Military postcards cover more than a century of service life, from Victorian-era regiments to the two World Wars and beyond, taking in warships, uniforms, regimental scenes, camps and everyday military life.
Where a card was actually sent, the back is the part people linger over. Postcards were the quickest way to get word home, and a posted one carries a postmark giving the day and often the hour, with a few lines underneath in somebody's own handwriting. A son writing to his mother, a husband to a wife, a friend promising to write properly when there was time. Whoever wrote it expected it to be read once and put in a drawer, and here it still is a lifetime later, saying the same thing to whoever picks it up next.
Royal Navy warships are one of the biggest subjects in this collection. Before the First World War the fleet was public news, and photographs of battleships, cruisers and destroyers were printed as postcards and sold in huge numbers, which is why so many have survived. A fair few of the ships pictured were lost within a year or two of the photograph being taken, and cards showing them are collected on that basis.
Regimental and uniform postcards are the other mainstay, showing servicemen in dress uniform, on parade or posing for formal portraits, a popular postcard style from the late Victorian era right through to the mid-20th century.
Postcards linked to the First World War also appear here, including the ornate silk embroidered cards made by French and Belgian women for Allied servicemen, and the pre-printed Field Service postcards soldiers used to reassure family they were safe without needing censorship.
Postcards from other conflicts and eras, including the Boer War, the Second World War and National Service, appear throughout this collection too, and we add new stock regularly.
