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• IMAGES
  • Images of Culham Station
    • A tour of Culham Station
    • Culham Station through time
    • A case of mistaken identity?
    • Stations similar to Culham
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• MEMORABILIA
  • GWR publicity collection
  • Ticket collection
  • Book collection
    • GWR books and booklets
    • GWR internal publications
    • Early guides to the GWR
    • Ian Allan books
  • Jigsaw collection
    • GWR jigsaws
    • Chad Valley jigsaws
    • A.V.N.Jones jigsaws
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  • Nuneham House
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    • The "Safety Movement"
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GWR books and booklets

Promotional books and booklets

Many specially prepared books, booklets, and other publicity items were published free of charge by the Great Western Railway to promote the various services offered to businesses large and small, and to the general public. We have a just a few examples in our collection.

Handy Aids

This series of eleven booklets were adapted by publicity department staff writers from the larger travel books written by A.M.Broadley. They were were issued free of charge with just two exceptions to our knowledge, one of which is the 1915 edition of book 5 which has 'Price Two Pence' on the front cover. It would appear that when first produced these booklets were aimed at the American visitor. The Wye Valley booklet from 1915 for instance carries the heading Great Western Railway of England (The National Holiday Line) and inside makes reference to agents in New York and Toronto. Inside the back cover is a map showing 'G.W.R. routes from Ocean Ports'and on its reverse is a more detailed map of the Wye Valley. Later editions of these booklets were headed more simply Great Western Railway and contained a folding map of the GWR system at the rear, with a smaller local map at the front. Many of these booklets were to go into several editions, not going out of print until 1928.

Judging from the examples in our collection it would appear that the earlier editions of these booklets were printed on heavy hammered cream paper with a smooth outer cover. Two examples in our collection, as seen below, have sadly lost their smooth cover. At some point after 1915 the whole booklet was printed on smooth, lighter weight, paper.

A six page section outlining 'Historic Oxford' was added to the fifth edition of booklet 3 and its title amended slightly to suit. Earlier editions had a small street plan of Stratford on the page following the text, but this was moved onto the back of the G.W.R. Map of Shakespeare's Land attached to the inside front cover. There were other revisions to the content and the portrait of William Shakespeare moved from inside onto the front cover.

One slight puzzle is the booklet 8 shown below. A booklet of this name was first published sometime in 1911 for no charge but the second edition which was published later that same year was sold for 1d (one penny). Our copy has the date of May 1923 on the rear cover and Third Edition on the front, but the title page has been lost so we cannot confirm that this edition was added to the series. The copy of booklet number 9 does contain a list of all ten (at that time) booklets in the series which includes 'Cornwall and its Wild Life' as number 8. It does also include 'Welsh Mountain Railways' as number 10 but this booklet was to be published separately with 'Southern Ireland' being published as number 10.

Travel books

A number of other individual promotional books and booklets were issued free of charge, although they were advertised alongside the sale publications of the time. We have a few examples of these well produced publications in our collection.

Between the wars a number of stapled booklets were produced which dealt with popular destinations and particular areas of the country, all being well illustrated and printed. Later booklets carried very colourful wrap-around cover illustrations. Click or tap on a booklet thumbnail to see the cover opened up.

A large number of folded stapled booklets were also produced during that time dealing not only with popular destinations and particular areas of the country but also promoting golf courses, season tickets and other services offered by the GWR. The travel booklets particularly often had very colourful wrap-around cover illustrations. Click or tap on a booklet thumbnail to see the cover opened up.

Holidays

In addition to the very large Holiday Haunts handbook which was updated and published annually, this series of smaller booklets was produced and distributed free of charge. They carried no third party advertisements but sought to heavily publicise the various holiday regions served by the G.W.R. together with both the services and other publications offered by the company which were aimed at holiday traffic.

The introduction was headed The G.W.R. Holiday Lands and each region was covered by two or three pages of descriptive text and several gravure photographs, with its own list of Resorts and Quiet Retreats in ...... fully described in the G.W.R. "Holiday Haunts" Guide. They each carried a map of the GWR system at the rear. Whilst some of the later editions are dated, that from 1927 was not but it does contain a hint as to when it was published as inside it promotes two books, 'Glorious Devon' and 'The Cornish Riviera', as being ready in Spring 1928.

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