The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted in Walthamstow on Monday the 13th. January 1930 to:
Miss M. Durrant,
7, St. John's Terrace,
King's Lynn,
Norfolk.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"View of London - first
of a series.
Ian Spence,
59, Grosvenor Park Road,
Walthamstow.
Jan. 13th. 1930".
The Hotel Cecil
The Hotel Cecil was a grand hotel built between 1890 and 1896 between the Thames Embankment and the Strand in London.
It was named after Cecil House, a mansion belonging to the Cecil family, which occupied the site in the 17th. century. The hotel was largely demolished in 1930, and Shell Mex House now stands on its site.
-- History of the Hotel Cecil
Designed by architects Perry & Reed in a "Wrenaissance" style, the hotel was the largest in Europe when it opened, with more than 800 rooms. The proprietor, Jabez Balfour, later went bankrupt and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The hotel was requisitioned for the war effort in 1917, and the very first headquarters of the newly formed RAF took up part of the hotel from 1918 to 1919. A green plaque was affixed just inside the outer Strand entrance to the building in March 2008, proclaiming:
"The Royal Air Force was formed
and had its first headquarters here
in the former Hotel Cecil 1 April 1918".
Below it is a brass plate stating:
"This plaque was unveiled by the
Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief
Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy to mark
the 90th anniversary of the
formation of the Royal Air Force".
The hotel was the base for a Palestine Arab delegation that arrived in London in August 1921 and spent almost a year there, protesting in vain against the proposed terms of the British Mandate for Palestine.
The Cecil was largely demolished in Autumn 1930, and Shell Mex House was built on the site. The Strand façade of the hotel remains (now occupied by shops and offices), with, at its centre, a grandiose arch leading to Shell Mex House proper.
After Shell Mex relocated, the block became known as 80 Strand, and is occupied by a number of companies including AIMIA, The Financial Times, Penguin Books, Dorling Kindersley and Rough Guides.
Mickey Mouse
So what else happened on the day that Ian posted the card?
Well, on the 13th. January 1930, a newspaper comic strip adaptation of the Disney character Mickey Mouse first appeared.
John Cobb
The day also marked the death at the age of 61 of John Nathan Cobb.
John Nathan Cobb (1868 – 1930) was an American author, naturalist, conservationist, canneryman, and educator. He attained a high position in academia without the benefit of a college education.
In a career that began as a printer's aide for a newspaper, he worked as a stenographer and clerk, a newspaper reporter, a field agent for the U.S. Fish Commission (USFC) and its successor the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.
He also worked as an editor for a commercial fishing trade magazine of the Pacific Northwest, and as a supervisor for companies in the commercial fishing industry.
He took photographs during his extensive travels documenting scenes and people.
In 1919, Cobb was appointed the founding director of the College of Fisheries at the University of Washington (UW), the first such college established in the United States.
John Nathan Cobb was diagnosed with heart disease and he suffered a heart attack in the summer of 1929. He was ill for many months, and spent his final days in the warmer climate of La Jolla, California, where he died on the 13th. January 1930, at the age of 61. His death was prominently noted in local newspapers and in numerous fisheries publications.
