Colour WW II humourous cartoon postcard printed by Bamforth & Co. Ltd., Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England. COMIC series No. 1771 "I SAID CLOSE UP - NOT CLOTHES UP!!" Women soldiers formed up. One of the women pulls her skirt up to show the sergeant. The rear is blank. Bamforth's History Born in Yorkshire in the 1840's James Bamforth came to note as a photographer in the late 1880s when he started to produce magic lantern slides. Working at his Holmfirth studio, Bamforth photographed family members and local performers against painted backcloths for his slides. The slide sequences, depicting temperance and moral themes, were displayed to audiences with the support of a narrator. By the late 1890s the slides were illustrating popular songs and hymns, each slide depicting a verse and designed to be sung along to by the audience. The song slides were a great success and in 1898 Bamforth built a factory extending production to a massive scale. His background coupled with a certain artistic flair and an interest in photography made possible a departure from the family business. His first major enterprise was the production of illustrated lantern slides, a form of entertainment held all over the country. He later introduced photography, replacing the painted slide which proved to be highly successful. In 1904 his factory expanded with half the floor space taken by photographic studios as an average of 600 takes a year had to be illustrated. The Bamforth Postcard evolved from the slide and by the early 1900's had become increasingly popular. By 1905 he had branches in New York and London, although the head office remained in Holmfirth, and by the end of WW1 20,000,000 cards were being printed every year. By 1960 Bamforth Postcards had become the world's largest publisher of comic postcards. Bamforth's Postcards were the market leader throughout the twentieth century. Their artists poking fun at every aspect of human activity. They commented on politics, fashion and the changes in social activity and perhaps most famously they invaded the toilet and the bedroom. Sex, in various guises and disguises, was the main subject from the start of the genre. In 1910, Bamforth's introduced their first artist-drawn comic postcards employing just four staff artists - Douglas Tempest, Arnold Taylor, Philip Taylor and Brian Fitzpatrick - who contributed the bulk of the output. In addition various freelance artists were used on an irregular basis, including the famous Donald McGill. The staple characters were extremely fat ladies accompanied by small, ineffectual and hen-pecked husbands. Thin, unattractive girls looking in vain for a boy, entire families, courting couples and men resting from work. The picture said it all, and the cards struck a chord. In 90 years approximately 50,000 comic designs have been published - the success was phenomenal. It was at this time that Bamforth made his first silent movies. It was a natural move; Bamforth was a pioneer, he had the photography and production skills, the studio space, the painted backcloths, and the local pool of potential performers. The films, like his Lantern Slides, told short and simple tales, many with a comic theme and some were developed from his slide series. Bamforth produced films for just four or five years through to 1902/3 (though he did return briefly to film just before WW1). With his sons now involved in the business the focus was on the growing market for picture postcards. Unsurprisingly, some of the song and hymn Lantern Slides were re-used for postcards and the idea developed into the enormous Bamforth Song Set series. Leading up to and through the 1914 1918 First World war the Song Sets did much to reflect the mood of the era; sometimes poignant, sometimes considered kitch or sentimental, but always of interest. Today these sets of two, three or four postcards are both readily available and much collected. Towards the end of the war, Bamforth & Co moved away from photographic images and towards artist drawn comic postcards. However, while the company produced a prodigious volume of comic postcards (some suggest as many as 100,000 designs), it remains the Song Set series which best characterize the soul of this pioneering company. Bamforth & Co continued in business until the 1980's when James Bamforth's grandson retired and the company was sold to ETW Dennis. In September 2000 ETW Dennis went into receivership and the rights to the Bamforth designs were bought by a Mr Ian Wallace.