd. was a publishing, film and illustration company based in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England.
The company was started in 1870 by James Bamforth, a portrait photographer in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. In 1883 he began to specialise in making lantern slides, and In 1898 the company started making silent monochrome films with the Riley Brothers of Bradford, West Yorkshire, who had been making films since 1896.
James Bamforth's expertise with lantern slides proved invaluable in the film making. They used a camera developed by Bradford cine inventor Cecil Wray. This partnership with Riley and Bamforth, known as "RAB Films" lasted until 1900.
Though film production was restarted in 1913, it was again stopped in 1915, when the film production was changed to the newly named Holmfirth Producing Company, which quickly moved operations to London. The last Holmfirth film, Meg o' the Woods, emerged in February 1918.
In 1910 Bamforth & Co. Ltd. started making illustrated 'saucy' seaside postcards which, like its films, were exported worldwide for sale. The company was bought out by the Dennis Printing Company of Scarborough during the early 1980's. Following the demise of Dennis, the Bamforth & Co. name, with rights to over 50,000 postcard designs, was purchased by Ian Wallace in 2001.
Although the Bamforth company was best known in the United Kingdom for producing a wide range of topographical and tourist postcards as well as 'saucy' seaside postcards, what is less well known was their rich history of filmmaking.
The popularity of their films, in particular those featuring a character named Winky, led to a film industry in West Yorkshire which for a time surpassed that of Hollywood in terms of productivity and originality.
It is also believed the company invented film editing with the release in 1899 of The Kiss in the Tunnel.
In September 2010, on the 100th. anniversary of the original launch of the postcards, the new owner Ian Wallace relaunched the publication and sale of the postcards, with the Jane Evans Licensing Consultancy.
Currently Mercury Print & Packaging in Leeds has the exclusive right to reprint and distribute the images.
Canada's Declaration of War
So what else happened on the day that Nellie posted the card?
Well, on the 10th. September 1939, a special morning edition of the Canada Gazette published the Canadian declaration of war against Germany.
Signed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, and bearing the seal of Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir, it proclaimed that:
"A state of war with the German Reich exists,
and has existed in our Dominion of Canada
as and from the tenth day of September, 1939."
The Accidental Sinking of a British Submarine
Also on that day, off the coast of Norway, the British submarine HMS Oxley was mistaken for an enemy by HMS Triton and sunk. There were only two survivors.
Cynthia Lennon
The 10th. September 1939 also marked the birth in Blackpool of Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of John Lennon. Cynthia died in 2015.
Wilhelm Fritz von Roettig
The day also marked the death at the age of 51 of Wilhelm Fritz von Roettig. He was the first German general to die in World War II. He was ambushed by Polish troops near Opoczno.
