A G S & Co, Bristol

A G Shortman & Co published hundreds of real photograph postcards of Bristol, and at least a dozen of Brislington.

The 1914 edition of "Kelly's Directory of Bristol" lists "Shortman A. G. & Co. wholesale stationers" in business at 113 St Thomas Street, Bristol (page 267).

The leading supplier of real photograph printing machines to the postcard publishing industry, Ellis Graber of Tunbridge Wells, regularly advertised in the annual British Journal Almanac. Between 1913 and 1933 the adverts cited notable customers that used their machines, and Les Waters has published a list of them. Shortman. A.G. & Co, Bristol, had bought more than one machine, and was included in Graber's adverts from 1918 to 1921 (Waters undated, page 19). Waters points out that we shouldn't expect the adverts to name every customer, and neither should we see the date range as precluding previous and subsequent use of the machines, which were robust and built to last.

Waters provides a wealth of information on Graber's machines, which produced real photograph postcards directly from a negative as early as 1909. A model advertised in 1910 printed them at a rate of 1,000 per hour, and could also print lines of text or images from a block on the reverse of the postcard. By 1912 the "E Graber Acme" could print from four negatives simultaneously, boosting production up to 8,000 postcards an hour (even so, it could cost-effectively work with a print run of just 50 postcards). This innovative company continued to trade until the death of its founder, Ellis Graber, in 1946.

The bibliography below has a link to Water's paper at a website celebrating Cambridgeshire's old photographs and photographers - Fading Images.


Brislington postcards (all in the "Chatterton Series")

These postcards have been sequenced in the order a visitor might see the sights, travelling on the Bath Road coming from Bristol, and occasionally exploring side roads.

Some notes

The only example seen so far of the postcard of Talbot Road (number 274) is a misprint - the negative was printed back to front, so the image is reversed (left to right). This isn't a difficult mistake to make when the printer is unfamiliar with the location.

Although the large gaps between series numbers are filled by postcards of other places, it's practically certain there are some Brislington postcards yet to be catalogued.

Ken Taylor


Bibliography

Waters, Les undated, Ellis Graber, an Unsung Hero of the UK Postcard Trade, Cambridgeshire, Fading Images, https://www.fadingimages.uk/EllisGraber.pdf (accessed 24 September 2022).