World Postcard Day

Today (1^st of October) we celebrate World Postcard Day!

First introduced as a mode of communication in the UK in 1870; by 1894 they started to have pictures on.

Eventually, their popularity exploded. Designs started featuring important national themes, including major Royal Events. As they didn’t need an envelope to be sent, they were a cheaper alternative to letters as a mode of communication. By the start of World War One (WW1), over 1 billion postcards were sent annually.

While the rise of the telephone reduced the postcard’s popularity significantly, they made a comeback in the 1970’s, along with a growing interest in collecting older postcards.

This day thus offers a significant opportunity to celebrate the diverse set of postcards stored in the archives. A search with the title “postcard” on our database produced many results, each offering a snapshot of history and the personal tales, interests and lives of the people sending and receiving them.

One interesting example shows the way postcards can be used as souvenirs for important Royal Weddings. Such as this example from our collection celebrating the marriage of King George V and Queen Mary on the 22^nd of June 1911. It has on it a portrait of them both, their birthdays and a part of the National Anthem.

Postcards were also an important part of celebrations for the Coronation in 1953. They provided information on important aspects of the event, including the history of the Royal Carriage, the history of the Coronation Chair and depictions of the various Royal Castles in the UK. Each provides a glimpse into the ways postcards helped people experience and interact with such momentous occasions in British history.

The uses of Postcards extends further; during WW1 they were frequently used by soldiers on the front lines to communicate with loved ones back home. The Royal Engineers Postal Division (REPS) had to process 19,000 mailbags each week in 1917, including 12.5 million letters and 1 million parcels each week, including many postcards.

The Museum’s archives contain many such examples. We have examples where they were used by Government to vilify the enemy and also promote the expected behaviour of soldiers and their wives. One postcard shows the expectation for women to remain loyal to husbands and supportive of them going to war. Meanwhile other postcards underline how soldiers were implored to remain loyal and to “fight the good fight,” often with invocations of God and the themes of duty and country used significantly in support of this.

However, they were also used by soldiers and family members to communicate. For example, the use of beautifully woven embroidery designs. They provided an immediate contrast to the brutality of war, with such designs becoming extremely popular during the conflict.

Such was the significance of postcards that they had to be checked and potentially censored before being received by loved ones. While this was partly to prevent a leaking of troop movements, it also helped conceal darker aspects of the conflict as a way to protect public morale.

While consisting of postcards of significant national moments, our archives also contain examples of everyday messages and more generally light-hearted themes. This includes congratulations on important life events, celebrations for important holidays and general information on life events and updates.

Examples include some from Ursula Margaret Pye, a local resident, who received postcards from family on her Birthday.

This array of postcards offers an insight into the everyday life of local people. The varying themes on which they speak, the ways they communicate a vast spectrum of emotions and how they evolve are all extremely useful in developing our knowledge of the physical changes and human realities of the past.