The Postcard
A postcard that was printed and published by J. Salmon of Sevenoaks, England. The card was posted in Torquay on Tuesday the 9th. September 1924 to:
Mr. & Mrs. Wood,
Park View,
Station Road North,
Leigh-on-Sea,
Essex.
The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Mrs. Wood
c/o Mrs. Sawyer,
Higher Lincombe Road,
Torquay.
Dear George & Topsey,
Mrs. Sawyer and I arrived
quite safely here.
It is a lovely place.
I will send you a letter
later when I have something
to say.
Love to all from both,
Mother".
Torre Abbey
Torre Abbey is a historic building and art gallery in Torquay, Devon. It was founded in 1196 as a monastery for Premonstratensian canons, and is now the best-preserved medieval monastery in Devon and Cornwall.
The monastery was disestablished in 1530.
In addition to its medieval and Georgian rooms, Torre Abbey is known for the formal gardens on Abbey Park and Meadows, for the third largest art collection in the county of Devon, and for regular exhibitions by contemporary artists.
The main abbey comprises two Grade I listed buildings. Though the church is little more than a ruin, the west and south sides of the cloisters are still standing.
The gatehouse dates from around 1380, and the barrel vault above the chapel, formerly the guest hall, dates from the 15th. century.
The tithe barn, built along with the abbey in the early thirteenth century, is known as The Spanish Barn after it was used for fourteen days to hold 397 prisoners of war from the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Around 1740 the buildings underwent extensive alterations, giving them a Georgian remodelling that is mostly intact today. The Cary family invested in further reconstructions throughout the 19th. century, including the construction of a small brewery.
Torquay
Torquay is a seaside town in Devon, England. It lies 18 miles (29 km) south of the county town of Exeter, and 28 miles (45 km) east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay and across from the fishing port of Brixham.
The town's economy, like Brixham's, was initially based upon fishing and agriculture; however, in the early 19th. century it began to develop into a fashionable seaside resort.
Later, as the town's fame spread, it was popular with Victorian society. Renowned for its mild climate, the town earned the nickname the English Riviera.
The writer Agatha Christie was born in the town and lived at Ashfield in Torquay during her early years. There is an "Agatha Christie Mile", a tour with plaques dedicated to her life and work.
The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived in the town from 1837 to 1841. This was on the recommendation of her doctor in an attempt to cure her of a disease which is thought likely to have been tuberculosis.
Her former home now forms part of the Regina Hotel in Vaughan Parade.
J. Salmon Ltd.
Alas, J. Salmon no longer produce postcards. Having churned out small coloured rectangles of card from its factory in Kent for more than 100 years, the company stopped publishing postcards in 2017.
The fifth-generation brothers who still ran the company sent a letter to their clients in the autumn of 2017, advising them that the presses would cease printing at the end of 2017, with their remaining stock being sold off throughout the following year.
The firm’s story began in 1880, when the original J. Salmon acquired a printing business on Sevenoaks high street, and produced a collection of twelve black and white scenes of the town.
In 1912, the business broke through into the big time by commissioning the artist Alfred Robert Quinton (1853 - 1934), who produced 2,300 scenes of British life for them up until his death.
From Redruth to King’s Lynn, his softly coloured, highly detailed watercolours of rosy milkmaids, bucolic pumphouses and picturesque harbour towns earned him a place in the hearts of the public, despite references to Alfred's 'chocolate-box art' by some art critics.
J. Salmon also produced photographs and cheery oils of seaside imagery captioned with a garrulous enthusiasm: “Eat More Chips!”, “Sun, Sand & Sea”, “We’re Going Camping!”
It commissioned the comic artist Reg Maurice (who often worked under the pseudonym Vera Paterson), to produce pictures of comically bulbous children with cutesy captions, alongside the usual stock images of British towns.
It was this century’s changing habits – and technology – that did for Salmon. Co-managing director Charles Salmon noted:
“People are going for shorter breaks,
not for a fortnight, so you’re back home
before your postcards have arrived."
He barely needed to say that Instagram and Facebook had made their product all but redundant, almost wiping out the entire industry in a decade.
Michelle Abadie, co-director of the John Hinde Collection, said:
“When I heard the news, I was
actually surprised they still existed."
John Hinde was once J Salmon’s biggest rival; it sold 50-60 million postcards a year at its peak in the 1960's, but it, too, shuttered four years previously. The licensing for its rich archive of images was sold off, and repurposed in art books.
However, in one sense, the death of the postcard is overstated. Like vinyl records, our fetish for the physical objects we left behind is already making its presence felt.
Michelle Abadie points out:
“If you go into Waterstones now, they
sell lots of postcards of book covers.
The idea itself isn’t dead – as a
decorative object, people still want
them.”
Developing Civil War in China
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 9th. September 1924, marines from the United States, Great Britain, Japan and Italy were deployed in Shanghai to protect their nations' interests as civil war appeared imminent in China.
The Kohat Riots
The day was also the start of the Kohat Riots in North-West Frontier Province British India. The total casualty-count was 155, of which the casualties of Hindus & Sikhs were more than three times those of the Muslims.
A Long Wait
Also on the 9th. September 1924, President Calvin Coolidge waited for four hours in the rain to greet the round-the-world flyers at Bolling Field in Washington, D.C.
Jane Greer and Two Others
The day also marked the birth of:
- Jane Greer, actress, in Washington, D.C. Jane died in 2001.
- Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, in Salt Lake City.
- Rik Van Steenbergen, cyclist, in Arendonk, Belgium. Rik died in 2003.