A Merry Christmas from "Genealogy in Hertfordshire"

A Merry Xmas from Fred Spurgin

"F S" produced several different sets of Xmas cards. In 1906 they were published by the London View Co. Ltd. and  appeared with a holly border. The series "Kiss me under the Mistletoe" may have been published the same year.

In 1907 (after the London View Co had closed) the publisher (if any) was Vertigen and the message appears in a box surrounded with holly.

            

In 1908 (when the Crown Publishing Co, St Albans, existed he appears to have produced no Xmas Cards,

In 1909 Spurgin Xmas cards were published by Watkins & Krake and were signed using the name Dauber.

In 1910 similar cards were produced to the previous year, but published by the Avenue Publishing Co in the Paternoster series.

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After a rather disruptive year - when the Genealogy in Hertfordshire site, and this blog, got very neglected - I am now hoping, to get the "Catalogue of F S Post Cards" (related to the Crown Publishing Company of St Albans) into a better long term structure (see latest Updates). In addition I hope to include some updates on other projects relating to Hertfordshire.

Have a good relaxing Christmas

Chris

A Merry Christmas from "Genealogy in Hertfordshire"

Hi All

Enjoy your Christmas and keep up your own researches into family and local history.

Yes I am still here even if my web site and blogs have been rather inactive during 2018 Other matters have meant that I have not been as active on line as I would like. My top priority has been to keep fit and over the year I have relaxed by doing more walking in the wonderful countryside around Tring - and have lost over 10 kg. 

To remain mentally active I have been continuing to work on local history. I have been trying to identify the artist who published the "Karaktus" comic cards in St Albans 110 years ago. The story involves a young and highly innovative artist who sometimes signed his cards "F S" and a whole networks of mainly small short-lived companies (such as the Crown Publishing Company of St Albans). 

Recently I came across firm evidence that "F S" also published some comic cards (such as the one above) under the pseudonym "Dauber" and was also responsible for the Infantastic series of cards of round-faced children. Certain details make it virtually certain that "F S" is Fred Spurgin, who was one of the top comic card artists of the 1910s and 20s.

Over the holiday period I will be actively updating (and correcting) the information I have on the "F S" related comic cards in the light of the latest discoveries. Of course you are welcome to enter the world of Edwardian comic post cards by "F S" at any time as long as you don't mind the occasional "work in progress" warnings.

So relax and enjoy the Christmas break.

Chris

A humorous look at supplying milk to St Albans 100 years ago.

The Milkman who supplied families daily - probably by "F S" circa 1907

My Great Grandfather, Jacob Reynolds, ran Heath Farm Dairy which supplied milk to St Albans. He had a great sense of humour and his scrapbook contains many jokes about milkmen.

Some time ago I came across a comic post card by Karaktus showing a milkman which had been published in St Albans and I decided to investigate. I have still not traced who the artist was but the other artist was one who normally signed himself "F S". Recently I have spent far too much time tracking down "F S" and will be reporting on his probably identity later.

Unfortunately "F S" did not sign all his post cards but I am sure Jacob would have liked the above - where the grin on the face of the milkman makes one wonder whether he "supplied" the families who are following him down the road!

Milkman post card currently on sale on ebay

One issue that often came up was the quality of the milk, and the second card (no connection with St Albans) shows why people were worried.

The issue of whether the milk had been tampered with came up in 1881 when the St Albans Town Clerk, Issac Newton Edwards, (Featured in Hertfordshire Men of Mark) arranged to milk to be sampled and the test- as published suggested that some of the milk from Heath Farm Dairy had been tampered with. However it turned out that the town clerk had recently acquired a herd of cattle and was supplying milk to the town himself - and it was the tests that were suspect ond not the sample! MORE

Comic Postcard with a link to St Albans

When I am doing research relating to Hertfordshire I frequently create offline pages to my web site to make it easier to transfer online so that it can be shared. Some years ago I discovered that an artist using the name "Karaktus" had published some unusual comic cards in association with a company Crown Publishing Ltd. More recently I discovered that his fellow artist was "F S" and I started to research this artist as well.  Last year I decided I needed to find a more relaxing area of historical research - and what more relaxing than looking for evidence among literally millions of comic post cards.

While there are Hertfordshire connections the research has taken me deep into the problems of publishing postcards in the early 20th century - where there was a massive boom in communication (in some way paralleling the boom in digital phones). Everyone tried to get onto the bandwagon - and while some companies were spectacularly successful far more went bankrupt.

While the research is undoubtedly of more relavant to the post card historian, I have decided to put it online - as even if you are not so interested in the history you might enjoy seeing a large collection of comic post cards from the 1905-1913 period.

See the Comic Cards

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Who was "F S" and did he work in St Albans with "Karaktus"?

Sometimes when you are doing research you get carried away with a side issue - and my recent investigation into the identity of a post card artist signing himself  "F S" is a good example.

Card by Karaktus

Some years ago I discovered some unusual comic cards published around 1908  by the short-lived Crown Publishing Company of St Albans and drawn by "Karaktus." As a result I have so far identified almost all his designs (I have details and in most cases copies, of 28 out of 30 different cards) However I made no progress in discovering the identity of "Karaktus."

Card by "F S"

In my research I discovered that the Crown Publishing Company also produced cards in the "Crown Series" some of which were signed "F S" and it seemed likely "F S" and "Karaktus" knew each other (unless they  were the same artist using two different pen names,) Perhaps, I thought that if I could identify "F S" (who I now realized has some links with the St Albans company) it would lead me to "Karaktus".

"FS" card from USA

My first online searches showed that the majority of post card sellers made no attempt to identity "F S," while those who did came up with either "F Stone" (who signed a small number of cards published in about 1906) or "Fred Spurgin." (a very well known post card artist whose cards started to appear in about 1910, including many produced in the First World War). However the work of these two artists were stylistically quite different to that of "F S."  In addition "F S" cards involved many different named publishers (or none), and were not always signed - although in some cases the same card was issued, with  or without signature, by a different publisher. In many cases the cards were not used (so no postal date), and often the publisher information on the back was not immediately available.

What was going on? I started a comprehensive search over a number of months and have now identified well over 100 different images - and I am still no wiser as to who he is - except that based on style of artwork and subject treatment I think "F S" is unlikely to be "Fred Spurgin".

Unsigned card probably by "F S"

What I guess happened is the "F S" was a freelance artist, who started to produce comic postcards for the London View Company in 1906 - shortly before the company closed down. Following the closure of LVC he was probably involved in setting up the short lived Crown Publishing Company in St Albans in 1908-9. By about 1910 some of his cards were being published in the USA and the same images also turned up in the UK at about the same time - often with no publisher name..

For more Information see

Comparison of "F S" images with other artists

A summary of "F S" post cards. (link from above)

Unsigned - by F S ?

If you have any information which would help me identify "F S" or "Karaktus" or the subjects, publishers and earliest postal dates of their cards I will be grateful. If there is sufficient interest when I have time I will add a catalogue of card series, individual card titles, publishers and dates, for the benefit of other collectors.

Note on images: Many of the images come directly from the web (particularly auction sites) and I have deliberately reduced the image size to thumbs 250 pixels wide. (If I already own a copy clicking a blue edged image will give a much larger image). For cards currently on sale you could start by searching ebay collectibles using:

postcard ("F S", "F Stone", "Fred Stone") (comic, artist, social) 

At the time of posting this search identified 22 "F S" cards with a typical price of about £4.00