Here we have another interesting branch of thematic collecting, showing representations of animals not as living creatures, but on signs.
This is the most known group of sets, possibly because there are so many sets of them, and they are relatively modern. There are others though - Churchman`s "Curious Signs", a set of twenty-five, from 1925, which includes an ape, a boar, a bull, a cockerel, a dog, a duck, a dolphin, an eagle, a goose, a grasshopper, a lamb, an ostrich, Pegasus, and three squirrels - and Wills "Heraldic Signs & Their Origin", which brings us two eagles, an elephant, a martlet, a pelican, and a talbot hound, though we featured the sign of the anchor as our Card of the Day for the 27th of November 2022
So to today`s card. And a note, that, for the moment, this page has become the home page for the early Whitbread Inn Sign sets, for today`s card is from the second series - the earliest we have so far featured. However, when we show a series one card that what follows will relocate.
Series one, and two were made of metal, aluminium, and series two was the last series to be only available in metal form - series three being created in two forms, metal, as here, but also as cards. And after that, the metal was dropped, and the signs were only cards. There is a reason for this, for when the first and second set was produced, paper was still scarce, after the Second World War, but thin aluminium sheet was more readily available, and, it must be said, this material looked and felt more like an actual inn sign, which were hand-painted on either wood or metal.
The scheme began in 1949, when the Whitbread Brewery, at Wateringbury, in Kent, thought it would be interesting to make collectable plaques of some of the signs which hung outside their public houses. The cards were given away, just handed over the counter, when you bought a pint of beer. Now there are two schools of thought to that statement - the first has it that each card was only available at the inn where that sign hung, to get the rest you had to travel to all the other public houses, and buy a beer - whilst other collectors say that the cards were left at each pub in bundles, and you just got the next one at random.
The first ten cards of series one, issued in 1949, show inns in Hastings and St. Leonards on Sea in Sussex, cards eleven to fourteen from Rye, also in Sussex, and cards fifteen to fifty from Kent. In our second series, issued in 1950, they are again a mixture of inns in these two counties alone. And in the third series, issued in 1951 they are just from Kent. The fourth series, issued in 1953, actually contains an almost identical swan to the one on our card, as no.41, but if you look it has a larger eye - and the back tells us that sign hangs at the Swan Inn at Wickhambreaux near Canterbury, Kent, not our Wittersham near Tenterden in Kent. Neither this fourth series, nor the fifth, which was issued in 1955, includes the names of the counties.
This was the end of that line - what came next was called the "Special Issue of Four" and these are very often wrongly grouped online, though it is easy to tell the proper cards as the backs all say they are "A Special Issue of Four". And they never contained The Britannia Inn, which was a special, one off, issue, only available at the Britannia Inn, at the Brussels Exhibition, in Belgium, in 1958. So the cards which did form the actual "Special Issue of Four" were :
- William Caxton, Tenterden, Kent
- The Ordinary Fellow, Chatham, Kent
- The G.I., Hastings, Sussex - card no.1 from the first series of signs
- Queen`s Head, Maidstone, Kent - card no.23 from the first series of signs
The first three cards were all designed by Violet Rutter, whilst the fourth was by Harvey James. And though cards 3 and 4 had been issued before, I cannot trace cards 1 and 2 in any other sets - but maybe you can?
In our original British Trade Index part II, all these seven sets are catalogued together, as :
INN SIGNS. Md. 76 x 51 ... WHI-1
- First Series. Nd. (50). On aluminium
- Second Series. Nd. (50). On aluminium
- Third Series. Nd. (50). On (a) aluminium (b) board
- Fourth Series. Nd. (50). On board
- Fifth Series. Nd. (50). On board
- Special issue of Four. Nd. (4). On board
- The Britannia Inn. Unnd. (1). On board
Note : Signs were also issued uncoloured by certain Inns on the backs of calling cards, as pin-ons, etc.
In our original British Trade Index part three, item 7 was updated, and a later edition of three cards issued in 1958 appear. Item nine, though, is a repeat, of the note at the end of the above listing - and they are out of date order, for they are much earlier, being designed as business cards, having the sign of the inn on the front and the proprietors details on the reverse. In fact a lot of collectors believe that it was the making of those that set the idea of making the coloured series off. So the listing from British Trade Index three reads :
7. The Britannia Inn. Back (a) plain (b) printed, with reference to Brussels 1958 Exhibition.
8. Whitbread`s Inn Signs - 1958. On board. Series of 3.
1. Duke Without a Head
2. The Railway
3. The Startled Saint
9. Black and White reproductions, partly with proprietor`s names on reverse. 4 known.
1. Oak & Ivy - Hawkhurst
2. The Old Cock, Hildenborough
3. Spread Eagle, Chatham
4. Trafalgar Maid (back blank)
Section 9 is added to in our original British Trade Index part IV, with :
9. Black and White reproductions. Add :
5. Camden Hotel, Pembury
6. The Woolpack
This was the end of the line, for a while, but in 1973 the idea was restarted, with cards called "The History of Whitbread Inn Signs”. Eventually there would be eleven sets under this title, and we featured one of those as our Card of the Day for the 28th of November 2023
There is also a reference book about the signs - called "Whitbread Inn-Signia" by David Cockell and Chris Laming. This was first issued in 1996, and it is quite scarce but we have a copy in our library, for members to borrow - just quote the code of W.22.