Publisher

"Bernard Watkins"

13 Paternoster Row, London E.C.

 

 

Philip Bernard Steer Watkins (1882-1970) was born in Kent, the son of Philip Watkins Steer Watkins (1842-1913, a quill merchant in 1881 and 1891) and Jane Ann Faulkner (1847-1938) and was the brother of Eustace Faulkner Steer Watkins (1879-1970).

 

I have had problems of finding him in the census returns and I have no information about him being a postcard publisher, apart from the name "Bernard Watkins" on the cards, and the fact that his brother also was connected with post card publishing at about the same time.

 

In 1939 Bernard was living in Ealing and described as a director of Whittingham & Mitchell Ltd, motor body builders - suggesting that he was working with his brother Eustace.

 

See also The Watkins Family of Post Card Publishers

Comic Cards by "F S"

A number of the early "F S" Seaside (1906) cards published by the London View Company Ltd  have the publisher recorded as:

Bernard Watkins, 13 Paternoster Row, London E.C

 

 

The Miss ___ have been staying here and we have seen a lot of them

Signed 'F S'

 

Posted

30 October 1906

 

Early Saxony (green)

 

View Cards published from Paternoster Row

The Wandle near Hackbridge

 

Near Ewel[l] à

 

View Cards by B. S. Watkins of West Croydon

This card published by B. S. Watkins & Co., West Croydon, and posted on 15 February 1909, is almost certainly his, as while I have been unable to find him in the 1911 census, his parents were living in Croydon. Interestingly the card format is the same as the cards published around 1908 by F G Horwood (who also had contacts with the London View Co Ltd,)

 
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