Today we celebrate the fact that April is not just a month, but a name, and especially popular for girls born in that month. And despite some people thinking it is an old fashioned name, it is still being used in fiction and on film.
An unusual set because it was an export issue only. And our World Tobacco Issues Indexes both tell us just that it was "Sm. Brown Gravures, Bd. (25) Export."
Our subject, Miss April Claire, is also unusual, for I cannot find her, all I know is on this card, that she appeared at Drury Lane and the Winter Garden. The other ladies are, for the most part, unknown to me as well, though several of them seem to be models and even mannequins, which was the term then for a catwalk style of model - but maybe you can flesh them out a little more. I do know that card 10. Miss Ivy Close was a film star in the silent era, though she got there by winning a contest, and that card 16, Miss Miriam Sabbage was in another contest, run by the Daily Mirror, where she was voted the most beautiful woman war worker - though it only calls it "a big beauty competition" on the card. I also have a suspicion that card 11. Miss Ursula Morton is actually Miss Ursula Moreton - encouraged by the fact that the card mentions dancing, and the Russian Ballet.
As the set is hard to come by, and also to make it easier for me to hunt them, here is a list of everyone in it :
- Miss Elsie Cadman
- Miss Edith Ashley
- Miss Margery Hall
- Miss Heather Tracy
- Miss Molly Malone
- Miss Doreen Crosley
- Miss Gabrielle Gilmore
- Miss April Claire
- Miss Rene Clama
- Miss Ivy Close
- Miss Ursula Morton
- Miss Joyce Barbour
- Miss Gordon
- Miss Maureen Shaw
- Miss Winifred Davey
- Miss Miriam Sabbage
- Miss Bernardine Wallace
- Miss Nancy Rigg
- Miss Stephanie Stephens
- Miss Stella Pierres
- Miss Thelma Bayly
- Miss Mary Mullen
- Miss Kendall Storey
- Miss Joyce Williams
- Miss Mamie Whittaker.