Now our older readers may remember, when they were young, the country blanketed in snow and the Christmas mail struggling to get through.
In fact there are several cards with views of just such a thing, the most famous of which is in "Royal Mail", this being card 43, of the "G.N.R. Mail Train Snowed Up". The text tells us that "During severe and prolonged snowstorms, blocks on the railway occur all over the country, especially in the North, the blocks sometimes lasting for days. At such times the postal officials are hard put to it. Abandoning the railway, they utilize the service of carts, sleighs, and boats, when practicable. Postmen struggle through the storm on horseback and even on foot, bearing the mailbags to their destination."
There are other snowy scenes in that same set, but the final line of it are a good link to our card, which expands on that tale and tells us of a man, not even a postman, but a guard, who died because of his devotion to getting the post through the snows. Sadly, whilst it tells us the year, it does not identify him, so I started looking into it. I did find out that the winter of 1836 saw Britain blanketed in heavy snow, and buffeted by winds, which was most unexpected as for the last fourteen years there had been no snow at all. Also that the worst of these storms was on Christmas Eve, when blizzards and drifts were reported right across the south of the country. There was even an avalanche, with fatalities, in Lewes, in Sussex, which you can read about at HistoricUK/LewesSnowdrop. However there was not a trace of this gallant guard. So does anyone out there know about him? If so, do tell.
The story of W. H. & J. Woods appears elsewhere on this site, with their first ever issue "Types of Volunteers and Yeomanry", which was our Card of the Day on the 19th of October, 2023.
However we do not know very much about this set, which appears in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes as simply:
ROMANCE OF THE ROYAL MAIL. Sm. 63 x 38. Nd, (25)
It is a very attractive set, and was a one off, only issued by Woods. However as to why they issued it I have no idea.