GWR publicity collection
Timetables
The story of the development of railway timetables is a fascinating and complex subject, far beyond the intended scope of this page which simply seeks to illustrate those publications of the Great Western Railway which are held in our collection. It is interesting, however, to sketch out some background and highlight how the coming of railways to Britain literaly changed time.
A brief history
At first, handbills, newspaper advertisements and posters displayed at stations sufficed to publicise early train services. As the reach of railways expanded and more services and destinations became available from the ever increasing number of railway companies which were springing up the need arose for a single reliable reference source. Thus, in October 1839, George Bradshaw produced his first book of railway timetables and maps. The railway companies were at first against this independant publication, but the story of how it became the well known and respected publication can be better told by others. Railway companies soon realised that there was merit in producing something which could be sold to prospective travellers to publicise their own services. The GWR established its own timetable department and they were responsible for the preparation of the tables themselves with advertisements and distribution being the concern of the publicity department, printing was contracted out via the stationary department.
LONDON TIME is kept at all the stations on the Railway, which is4 minutes earlier than READING time;
5½ minutes before OXFORD time;
7½ minutes before CIRENCESTER time;
8 minutes before Chippenham time;
11 minutes before Bath and Bristol time;
and 14 minutes before EXETER time.
Courtesy of the Great Western Trust
Travelling through time
Due to the rotation of the earth midday in Penzance is roughly 30 minutes behind midday in London. Time, or more specifically when the sun is at its highest point, in different parts of the country was always measured locally. This did not matter when it took many hours or even days to travel from place to place, with most people not having the means to travel far from their own community anyway. Stagecoach drivers or guards would adjust their timepiece by the odd minute or two as they travelled from town to town. Once faster travel by rail allowed greater distances to be travelled more quickly, the affect became more noticeable to the traveller. This caused great problems when attempting to specify and monitor train timings. A train travelling east or west would effectively travel through time with the guard's watch, which was correct at the start of the journey, seemingly having lost or gained a few minutes on arriving at the destination. So a train travelling at the same speed in one direction would take either a few minutes longer or less than what it did when travelling the other way. This all served to confound the best efforts at timekeeping and something had to be done. In November 1840, the Great Western Railway adopted London Time, this was taken as being the time set by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. By 1847 this standard had been adopted by the other railway companies and it had become known as Railway Time. All railway clocks, timings and timetables used this standardised time thereafter. From a few minutes before eleven o'clock each morning, all signal boxes would listen on an open telephone line for the message that it was eleven so that all clocks could be checked and re-set if required. Those country stations that were without a signal box could obtain the correct time from the guard of any train that stopped there. Passengers could be confused however as local time was still being observed elsewhere. It was not until 2nd August 1880 when London Time, or Greenwich Mean Time, was officially approved by Parliament for use across the whole of the country. GMT was then adopted by the USA on 18th November 1883, prior to that they had over 300 local times. On 1st November 1884, the Greenwich Meridian was adopted universally at the International Meridian Conference in Washington DC, USA. As a result, Greenwich Mean Time became the universal time standard and the 24 time zones were created.
We are grateful to the Great Western Trust in Didcot for making available to us a scan of the very first timetable handbill advertising the opening of the railway between Didcot and Oxford in 1844. This handbill makes fascinating reading as it highlights the differences between local time at certain stationsLONDON TIME is kept at all the stations on the Railway, which is
4 minutes earlier than READING time;
5½ minutes before OXFORD time;
7½ minutes before CIRENCESTER time;
8 minutes before Chippenham time;
11 minutes before Bath and Bristol time;
and 14 minutes before EXETER time. and London Time, with all quoted train times being London Time. The station at Culham was called Abingdon Road when first opened, and the short lived Appleford station is listed but Radley was not to open for almost thirty years.
Timetables
Time Tables books were standardised in size as being 7½" x 11½" and, whilst the printer is not recorded in some, most are noted as being printed by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London, Reading and Fakenham. The cover price of our 1923 copy was Threepence and this had risen to Sixpence a few years later and that is where it stayed with the final GWR edition being published for the period October 6th, 1947 and until further notice. These publications contained much more than just train times as they detailed Railway By-Laws and Regulations, ferry sailings, combined rail and road services, river tours and by 1939 even railway air services. Notices were included to publicise the opening or closing of stations and the two large fold-out maps at the back of the book were revised as appropriate to keep them up to date. Examples of these maps can be seen by selecting the 'MAPS' item in the ribbon bar above. There were also many pages of advertisements and the GWR lost no opportunity to promote their own hotels and other services. It will not be a surprise therefore that these books grew in thickness reaching over 280 pages by 1939. Whilst maintaining the same overall dimensions, subsequent publications were greatly reduced in the number of pages they contained. Now without the accompanying maps and devoid of adverts the copy from the Spring of 1940 consited of 118 pages. Subsequent editions were not to greatly increase in content, still deviod of maps and adverts, with the final one of 1947 still only managing 168 pages
Many services were altered or curtailed towards the end of 1939 following the outbreak of war, and it is interesting to see how things changed over the next few years as reflected in the time table books. The first edition of 1940 simply states that 'The Cross Channel Steamer Services are liable to Alteration or Cancellation without notice' making no mention of what services, if any, were still available. The Fishguard-Cork, Weymouth-Jersey and Guernsey services are all noted as being suspended with the Fishguard-Rosslare sailings being temporarily suspended. The Fishguard to Waterford route was still being advertised, with three night sailings each way per week. Most of the GWR fleet of passenger steamers was pressed into war service, still manned by GWR crew. They saw operations in the Mediterranean and at Dunkirk, operating as troop carriers or being converted for use as hospital ships and minesweepers. Sadly some were lost due to enemy action together with members of their crew. The 1945 winter edition did not see an increase in the sailings to Waterford, but three night sailings each way per week were now being advertised between Fishguard and Cork. Passenger services between Fishguard and Rosslare, and between Weymouth and the Channel Islands were still suspended. The situation had not eased by the summer timetable of 1946, but by autumn 1947 sailings had resumed between Fishguard and Rosslare and from both Weymouth and Southampton to the Channel Islands. The Irish Civil War, which took place between June 1922 and May 1923 had also caused a suspension of the steamer services between Fishguard and Rosslare. These were reported as being resumed in the October 1923 GWR timetable.
The various by-laws and terms of carriage make intriguing reading. A vast number of goods which could be carried as parcel traffic were defined in the Parcel Arrangements section which, in the 1923 edition, included sewing machines, typewriting machines, preserved horse meat, homing pigeons, and even cremation ashes (corpses were subject to special charges). By-Law number 8 is of relevance today Except by permission of a guard of a train, no person of the male sex above the age of eight years shall travel or attempt to travel or remain in any carriage or compartment of a carriage marked or notified as being reserved or appropriated for the exclusive use of persons of the female sex.
Various facilities were advertised as being available at stations in the larger pre 1940 editions, and of particular interest for Culham was the note in early timetables that Public Telegrams will be accepted for despatch. This facility had apparently ceased by 1939 but it was still noted that Horses, Carriages and Motor Cars can be loaded and unloaded.
1923 Time Tables
October 1st, 1923 until further notice
1939 Time Tables
July 3rd to September 24th, 1939
1940 Time Tables
February 5th, 1940 until further notice
1945 Time Tables
October 1st, 1945 until further notice
1946 Time Tables
May 6th to October 6th, 1946
1947 Time Tables
October 6th, 1947 untilfurther notice
Pocket timetable books
The full sized timetables were rather large and so smaller pocket sized booklets were produced detailing services for particular districts of the GWR, Culham being in the London, Reading and Oxford district. Each booklet measured 4" x 6½" and typically contained over 100 pages. Those booklets in our collection were all printed by Joseph Wones Ltd., West Bromwich, Birmingham & London and were priced at twopence.
They did not contain display advertisements as with the larger versions, but across the foot of each facing page there were various short advertising messages. These seem to have been predominantly for products of H & G Simonds Ltd., a few examples being 'Preserve your vitality - with Simonds Milk Stout', 'Simonds XXXXX Ale - a real old Berkshire brew!', The Acme of perfection - Simonds "S.B." Ale', 'The Brewery, Reading, & the Tamar Brewery, Devonport' and 'Simonds "S.B." Ale satisfies! - only good beers brewed by Simonds'. Simonds were a very large brewing company headquartered in Reading. In 1879 they opened a new brewery in Bridge Street Reading and remained there until 1978, when operations were transferred to the new Berkshire Brewery, alongside the M4 motorway. The original brewery was demolished shortly afterwards and the site redeveloped as the western half of the Oracle Shopping Centre.
Almost lost amongst the Simonds adverts there were a few for Hunt's Cider, 'Like Torbay sunshine Hunt's "Glorious Devon" Cider' and 'From sunny Paignton Hunt's "Glorious Devon" Cider'. The Hunt Family had been making cider in South Devon since 1805. Established by N.P.Hunt, the company is still run by members of his family and continues to use apples from the original 200 year old orchards.
Six privately bound Time Tables
July 18th 1932 to July 15th 1934
1923 Time Tables
October 1st 1934 to July 7th 1935
1938 Time Tables
September 26th 1938 to July 2nd 1939
Click or tap to see an enlarged image
Pocket Time Table map
Handbills and other notices
A vast number of leaflets and handbills would have been produced to advertise changes to train services during holiday periods, new or withdrawn services, and special offers or promotions. We have just a few representative examples in our collection and four worthy of particular note are shown here. The handbill detailing the services to be operated by the 'Streamlined Rail Cars' from February 3rd, 1936, is a useful record of all the local routes served. The handbill has faded rather, but on the second side it can be seen that the service stops at Culham. The August Bank Holiday 1939 alterations would have been the last such before the outbreak of war.
Culham is mentioned on the handbill from September 1947 advertising cheap day tickets from Oxford. It would appear that it would have been one penny dearer to travel to Abingdon than to Culham, and two pence dearer to travel as far as Appleford Halt. Christmas 1947 saw what would probably have been the final changes to GWR services before nationalisation of the railways the following January. Of particular local interest is the handbill from 1969 advertising two Sunday trains for Culham, apparently after much local lobbying. We are grateful to Nigel Spencer who was a student at Culham College at the time for kindly donating this item to our collection in 2019.
Click or tap to see a gallery showing both sides of this handbill
Streamlined Rail Car facilities, 1936
August Bank Holiday 1939
Click or tap to see a enlarged image
Cheap Day Tickets, September 1947
1947 Cristmas Services
Click or tap to see an enlarged image
Handbill from 1969
~~~~~~ ooooooOOOoooooo ~~~~~~
British Railways Western Region timetable
September 1963 - 14 June 1964
Whilst not being a Great Western Railway publication, this timetable does have close associations with the GWR, not only in the geographical area covered but also the services advertised within. It also serves as a snapshot of a time of great change on the railways as the effects of the railway rationalisation programme proposed by Dr. Beeching were in full swing. Many services advertised, and their accompanying illustrations, would not have been out of place had this book been published in the 1930s. Within just a few years much would change with services being withdrawn and miles of track closing.
As it is not a Great Western Railway timetable, this fascinating book is looked at in greater detail on the hidden 1963-4 British Railways timetableClick or tap to reveal our hidden page about the 1963-4 timetable page.
