Due to a last minute cancellation because of illness by our speaker Ann Wise (on Dating Photographs using Costume),  Alan Barwick stepped into the breech and gave an illustrated talk on W.J. Drewett postcards at our March meeting. The talk took the form of a tour around many of the West Sussex villages which he produced postcards of.

W.J. Drewett was born in c1869 at Steyning where his father was a butcher and cattle dealer and later manager of Steyning Market. He was producing postcards of Steyning and Bramber by 1904 and in c1906 opened up a shop in Church Street, Storrington. Just before the second World War he moved back to Steyning and retired a few years later.

He used to cycle, with his camera,  around the villages which lie within a 10 mile radius of Storrington. He went north as far as Kirdford, west to Bignor, south to Angmering and east to Clayton. Some of his glass plate negatives survive today in the West Sussex Record Office and at Steyning Museum. If anyone knows more about W.J. Drewett and his family we would to pleased to hear from you.

Being based most of his life at Storrington, he produced more postcards of this village than any other; probably well in excess of 150. Next comes Steyning with over 100 postcards.

Up until about 1914 he used to stamp his name on the back of the postcard. The postcards from about 1905 onwards can be identified by their distinct captions which contain squiggles beneath them. Prior to 1905 the squiggles didn't exist.

As well as the usual street scenes he also produced postcards of special events which included funerals, the Steyning walking race, pub outings, club dinners, etc. He also took photos of football and cricket teams and disasters such as house fires, and the floods at Bramber in 1904 and 1925. He would even take photographs of people walking to church and no doubt sell the postcards to the same people the following Sunday.

There is no identifiable numbering system to the postcards he produced so its not possible to say exactly how many postcards he produced but its probably in the order of 1,000. Some postcards were reprinted up to 3 times usually with revised captions. All the postcards he produced were real photographs and were probably only produced in batches of 6 at a time.