Our second card showed Leicester, and, on this card, running right up the middle, even named as so, is the River Soar. Now that waterway is a tributary of the River Trent, but as it flows in a northwardly direction, past Leicester, it becomes part of the Grand Union Canal.
In fact the earliest time that the river was mentioned as becoming converted into a canal was in 1634, and King Charles I even provided the money for the works to take place, but none ever did, and it was not until 1794 that a Leicester Canal, almost forty miles long, was opened. And, in 1814, that was linked to the Grand Junction Canal, and renamed as the Grand Union Canal, but nothing to do with ours, or at least not until 1931, when our Grand Union Canal acquired the length of its namesake, plus the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canals, from the Grand Junction Canal Company.
This set has a sibling, an unnumbered version, which is exactly the same pictures and text. Both are first recorded in our original reference book RB.17 as :
- 54. COUNTIES AND THEIR INDUSTRIES (adopted title). Small cards. Fronts in colour. Backs in blue, with descriptive text. Home issues. Series of 25.
A. Unnumbered, see listing below. Date of issue not known.
B. Numbered. Previously recorded as issued in 1914, but according to Messrs. Player`s records issue took place in November, 1919
In the alphabetical listing below, number in B is given in parenthesis.
1. Bedford (11)
2. Cheshire (18)
3. Connaught (12)
4. Cornwall (22)
5. Devonshire (14)
6. Dumbarton (20)
7. Edinburgh (15)
8. Hampshire (25)
9. Kent (5)
10. Lancashire (8)
11. Leicester (24)
12. Lincolnshire (7)
13. Monmouth (2)
14. Munster (10)
15. Norfolk (21)
16. Northampton (9)
17. Northumberland (3)
18. North Wales (1)
19. Nottingham (19)
20. Perth (4)
21. Roxburgh (13)
22. South Wales (16)
23. Stafford (10)
24. Ulster (23)
25. Yorkshire (17)
Whilst typing this out I did rather wonder why the compiler didn`t make the numbered version A and use the numbers on the card, rather than assigning numbers to unnumbered cards and working out their alphabetical order ? And the only reason I can think of is that they were sure the unnumbered set was issued first, maybe even in 1914....
This order continues into our World Tobacco Issues Index, where the pair are recorded as :
- COUNTIES AND THEIR INDUSTRIES (A). Sm. (25). See RB.17/54 and H.349 ... P72-28
A. Unnumbered.
B. Numbered.
This is much the same in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, just shortened, to :
- COUNTIES AND THEIR INDUSTRIES (A). Sm. (25). See H.349 ... P644-066
A. Unnumbered. B. Numbered.