The production of postcards first started in the late 19^th century and with the advent of the 1d and later 1/2d post, many thousands were posted daily. Hockey postcards started early in the 20^th century with caricatures and cartoon images often of children playing or posing holding a hockey stick, but soon team photographs, showing mens', women’s and mixed teams, or individual players became popular. Postcards of rather glamorous young lady players became popular during and just after the First World War.

Thanks to the generosity of several hockey enthusiasts, the Museum has well over 1000 different postcards in its collection. Many are difficult to catalogue as there is often no indication of when or where they were produced and no record of which club, school or college is represented on the image. If the cards were posted, we can sometimes use the stamp or postmark to aid our research. The type of sports clothing, the shape of the hockey stick and so on can also help. The use of postcards has sharply diminished in modern times, but they are still produced even if they are now more difficult to come by.

Currently, the collection is just that, a collection of postcards. It has not been sorted or catalogued so individual cards are not easy to access but we plan to start this work soon. This will take some time and a lot of research, so if you have any examples or expertise, your help and advice will be gratefully accepted.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Postcard collection, please contact the Museum using our online form.