A Rare Gold-Toned Amateur Photographic Postcard – Park Drive, Grimsby, with Jubilee Tower, c.1902–1905

A particularly fine and unusual photograph showing a horse-drawn trap on Park Drive, Grimsby. A woman holds the reins and drives the trap, while a man sits back-to-back behind her, facing in the opposite direction. The Jubilee Tower, erected in 1897 to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, stands prominently in the background.

The image is remarkable both for its subject matter and its beautiful golden-brown tonality. The reverse identifies the photographic paper as Paget Prize Self-Toning, manufactured by the Paget Prize Plate Company. This specialist collodio-chloride photographic paper used silver-based image formation with gold-assisted toning to produce its distinctive warm tones.

The postcard may well be the work of a local amateur photographer. Paget's self-toning paper was particularly suited to photographers wishing to produce their own photographic postcards without undertaking a separate toning bath.

Its excellent condition is especially noteworthy. It is believed to be the only example of a gold-toned Paget photographic postcard currently represented in the Grimsby & Cleethorpes Museum collection.

The reverse also provides an important dating clue. Its instruction, "This space, as well as the back, may be used for communication, but for inland only", reflects the introduction of divided-back postcards in Britain in 1902, when messages were first permitted alongside the address. The relatively young appearance of the trees along Park Drive is also consistent with an early twentieth-century date. The park itself opened in 1883.

An outstanding photographic record of Edwardian Grimsby, combining an evocative local scene with a rare example of early photographic printing technology.