"Your King & Country Need You" - Scarratt's Call to Arms

The Barracks, Derby, No. 993, publ. 1915
Albumen Glass Negative, by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © and collection Brett Payne
This is the second of the two glass plate negatives purchased recently on eBay, both of which turned out to be originals from Derbyshire's first locally based picture postcard publisher, Frank W. Scarratt. It is not over-exposed, as the previous one was, and therefore required little in the way of digital manipulation to produce the image above, apart from inversion and desaturation of the original 24-bit colour scan. It depicts a group of young men waiting in line at the gates of Normanton Barracks, Derby, attended by a single soldier standing to attention, and with several onlookers - among them women and children - to the left of the entrance.

Gateway and Entrance, Normanton Barracks, 1915
Image © and courtesy of Picture the Past Ref. DRBY000681
This particular postcard is not listed in Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, the authority on Scarratt's work, so presumably not many examples of the postcard print have survived intact. I did find a rather inferior, unattributed version of the image on Picture the Past (Ref. DRBY000681). The barracks were built between 1874 and 1877, and became the headquarters of the Sherwood Foresters in Derby until 1963; they were demolished in 1981-1982.

Detailed examination of the posters pasted to the columns of the gateway reveals the announcement of the Embodiment of the Territorial Force and the General Mobilization of the Army Reserve, these having taken place in August 1914. I can't claim to have read all that from the indistinct scanned image, but there was enough to make out the general form of the poster and the Yanks, naturally, came to the rescue once again for the rest. I found exact facsimiles of three, and one similar to the fourth, in the fine digitized collection of war posters and postcards from the University of Minnesota Media Archive.

Territorial Force, poster 43x34cm, 3 Jun 1914
General Mobilization Army Reserve, Poster 54x41cm, 11 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive
Scarratt had maintained his prolific output during 1914 (139 views), somewhat reduced to 79 views published in 1915, but this was his first postcard which betrayed any sign that there was a war on. Judging from the dates of publication of the posters and the postcard's series number, it could have been taken any time from late 1914 until mid-1915.

Your King & Country Needs You
Another 100,000 Men Wanted, poster 76x51cm, Aug 1914
A Call To Arms, poster 152x102cm, 24 Aug 1914
Images © and courtesy of University of Minnesota Media Archive

Great War recruiting posters
Images © and courtesy of Library of Congress
There is another poster or signboard at the right hand edge of the postcard view. Sadly, it's not clear enough to make out anything much, but it might well be a recruiting poster along the lines of the two displayed above, of which there were a huge variety produced during the course of the war.

Initially I wondered if the glass plate was a copy negative made from a postcard, since an artifact on the image appeared as if it had resulted from a fold or crease. However, closer examination of the emulsion side of the glass negative shows a slightly darker stain over the bottom quarter.

Donington Hall and Entanglements, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Scarratt produced very few views with subjects readily identifiable as having been taken during the Great War. Soon after the Normanton Barracks shot in 1915 he visited Donington Hall, Leicestershire, where the conversion of the grand building and estate into a German Prisoner of War camp, complete with barbed wire entanglements and sentry boxes, resulted in several published postcards (1006/1020/1021). Apart from these few examples, he appears to have left the coverage of wartime and military subjects to other local photographers such as W.W. Winter, Frederick K. Boyes, Pollard Graham of Derby, Albert Heath of Clay Cross, Henry Hinge and H.P. Hansen of Ashbourne, Fred Holbrook of Belper, Alfred Rippon of Chesterfield.

Sentry Box & Entanglements, Donington Hall, No. 1020, publ. 1915
Postcard by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
His production then dwindled considerably; 35 views in 1916, 33 in 1917, and a single view in 1918, and none in 1919, probably due to a combination of shortage of materials and a reduced market. When he resumed publishing in 1920, one of his first photographs was of the War Memorial in his home town, Barton-under-Needwood (1130).

Sepia Saturday 134: Normanton "Rec"

The photo prompt for Sepia Saturday this week titled, "Autriche Vienne," is a glass negative under the by-line of pioneer French photojournalist and press agent Charles Chusseau-Flaviens, borrowed from the George Eastman House collection on Flickr, a resource that I've often referred to myself. It was chosen by Marilyn aka Little Nell who has been very capably caretaking Sepia Saturday for the last few weeks while our usual host Alan was away.

Belvedere Gardens, Wien, October 1989
Image © 1989 Brett Payne
Fellow contributer Rob from Amersfoort has confirmed what I already suspected, that it was taken in the magnificent Belvedere Gardens in Wien (Vienna), which I had the good fortune to visit in 1989 and again in 1993. The wall in the background is that of the Convent of the Salesian Sisters, the dome of which is clearly visible at the right of my photo. Apart from the conical conifers in the sunken garden which have disappeared, and some extra ivy on the wall, little has changed over the last century.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Albumen on glass plate negative by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
(Image reversed) Collection of Brett Payne
Just as that image stirred memories, so did the recent purchase which I have as my contribution this week, although in a somewhat different manner. Like the photograph of a Viennese woman pushing her baby in an elaborate pram through the Belvedere gardens, mine too is an albumen on glass negative, showing children in a playground and including several prams or pushchairs. There are few clues to where it was taken - although it was accompanied by another glass slide clearly titled as being from Derby - and the view seemed very familiar. Once the purchase arrived I scanned it and started wading through the few books of Derby photographic views that I own, in particular the two volumes of WW Winter Collections, Maxwell Craven's Keene's Derby and Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 466 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
It didn't take long for me to locate the image I had remembered, and my purchase proved to be exactly the same scene as that of Normanton Recreation Ground in one of a series of four postcards (Nos. 465-468) produced by F.W. Scarratt in 1911. The playground was opened on 4 September 1909, and the photographs could been taken any time between then and their presumed 1911 publishing date. The example illustrated in Rod Jewell's book was posted on 30 August 1911, with this charming message:

Dear Daddy, Thank you for your PC, This is where I see-saw. I do so like it. With lots of love, Mary.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 467 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
Image © Rod Jewell from Yesterday's Derby
Postcard number 467 is a similar view of the same playground, probably taken just a few minutes before or after number 466. This image shows even more prams, including a rather small one in the foreground, presumably containing a doll, but I could find no no see-saws. Jewell notes that the boy in shorts on the right hand side must have been trespassing, as this was a "girls only" playground, and the boys' one was separate.

My grandfather Leslie Payne (1892-1975) grew up in New Normanton, but by 1909 he would have been a little old for playgrounds. His younger brother Harold Victor Payne (1898-1921) was then 11, so could easily have been in the boys' section nearby, while his cousins Harry Payne (1906-1974) and Clarence Benfield Payne (1907-1982) might well have been occupants of one of the prams, perhaps attended by one of their aunts Lily Payne (1882-1968) or Helen Payne (1883-1933). It seems likely my grandmother Ethel Brown (1894-1978) or one of her three younger brothers would also have been frequent visitors to the Normaton Rec.

Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Postcard No. 468 by F.W. Scarratt of Derby
A third postcard in the series (I haven't yet found an image of number 466) has a more general view of the "Rec," as it was commonly termed. Young trees are widely spaced on either side of a broad path, bordered by a wide expanse of lawns, and with the park pavilion in the background. The view includes several women and children out for a stroll, the former wearing the wide-brimmed hats so fashionable in the pre-War years, and a man seated on a park bench who is either lifting is straw boater to the passing ladies or shielding his eyes from the low afternoon sun.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was a little surprised at the wide variety of perambulators seen in these images, demonstrating that the ornate versions seen in studio portraits weren't necessarily just studio props.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
The small pavilion at the back of the playground, looking suspiciously like a railway carriage - Midland Railways' carriage works were located not far away from Normanton Rec - is probably where the mothers are sheltering.

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
I was also intrigued by the presence of another, slightly older, boy in this photograph. I think he's getting bored with being ordered around by those two bossy girls, and is about to poke his eye out with that large stick. Perhaps readers would like to come up with a caption or explanation of their own for this playground vignette?

Detail of Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby, 1911
Judging by the "tab" visible at the left hand edge of this glass plate negative - probably an artefact from the camera used to take the photograph - I believe this must be one of Scarratt's originals, or possibly a roughly contemporary copy made from the original for production purposes. By 1911 Scarratt had been producing postcards for only eight years, but had built up an extensive catalogue of views to rival the much larger regional or nation-wide publishers. He was Derby's first picture postcard publisher, and was in business until 1938. How an original example of his work ended up on eBay, I've no idea, but I count myself fortunate to have chanced on this fragment of Derby's postcard history.

Photographic Ephemera: Posting envelopes and their relevance

Portrait of young man by Pollard Graham of Derby
Mounted print 250 x 350mm
Last week I wrote in the article "Which sibling is it?" about the importance of dating photographs in the process of identification of subjects. Today I return to this topic with an image sent to me three years ago by Graham Pare, who provided some background to the photograph:

It is the only photo I have from this area - my father's family were from Derbyshire, my great grandfather was Francis Willoughby Pare born Belper 1909 and his father was Robert Stanley Lee Pare, born Ripley 1887 - I guess it could be either of them, depending on your estimated year? There again it could be neither of them!

Imprint: Pollard Graham & Co, Head Office 108A Friar Gate, Derby
Negative number 68770
My response was as follows:

I believe that it was taken just before or during the First World War, perhaps between 1911 and 1916. This is from a comparison of the young man's clothing with other photos in my collection, as well as the number 68770 which you quoted from the reverse, and which I think must be a negative number. I have a post card photo of my own family by this studio with the negative number 70932, which is accurately dated at 13 Jul 1917, and I think yours must have been taken not too long before this date. I think it must therefore be the father, Robert Stanley Lee Pare, born in 1887, as the son would have been a maximum of seven years old, while the father was somewhere between 24 and 29. Does this fit with any conclusions you might have come to?

Portrait of young man by Pollard Graham of Derby
Mounted print
Then two years later I heard from Graham again with an update on the portrait:

I have now discovered that it is from my mother’s side of my family and not my father’s, as I originally thought. My brother had the same photo, but smaller, in his collection, and it was still in its original envelope!

Photograph envelope used by Pollard Graham of Derby
The envelope from Pollard Graham & Co. with Head Offices and Works at 108a Friar Gate, Derby is addressed to "Mr. S. Harding, The Rookery Cottage, Brixworth, Nr. Northampton," with a Derby postmark dated 31 July 1914, and the hand written negative number 68770.

The gentleman in the photo we now believe to be Sidney Harding, my grandfather’s brother. At the outset of WW1, Sidney enlisted as a Private, regimental number 25220, with the South Wales Borderers (formerly 8145 Army Cyclist Corps) at Northampton, where he was working as an engineering apprentice. He spent periods attached to 229 Company Royal Engineers and the Machine Gun Corps. Sid was born in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, on 4th February 1894 and would have therefore been around 20 years old at the time of this photo.

How nice for Graham to have not only an approximate date for the photograph, but also an address and a positive identification for the subject. I would be a little bit wary about the date, though, because the smaller mounted print posted within the envelope may have been an additional copy ordered after the original portrait had been received.

For me, however, the second portrait and the envelope with which it is associated provide additional information, rarely seen because these envelopes often don't survive.


View Pollard Graham Studios 1878-1932 in a larger map
Firstly it demonstrates that in mid-1914, on the eve of the British declaration of war on Germany, Pollard Graham & Co. was operating, in addition to the Derby studio, seven branches in Coventry, Northampton, Burslem, Longton, Rotherham, Luton and Lincoln simultaneously. This appears to have been the peak of a rapid period of expansion for the firm, commencing around 1904. Between then and 1905 Pollard Graham opened new studios in Peterborough, Burnely, Leigh, Wigan and Northampton. Around 1910, he went into partnership with Albert Hutchinson - hence the "Pollard Graham & Co.." The Peterborough and Burnley branches were closed, followed by Leigh in 1911 and Wigan in 1913, balanced by the opening of several branches in other, presumably more attractive, towns elsewhere in the Midlands.

As discussed in a previous article, lack of business due to wartime hardships quickly caused the closure of all the branches, and the partnership between Graham and Hutchinson was formally dissolved in March 1915. The Derby studio appears to have remained in business for much of the war's duration, judging by the number of portraits of servicemen taken there (see Pollard Graham portfolio), although the number of customers was no doubt significantly reduced.


Environs of 108A Friargate, Derby, c.1912, by F.W. Scarratt
Image courtesy of Rod Jewell's Yesterday's Derby and its Districts
Secondly it indicates that the exposed negatives of portraits taken at the branch studios, in this case the Northampton branch, were sent to the firm's Derby headquarters for printing. I had already suspected this, since they included the words "Head Office and Works" in their card mounts from c.1910 to 1915, and because most, if not all, of the negative numbers used between 1895 and 1922 appear to fit into a single sequence. However, it's good to have confirmation that it was happening in July 1914. Presumably increased efficiencies in the postal service of the time made it feasible, and both economies of scale and the reduced capital requirement for individual branches made it worthwhile.

Sending large numbers of glass plate negatives from around the Midlands by post to the Derby Works in Friargate seems to me a venture fraught with risk. Perhaps I'm underestimating the transport methods available at the time, but I can't imagine that even a small proportion of losses due to breakage would have been acceptable to either the firm or their clients. I wonder, therefore, if they were by this stage using roll film rather than dry-plate glass negatives, rapid developments having been made in roll film technology on the 1890s and early 1900s. Kodak introduced 9 new roll film sizes - from 3½" x 3½" up to 7" x 5" - to the commercial market in 1898 alone. I appreciate that glass plates still provided higher quality prints, and remained popular for some years. It's clear that this subject needs more research, but perhaps a reader or two can help with some in depth knowledge of the cameras used by studios at that time.

Recent additions to the Scarratt postcard archive

In the last month or so I've added some new images of postcards by the Derbyshire photographer Frank Scarratt to the gallery. Several of these were not listed in Rod Jewell's excellent Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, so I thought I'd share these from shortly before and after the Great War, even though they are low resolution images found mainly on eBay. Their appearance in the short time since I started this project demonstrates that there are probably still many more of the "missing" numbers in the catalogue sequence yet to be "discovered."


799. Wirksworth Road, Duffield
Sepia postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1913
Frank Scarratt's bicycle is parked at the kerb and he has managed to capture several residents attending to their daily business, as in so many of his shots from this period.


Wirksworth Road in Duffield hasn't changed much in the last century, apart from the removal of a couple of large trees. I guess there are far fewer bicycles and prams, and a few more motor vehicles (Click the image for Google Maps' Street View).


902. Barton-under-Needwood Church
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1914
Three girls happily pose for Frank in this pre-war view of Barton-under-Needwood, in adjacent Staffordshire. Perhaps they were even relatives, as his father was born in Barton and he still had a cousin living there in 1901.


The parish church of St James in Barton-under-Needwood is still surrounded by substantial trees, which makes for a pleasant environment but renders Google's Street View car a little hampered.


1241. Tank, Normanton Recreation Grounds, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1925
This must be a rare one, because it fetched a pretty good price. In the Bygones section of the Derby Evening Telegraph, republished here, a staff member of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery asked readers for information about a First World War British Mark IV tank presented to Derby in recognition of the town's "fund-raising efforts to help pay for the production of Britain’s new secret weapon." Leslie Simnett of Belper recalled its arrival at the Normanton Recreation Ground on a warm sunny day in 1919 or 1920:

I cannot recollect any ceremony taking place but I do clearly remember an invasion of little and not-so-little boys, all eager to fight mock battles, happy to bang their heads and graze their bare knees on this new-found plaything.

Reg Ward of Sinfin, a former resident of Normanton, had more information about its removal:

I watched the military cutting it up with acetylene welders for scrap metal just before or in the early years of the Second World War. I used to live in the Normanton area and spent a lot of time on the park.

1403. Tennis Courts, Osmaston Park Road, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1929
I couldn't locate this scene with any certainty. I'm not even sure whether it was in Derby or at Osmaston Park, but perhaps a Derby resident can help. No doubt the tennis courts are long gone.


1481. Shardlow Road, Derby
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
With all the development that has taken place to the south and south-east of Derby in recent years, it will probably be difficult to locate this image, but I suspect it was somewhere near Alvaston.


1730. 5x-multiview, Castle Donington
Sepia postcard (Multiview with palette, narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1936
One of the popular multiviews, this contained five scenes at Castle Donington just across the county border in Leicestershire, several of which were also published as individual postcards (1537 - Hall with Deer; 1809 - Key House).

If you have any Scarratt postcards that you'd like to share, I'd be very happy to add medium to low resolution images to the gallery. (Email)

Frank Scarratt and his Derbyshire postcards

I'm a devotee of postcards. It's that simple, really. Whether a modern multi-view showing where a friend spent theirs summer holiday, a scene displaying a historically significant building, an "arty" photograph, or a "real photo" posed studio postcard portrait, of the type that feature strongly in my Derbyshire Studios portfolios, I have always enjoyed both sending and receiving them.

It is sad that, over the last decade or so, postcards have been overtaken by the universal ease of text messaging and email. As most of us know, it wasn't long ago that they were the quickest cheap method of letting your family back home know that you were okay and enjoying yourself, or perhaps merely maintaining a "between Christmas cards" correspondence with old friends.


128. Victoria Avenue, Borrowash
Sepia monochrome colour wash postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1907
Although I have featured scenic postcards previously on Photo-Sleuth, the articles have dealt largely with the subjects of the images, rather than the postcards themselves and the publishers or photographers. In this article, I'd like to discuss a Derby man whose name has become synonymous with postcards of Derbyshire. F.W. Scarrat is the subject of Yesterday's Derby and its Districts, Rod Jewell's excellent book published in 1995 by Breedon Books, featuring a wide variety of examples from his own collection. While he is arguably less well known than W.W. Winter and Richard Keene, the prolific Scarratt's postcard views spanned a period of over three decades.


96. Kedleston Road, Showing St Aiden's Church, Derby
Colourized postcard, F.W. Scarratt, 1906
Although invented in the 1870s, picture postcards only started being produced in any appreciable numbers in the United Kingdom in the late 1890s, after they had been authorised by the Royal Mail in 1894. By the time Frank Scarratt (1876-1964), a Derby stationer, started publishing postcards in early 1906 from his shop at 114 Abbey Street, using scenic photographs that he had taken himself, he was entering a well established market. Initially at least, his scenic views were printed in Germany, which perhaps offered cheaper and/or technologically superior options than were available in England at the time.


London Road, Derby
Colourized postcard, Valentine's Series, Postmarked Oct 1905
The first couple of hundred of his colourized and monochrome colour wash scenes followed fairly closely the styles of those already being produced and sold in large numbers by long stablished firms such as James Valentine of Dundee (example shown above). His townscapes generally included a view of a busy urban or quieter suburban street bordered by shops, houses or other notable buildings, trees, electricty lines and lamp posts.


148. Kedleston Road from Five Lamps, Derby.
Colourised postcard (grey frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
A large proportion of postcards from this period include a tram somewhere in the fore, middle or background, often accompanied by several other forms of transport, as well as numerous pedestrians, and Scarratt's are no different. The focus on trams is unsurprising considering the rapid expansion of municipal electric tram systems during the 1890s and early 1900s. Several writers have commented on the fact that Frank also managed to include his bicycle within the frame of a good many of his views.


107. Mill Hill, Derby
Colourized postcard (Brown frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1907
In 1907 and 1908 he produced a variety of views with simple wide brown (wood grain finish), white or gray frames, which again followed the trends set by other publishers such as Valentine, AE Shaw (Blackburn), JG Cox (Nottingham), Boots' Pelham Series, and the Grenville and Clumber Series (by unknown publishers), all of whom marketed a variety of Derbyshire scenes. During those first few years he built up a significant portfolio, with about 100 views published in 1906, 52 in 1907, and 108 in 1908, bringing the total to an impressive 260 by the end of his third year in business.


197. Rolleston Hall, Rolleston-on-Dove
Colourized postcard (Scroll frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Then in 1908 he started experimenting with a series of more ornate frames. The first of these appears to have been an oval-shaped scroll type surrounding the picture, and with a brown, wood-grain background, used in at least six different views.


293. Canal Bridge, Weston-on-Trent
Sepia postcard (Ornate frame), F.W. Scarratt, 1909
While the colourized scenes were quickly phased out, the lavishly decorated frames became elaborate and varied, and soon developed into his signature style.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1906-1910
Rings show distance from Derby, at 10 km intervals
As the distribution map above shows, he was also venturing some distance from Derby in search of subjects. The majority of his 400 odd views up to the end of 1910 were taken within 20 kilometres of his home town, but he did on occasion travel a little further afield to places of particular interest, such as Quorn (Leicestershire), Alton and Mayfield (Staffordshire) and Polesworth (Warwickshire). It is possible that these were in response to special commissions. The almost complete absence of views from east of the River Erewash, even well within the 20 kilometre radius from Derby, suggests to me that he faced some significant local competition in that direction, perhaps from a Nottingham-based publisher.


213. The Vicarage, Barton-under-Needwood
B/W postcard (Narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
Scarratt made a number of visits to the small village of Barton-under-Needwood, not far from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, possibly since he was born nearby and still had family living there. The example shown above uses the simple narrow white border style that he employed only intermittently early his career, but which from about 1914 onwards started to dominate his production.


375. Police Courts, Burton-upon-Trent
B/W postcard (Palette style), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
Introduced in 1910 a frame in the form of a painter's palette was perhaps designed to lend a more artistic air to the postcards. It was used in a number of different forms until 1913, so was obviously popular.


260. 3 Views of Derby
B/W postcard (3x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1908
At the same time Scarratt published postcards in a number of multi-view formats. The early example shown above is slightly unusual, the more common types having four or five panels with rectangular and palette-shaped outlines (below).


380. 5 Views of Derby.
Sepia postcard (5x-multiview), F.W. Scarratt, 1910
The year 1911 brought a move from Abbey Street to Normanton Road; around the same time he opened a shop in the Market Hall, Derby, which quickly became the main trading premises.

Distribution of Scarratt postcard scenes, 1911-1915 (green)
Scarratt's peak production was between 1911 and 1914, when he photographed an average of roughly 140 new scenes each year, so that by the outbreak of the Great War he had almost a thousand in his catalogue. This equates to about a dozen each month, which was no mean feat for a sole operator. The pattern of locations visited during this pre-war period roughly followed that of his first five years, with a few notable additions (Swadlincote, Kegworth, Heanor and Dovedale) and omissions (Belper, Mayfield and Alton).


Postcards published by F.W. Scarratt & Co., 1906-1938
Data from Jewell (1995)
However, output in 1915 was cut by almost half, followed by a sharp decline in production during 1916 and 1917, no doubt due to privations of war and the ensuing reduced demand. The graph above shows the variation in numbers of designs published by the firm over its 33 year period of operation, but it should be emphasized that this may not be an accurate relection of the volume of postcards ordered or sold.


1020. Donington Hall and Entanglements.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1915
During the war, his scenes on occasion show signs of the times, such as barbed wire "entanglements" around Donington Hall, then being used as a prisoner-of-war camp, and the War Cross in Barrow-upon-Soar (1916, not pictured).


1181. War Memorial, Market Place, Derby.
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1925
After the end of the war, Scarratt's postcard publishing ceased almost completely for a few years. Although he did produce a small number of cards in 1920, including a couple depicting War Memorials in Barton-under-Needwood and Burton-upon-Trent, it must have been a very lean period. When he started up again in 1924, he revisited many of his old haunts, but also started to document the changing cityscape, such as in his view of the new bus terminus at Cheapside, and a couple of the recently erected bronze and stone War Memorial in Derby's Market Place (shown above). His lavishly decorated frames and artist's palette surrounds, once a significant point of difference for Scarratt, were sadly no longer fashionable, and they were almost completely abandoned them in favour of the austere narrow white borders which had already become the norm amongst other postcard publishers.


1537. Donington Hall with Deer.
B/W postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
In the late 1920s and 1930s, a steady but much lower level output was maintained, with an average of about 40-50 new views a year. Although still visiting some of the regular locations - such as Donington Hall (shown above) where the entanglements were now replaced with peacefully grazing deer - he concentrated on the larger towns i.e. Derby, Burton-upon-Trent and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and tended not to travel so far afield as he had done previously. Judging by the fewer numbers of these later issues that are sold on eBay, I suspect that they may have been originally published in smaller batches than earlier issues.


1586. Derby in Flood, May 22nd, 1932 (Wardwick).
Sepia postcard (narrow white border), F.W. Scarratt, 1931
When Derby was inundated by floods on 22nd May 1932 Scarratt was quick to record the effect that it had on the city, and his views of a Trent bus nosing its way down a flooded Wardwick (shown above), and very soggy Sadler Gate are probably among his best known images.


762. Halfpenny Lane, Derby.
Sepia postcard (no border), F.W. Scarratt, 1913
The firm of F.W. Scarratt & Co. ceased publishing postcards in 1938, when Frank sold the stationers business to his son-in-law and retired to his home in Mickleover.

I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to Frank Scarratt's Derby postcards. Please visit the profile/gallery on my Derbyshire Photographers web site, where I have compiled a comprehensive catalogue with some further examples of his work. If you happen to have some Scarratt postcards which are not displayed, and would be interested in sharing them with a wider audience, I would be happy to receive some low to medium-resolution scans for inclusion. (Email)