Most school postcards (including school groups) were taken by local photographers and are recorded as such. Some national photographers specialised in school postcards (often interior pictures) and published a number for private schools in Hertfordshire.

Percy Alex Buchanan was born in Lewisham, Kent, in about 1878, the son of Alexander Buchanan, a schoolmaster (1881, 1891, 1901 census). He married Elizabeth Sarah Charlotte Agatha Stackemann, at Turnham Green on 25 October 1902, giving the address of 11 Whitehall Park Road Gunnersbury (Chiswick). At the time he was a commercial traveller but his father in law was Carl Wilhelm (sometimes written Wilhelm Carl) Stackemann, a leading school photographer, who was then running the Photographic Tourists Association from Syringa House, 4 Heathfield Terrace, Chiswick.

The Photographic Tourists Association was a photography business that involved photographers touring various districts of England and calling in on schools, workplaces, colleges and other institutions to ask if they could photograph interior and exterior views of the building and take group portraits of pupils, teaching staff, employees, etc. and it would seem likely that Percy worked for them. Cards exist for Queenswood School posted in 1907 produced by the Association - and the information below shows that within a few year Percy Buchanan was producing cards for the school. There is also a 1905 picture of St Edmund's College, Standon, by the Association and Percy later took pictures of this school.

St Marys Convent Windhill, Bishops Stortford Photo Tourists Association [no address given] 21 950 Posted 1904   Possibly by Percy Buchanan who took photographs of the school circa 1913.

However in 1907 Stackemann was declared bankrupt and the business changed hands, continuing at Wandsworth under the management of Tudor Travers Hora. By 1911 W. Stackemann & Co. were based at 13 Elmers Drive, Teddington. There is a detailed history of Stackemann and the Photographic Tourists Association on the Sussex Photohistory web site.

A 1907 street directory listed Percy A Buchanan as living at 3 Ellesmere Road, Chiswick, but he is not mentioned in the trade section. He is also listed at this address in the 1908 electoral register. By the time of the 1911 census Percy Buchanan is recorded as a photographer living at 9 Park Road Chiswick, Middlesex, with his wife. It seems likely that Percy set up in business photographing schools at the time of the bankruptcy, and that his cards are unlikely to be dated before 1907, which fits in with the negative numbers so far recorded below. However he may have been the photographer for some of the Stackman cards. In 1913 Percy Alec Buchanan was living at 344 London Road, Thornton Heath, Croydon.

A search on ebay and google shows that he specialised in school and college postcards - with many interiors - and these were taken all over England with at least some in Scotland.  There are some examples of school group photographs but I have not seen any from Hertfordshire. Moche Caine (moshe.caine @t gmail.com) writes that Buchanan took panoramic school photographs in the 1930's and would like to hear from anyone who knows more about these - and I would love to know of any panoramic cards from Hertfordshire.

Winchester House School, St Leonards on Sea, Sussex, 1924

Hertfordshire (and selected other schools) Schools where his postcards are known are:

Unfortunately many of the cards have no reference number, and most have not been posted. In addition several that were posted may have been produced years earlier, such as the St George's example, above, where a card almost certainly published by 1910 was posted in 1948. Many of the ebay adverts do not give full details. This makes dating, without much more research, a little difficult.

However the earliest dated card I discovered in a google search was of a school group of a school in Clapham, from 1908, by "P. A. Buchanan & Co, 344 London Road, Thorton Heath, Croydon" - this was his address in the 1913 Kelley's directory for Surrey. The St George's School, Harpenden, must have been not later than 1910 and give a Chiswick address.

Cards with the highest numbers give the Queenswood Avenue address, and probably published in the 1930s. The highest numbers I have located with this address are 47678 for a card of the Tennis Courts at Oakdene, Beaconsfield, Bucks (ebay advert) and a series 47870 - 47884 for Hiatt College, Wellington, Shropshire. The lowest is No 38742 of the Catherine Gladstone Home, Mitcham (ebay advert) which appears out of order but may be a later reprint.