The Collection

460 New Postcards of Dover

A local man had been collecting postcards of Dover for over 25 years. In 2007 he offered to let the museum look through his massive collection and to buy the ones it didn’t have. 460 were selected by the curatorial staff as important images worth adding to the collection

This was an opportunity for the museum to acquire a unique collection of images of Dover, assembled over many decades, all of which are rare enough not to feature already in the museums significant collection, which itself has been built-up over the last 150 years.

Significant contributions to the purchase price came from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and Dover Town Council.

Most of the 460 postcards are hand-printed photographs by local photographers printed on postcard-back card, rather than being true, mass-produced, lithograph-printed postcards. Consequently, most are fairly rare; for example, a postcard of the 10 officers of the Ancient Order of Philanthropic Prussian Hermits would only have been printed in small numbers by photographer John Gibson of Snargate Street, as the market would be limited to perhaps 2 or 3 copies to each officer.

All subjects are included in the collection, including school classes, meetings, special occasions, street scenes, buildings, industry, sports, etc. Especially good are the views of local shops and businesses and the military cards. A number of views of obscure streets are also featured, for which the museum previously had no images at all.

As well as a being an important local archive, events of national importance are also covered, such as Bleriot’s flight across the Channel, pioneer Channel Swimmers, the arrival of the bodies of First World War heroes Nurse Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt, and the funeral procession and burial of the dead from the famous Zeebrugge Raid of St. George’s Day 1918.

The Museum is committed to providing full access to all its collections and has identified its picture collection as that most in demand by the public. To this end, the museum has been digitising all its pictures and objects and currently provides a public image database with almost 40,000 images included. The public can search, select and print photographs from the database, along with relevant information files currently being compiled by volunteer researchers.

The museum is currently devising a project to give worldwide access to this database via the internet.

Postcards of Dover shops; Kennett’s the grocer, Clark’s the butchers and the Central Fruit Stores

Postcards of the Funeral Processions of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt on arrival at Dover 1919

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