Speaker: Helen Baggott
Meeting format: Zoom
The stories hidden on the back of a postcard
What can an old postcard tell us? Far more than the few lines written on the back, as Helen Baggott demonstrated in a fascinating presentation exploring the lives hidden behind postcards from the early twentieth century.
Helen explained that her talks are connected with postcards sent around the period of the First World War, as well as the years immediately before and after. Rather than collecting cards simply for their pictures or condition, she researches the people who sent and received them. A name, address, postmark, stamp, photograph or even a few initials can provide the starting point for a remarkable investigation.
Postcards were effectively the text messages of their day. They were cheap, quick and used for everyday communication: announcing an arrival, giving the time of a train, arranging a meeting or simply saying that a longer letter would follow. Businesses used them too, advertising sales and catalogues or receiving requests from customers.
For family historians, these seemingly ordinary communications can provide a very personal glimpse into people's lives.
Starting with the census
Helen's usual starting point is the census. Once she is satisfied that she has identified the correct person, she creates what she described as a "snapshot" family tree. There is no need to trace every branch back for generations; the objective is to establish enough of the immediate family to understand the people and events surrounding the postcard.
From there, other records can take the research in unexpected directions.
Helen also stressed the need for sensitivity. Research sometimes uncovers suicide, mental illness and other difficult episodes. Although she may be able to trace families forward to living generations, she deliberately avoids publishing information about living descendants. Instead, she publishes the historical story and allows descendants to discover the research themselves.
Stamps, postmarks and pictures
Even the postage can provide evidence. Helen explained how changes in postal rates can help date a postcard when its postmark is difficult to read. An unused postcard may also have the required postage printed upon it, helping to establish when it was produced.
Researchers should also be cautious when dating the photograph on the front. A postcard might remain on sale for years, so the date it was posted does not necessarily indicate when the photograph was taken.
This is particularly important when using old postcards as illustrations of ancestral streets, villages and buildings.
Lucy's journey to Canada
Helen's first major story began with a postcard showing the Empress of Britain. It had been sent in December 1911 by Lucy Partridge to Mrs Baldwin in Tenbury, Worcestershire.
Lucy described reaching Halifax and continuing her journey through Canada. She had recently married Charles, a farmer, and the couple had emigrated in search of a new life.
Canada was actively encouraging immigration during this period and extensive advertising promoted the opportunities available. Railway companies and shipping lines presented attractive images of prosperous farms, impressive towns and the possibility of a better future.
For families experiencing unemployment and difficult conditions in Britain's industrial towns and cities, such promises could be enormously appealing.
Helen nevertheless reminded members just how courageous emigration could be. Those leaving Britain often abandoned their family, friends and established support networks. Sometimes a husband travelled first and his wife and children followed; others made the journey alone.
For Lucy and Charles, Canada did not become a permanent home. After only a couple of years they returned to England with their young son.
Researching Lucy's family, however, revealed that she was not the first generation to attempt a new life in North America.
The extraordinary settlement of Rugby, Tennessee
Lucy's parents, William and Elizabeth, had emigrated during the early 1880s. They were comparatively prosperous farmers and landowners and travelled to Rugby, Tennessee.
Rugby was an experimental settlement created by Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's School Days. Hughes was particularly concerned about the prospects of younger sons from prosperous British families who, unlike the eldest son, might inherit relatively little.
His idea was to establish a community offering opportunity and a degree of equality in America.
Despite its pioneering reputation, Rugby was considerably more sophisticated than the expression "log cabin" might suggest. The settlement contained substantial wooden buildings together with a church, library and facilities for recreation and community activities. By its opening in 1880 there were almost seventy buildings.
Unfortunately, building a new community proved much easier than making it economically successful.
The climate caused agricultural difficulties. An attempt to establish tomato growing and a canning industry failed, and the cannery eventually became a laundry. Typhoid struck the settlement and its hotel suffered disastrous fires.
Lucy's family remained for several years and two of her brothers were born there, but eventually they too returned to England.
Thomas Hughes had hoped to live at Rugby himself, but his wife would not leave Britain and he never settled there permanently. Other members of his family did, however, and his niece became an accomplished amateur photographer, leaving an important visual record of the community.
By 1900 Rugby had largely emptied. Fortunately, its historical importance was later recognised and surviving buildings were preserved and restored.
From a "log cabin" to Parliament
One of Lucy's brothers born at Rugby was Archer Baldwin.
Helen noted that accounts of Baldwin's life sometimes describe him as having been born in a log cabin, although the substantial wooden houses shown during the presentation suggested that this description might create a rather misleading impression.
His subsequent life provided the link to the title of Helen's talk.
Baldwin served during the First World War and received the Military Cross. His brother Hubert was buried at Gallipoli. Archer later entered politics, became a Member of Parliament and was knighted in 1958.
Helen's attempts to investigate his association with the National Farmers' Union also demonstrated an important point about archive research: sometimes the expected records simply cannot be found.
Although biographical information connected Baldwin with the NFU and farm workers, an enquiry produced little additional material. Helen ultimately found herself providing the organisation with a short biography based upon her own research.
Her investigation of the family subsequently formed the basis of an article for Discover Your Ancestors.
Hollywood from the back of another postcard
Helen's second major story began with a postcard of the SS Canada, sent in June 1906 to Miss C. Willis of Leamington. It came from her brother William, an engineer whose work regularly took him to America.
Following the wider Willis family led Helen to Peter Willis, born in 1913 and educated at Stowe. Among his contemporaries was David Niven, and Peter subsequently pursued an acting career that took him to Hollywood.
His films included Call It a Day with Olivia de Havilland, The Dawn Patrol with David Niven, Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone, and Idiot's Delight with Clark Gable. He also appeared in a Sherlock Holmes film.
Passenger lists allowed Helen to follow Peter across the Atlantic, including a journey aboard the Aquitania in 1936 and his return aboard the Paris the following year.
That return journey was associated with tragedy. Peter was in a relationship with actor and playwright Frank Vosper. During the voyage Vosper climbed through a window from a saloon, apparently believing there was a deck outside, and was lost overboard. Because the men's relationship could not openly be acknowledged at the time, contemporary accounts did not necessarily reflect what friends understood about their relationship.
Peter's career later moved away from acting, although he remained in show business and became a television producer.
Once again, an apparently ordinary postcard had opened the door to an extraordinary story.
Handwriting can be evidence
One of Helen's simplest examples provided perhaps one of the evening's best research techniques.
A postcard sent in 1907 to Gertrude Bateman of Gloucester contained the wonderfully immediate message:
"Meet me tonight, Thursday, at 8.15, and not 8.30."
Unfortunately for the researcher, it was signed only with initials.
Helen subsequently discovered that Gertrude married Alfred Ricketts. The marriage register contained Alfred's signature, giving Helen something unusual to compare with the postcard.
The distinctive handwriting provided the connection she needed.
As Helen explained, "the handwriting is the tangible link."
It was an excellent reminder that researchers should look beyond the information transcribed from a historical document. The original handwriting and signatures can themselves provide evidence.
Questions and discussion
The questions following Helen's presentation produced plenty of additional research ideas.
One of the first was very practical: where does Helen find her postcards?
Second-hand bookshops are one source, but for anything specific she particularly recommended eBay. Her useful tip for family historians was to establish saved searches using surnames, villages, street names or other locations.
A relevant postcard may not appear for months, but an automatic alert means there is no need to keep repeating the same search. Occasionally, the result could even be a postcard sent to an ancestor or to somebody living at an ancestral address.
Keith Mercer asked about Helen's success rate in identifying the people named on postcards. Helen explained that she can identify many of them, sometimes surprisingly quickly. If a card initially produces little information, however, it may simply be put aside.
This led to a valuable general lesson for family historians: failure to find something today does not mean that it cannot be found tomorrow. New collections, indexes and digitised records are continually becoming available.
Members also discussed collecting postcards for the pictures on the front. Old views can be invaluable for reconstructing ancestral communities, showing streets before redevelopment, buildings that have disappeared and landscapes before modern development.
Helen enjoys comparing historic postcards with present-day views and, where possible, visiting the location and photographing it from approximately the same position.
Are you a deltiologist?
The discussion also introduced an unfamiliar word to many members.
A person who collects and studies postcards is a deltiologist, while the hobby itself is called deltiology.
Asked whether this made her a deltiologist, Helen was reluctant to describe herself as a conventional postcard collector. Traditional collectors may value rarity and excellent condition; Helen's interests are rather different.
A tatty, creased postcard covered in handwriting may be far more valuable to her research because it is the story behind the card that matters.
Members contributed examples from their own collections, including family correspondence rescued from house clearances, cards exchanged between Britain and America and postcards depicting ancestral streets, churches and buildings.
The discussion itself even produced an unexpected connection when a member mentioned George Hayhurst, a Yorkshireman associated with Swanage. Further information revealed that he had died at Island View, a house Helen immediately recognised through her own childhood and current research into Swanage.
It was an entertaining example of the unexpected connections that can emerge whenever family historians start exchanging information.
Much more than a picture
Helen's presentation demonstrated that postcards deserve to be treated as historical documents rather than merely attractive illustrations.
The recipient, sender, address, message, handwriting, postmark, postage and photograph can each provide evidence. More importantly, a postcard can give us something that formal records often cannot: a brief glimpse of an ordinary moment in someone's life.
Census returns provide invaluable snapshots, but ten years separate most censuses and an enormous amount can happen during that period. Passenger lists, newspapers, probate records, marriage registers, postcards and other sources can help fill those gaps.
Even postcards concerning people unrelated to our own families can help us understand the communities in which our ancestors lived. They show the streets they walked along, buildings they knew, ships they travelled on and the everyday way in which people communicated.
Helen's research demonstrated how one small piece of card can lead from Worcestershire to Canada, from an experimental community in Tennessee to the Palace of Westminster, or from a transatlantic liner to Hollywood.
Perhaps the perfect conclusion came from Helen herself:
"There's no shortage of postcards, there's only a shortage of time."
Judging by the questions and lively discussion that followed, quite a few members may now be looking at the postcards in their own collections — and those appearing on eBay — rather differently.