The unpromising picture postcard that offers up a bag of history .....

 As picture postcards go this one of the Midland Hotel wouldn’t win any prizes.

It maybe that the quality was poor to begin with or that repeated “touching up” of the original did not do it any favours, but I can’t say I would be pleased to get this one through the post.

That said it is an interesting one for a number of reasons.

First it postdates 1907, because until that date the church of St Peter had stood on the site of the landscaped area.  Nor can it be after 1924, because there is no evidence of the cenotaph, flanked by the twin obelisks, which was unveiled in 1924.

That said I rather think we are dealing with old stock, because it carries a post mark with the date of April 1925, a full ten months after the cenotaph, and been built

And also carries a stamped reference "London Defended" at the Wembley Stadium.

This was a series aerial displays performed from May 9th to June 1st 1925, by No. 32 Squadron RAF at the Wembley Stadium. 

Similar to the display they had done the previous year, when the aircraft were painted black, it consisted of a night time air display over the Wembley Empire Exhibition flying RAF Sopwith Snipes which were painted red for the display and fitted with white lights on the wings, tail and fuselage. 

The display involved firing blank ammunition into the stadium crowds and dropping pyrotechnics from the aircraft to simulate shrapnel from guns on the ground, while explosions mimicked the effect of bombs being dropped into the stadium.*

Leaving me just to remark that the card was sent to Vienna and the message is in German.

So that pretty much is that.

An old iffy picture postcard, offers up a view of St Peter's Square, long gone with a bit of a story spanning Vienna and London.

The postcard was marketed by Tuck and Sons, under the heading of Manchester, LMS, with the note that “THIS HOTEL IS ONE OF THE "MIDLAND" HOTELS AND IS MANAGED BY ARTHUR TOWLE, CONTROLLER, L.M.S. HOTEL SERVICES, ST. PANCRAS, N.W. 1”

Location; Manchester

Pictures; the Midland Hotel, circa 1907-1924, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org, and poster of London Defended Torchlight and Searchlight spectacle, The Stadium Wembley May 9 to June 1, 1925, Scanned from original document by me Jimmy3d0 (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

*British Empire Exhibition, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire_Exhibition