Bamforth & Co: Postcards & Films

While Bamforth & Co is remembered for their "saucy seaside postcards" (postcards with bawdy & risque captions sold on promenades and piers to Victorian English folk on vacation 'seaside'), the story doesn't begin there - that's the end, so to speak.


James Bamforth was a photographer in the 1840's and he founded the company in founded the company in 1870 (in Holmfirth, Yorkshire), specializing in Life Model lantern slides.



According to Magic Lantern:

James Bamforth specialised in the mass production of photographic "Life Model" slides, often based on religious themes or moral instruction. He was no doubt influenced by the nonconformist, chapel based religion of that area, so it is somewhat ironic that the company should become more generally famous in the 20th Century for saucy postcards.

Bamforth built a studio in Holmfirth, and designed and painted the backcloth's and sets. Members of his family and other local people posed for the photographer for little or no pay. In many ways the Life model slides were made like early movies which they predated by 20 years or more. It is not surprising that Bamforth's became involved with movie making. ".....he chose homely themes, due to his use of neighbours as models and sitters...Thus it came about, to his lasting credit, that the simple characters of his stories combined with the perfect naturalness of the leading figures in them, has endeared his life model sets to millions of children and adults." Photogram February 1899

Many of the slides illustrated hymns and other popular songs. With each slide depicting a verse, they were designed for audiences to sing along. They were such a great success that Bamforth build a factory in 1898 and began mass production.

Since the magic lantern slides told simple tales, and Bamforth had everything required -- a skilled photographer, studio & production space, a pool of performers, costumes, and experienced in plot construction -- it seemed only natural that Bamforth would begin making films.

Screenonline says:

Possibly in response to this expertise, Riley Brothers of Bradford, who had been involved with moving picture technology since 1896 and had already begun to make films of their own, commissioned Bamforth in 1898 to produce further films to be sold exclusively to purchasers of their equipment. Although the exact business relationship between the two firms and the production dates of the films remains unknown, the subsequent advertisement of these productions in a 1903 Hepworth catalogue as 'RAB' films acknowledges their partnership.

(For more on Riley, see here.)

While Bamforth only made films for a few years (during two brief periods, 1898-1900 and 1913-1915), he made quite a few of them. Enough for film historians to call his films as the earliest examples of British comic film. His biggest star was Reginald Twisk, who played a Chaplin-like character known as Winky.

Some of his films were inspired by the magic lantern slides, including the themes and stories themselves. While I haven't been able to see many of Bamforth's films (Screenonline only allows Brits in schools to do so), it seems the morality lessons have taken on a more cheeky air.

Two must-see movies are:

Women's Rights (1899): Gossiping housewives find themselves in an awkward predicament.

Lover Kisses Husband (1900): Comedy short in which an adulterous tryst is foiled by a cunning husband.

In 1914, the war itself affected both film making and the focus of Bamforth & Co. The popularity of lantern slides had dimmed with the popularity of films, but movie production slowed due to World War I, and Bamforth & his sons focused on the growing market for picture postcards.



Not surprisingly, the sentimental was popular, and some of Bamforth's song & hymn lantern slides were converted into postcard series. Often called Bamforth Song Sets these cards are highly collected themselves, and these collectors consider the postcards the best characterizations of the soul of Bamforth & Co.

But with war also comes the need for comic relief, and while the English "seaside holiday" may have been an invention of the Victorians, the seaside postcards became extremely popular during and after the First World War.



So much so, that by the end of the war Bamforth & Co had moved away not only from the sentimental but from photographic images and the company began to really focus on the artist drawn risque comic postcards.



Derek Bamforth once explained the success of the cards:

'The more vulgar, the better'

He said: "We never publish anything obscene, we know where to draw the line. But the more vulgar the card, the better it sells."

And so it went, for decades.


Until the 1980's when James Bamforth's grandson retired and the company was sold to Scarborough printing firm ETW Dennis. In September 2000 ETW Dennis went into receivership and the Bamforth name and the copyrights to thousands of designs were bought by Ian Wallace, owner of The Beatles Shop, for an undisclosed sum. Now Bamforth designs can be found in new limited edition sets and licensed as Wallace plans to entice a younger audience who has never seen these gems:

"It's the humour of Carry On films and Benny Hill - they're just plain daft."

However, not everyone sees the images as a "bit of fun". Critics in the past have branded them sexist relics, best left in the past.

"OK some people think they're a bit sexist, but I think they're just fun," said Mr Wallace.

"Anyone who takes the images too seriously and doesn't laugh at them is a bit sad."

He is adamant that he can find a new audience willing to appreciate the cards' humour.

"I think there's a lot of young people who haven't seen this kind of stuff," he said.

"The images have been out of the public eye and hopefully they will come across as being fresh and fun."

Mr Wallace, I couldn't agree more.


For more (do you need more?!) on Bamforth, see Remembering Bamforth & Co. Ltd..

Antique and vintage Bamforth postcards can sell for cheap on eBay.