Borwick's on a Southdown bus
There is no publisher credit on the back, but the look of the card suggests it may have been published by Loader’s Photo Stores of 24 Chapel Road, which produced many hundreds of local-view postcards between 1911 and 1925.
There is no postmark to guide us as to the card’s date, but the vehicles and the clothes suggest the early 1920s – and there are two other clues that indicate a date around then.
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Hide AdThe first is the large banner fixed to the front of the Town Hall encouraging local people to invest in 6% Worthing Corporation Loan.
Public money was very tight after the First World War – as indeed after the Second – and so Worthing was turning to private investors to help pay for improvements in the town.
The other clue is the sign “Antiques” displayed on the shop on the right of the photograph.
Between around 1903 and the early 1920s this was one of the two premises in the centre of Worthing of the antique-dealer Arthur Godden (grandfather of the distinguished “chinaman”, Geoffrey Godden, who died on May 10 last year).
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Hide AdAt some point in the 1920s, Arthur Godden built a new shop on the north side of Ann Street – and the premises behind the town hall then became surplus to requirements.
Borwick’s Baking Powder
On the side of the Southdown bus on the right of the picture can be seen an advertisement for Borwick’s Baking Powder (“the best in the world”) – a famous British brand that is still sold today.
The www.letslookagain.com website offers a brief history of Borwick’s and its many changes of ownership.
George Borwick (1807–1889) was given his baking powder formula by his brother-in-law, Robert Hudson, a chemist who had introduced the first successful commercial soap powder in 1837.
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