“To my dear child” ……… postcards from the Great War

I am looking at a collection of picture postcards sent by George William Oldham to his son and his wife Sally.

In total there are 131 which were posted between 1916 and 1919 while Mr. Oldham served first in England and later from 1917 in France.

I know he began his military service in A Company of the 3rd East Lancashire Regiment and later transferred to the Labour Corps.

And unlike so many young men he survived the war, returned to his home town of Blackburn and died in 1978.

The collection has recently been acquired by my old friend David Harrop who wondered what I might be able to find out about George Oldham.

Sadly Mr. Oldham’s war records have been lost, but I know he was awarded the Victory Medal and the British War Medal, and that he must have enlisted or been conscripted in 1916.

In the December of that year, he was in Plymouth and by August may have been on the Western Front.  I have yet to see all the cards which should shed light on his progress from training camp to active service.

But for now, I know that the silk postcard “To my dear child” was sent at Christmas of 1916, and in the August of the following year writing to his “Dear Sally”, he reports “Arrived safely at 2’oclock.  I think we shall enjoy ourselves”.

They had married in 1915, and their family home in Nottingham Street in Blackburn is still there, although their later home on Mill Street has vanished.

Before the war George  worked for his father in the family business of J Oldham & Son Hardware Merchants and after demobilization resumed his job as a “Buyer and Manager”, and by 1939 appears to have been in charge of the firm, describing himself as “Wholesale Hardware Merchant”.

Both his sons followed him to the business. 

His eldest son George, born in 1916 described himself as a “General Hardware Sales Manager”, and his brother who was six years younger assisted in the warehouse.

In 1921 the firm employed six men who worked alongside George William and we know their names and family background so in time it should be possible to widen our knowledge of the company and the men who worked there.

It should be a fascinating study, leaving me just to reflect that George William’s eldest son was the “dear child” who received the Christmas “silk” just two months after he had been born.

Location, Mainly Blackburn but also Plymouth and France

Pictures; postcards, 196-1919, from the collection of David Harrop