Wolverhampton - Industrial & Residential Handbook, 1934 : Wolverhampton Industrial Development Association

            As many of you will have guessed I do have a bit of a 'thing' for the official guides and handbooks that were issued by the vast majority of British local authorities during the Twentieth Century. These publications were used to extol the virtues of the town or city concerned both to existing residents, keen to know more about their home town, but also designed to inform and potentially lure newcomers and new industries. This one for the then County Borough of Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, is very much aimed at the latter market.

Whereas seaside towns and resorts often used the front cover as an immediate visual 'lure' such a scene for an industrial town, such as Wolverhampton, was usually a little more tricky and the default was usually the borough's coat of arms. But this 1934 cover is superlative in terms of design and execution; a rich glimpse of the life and industry of this Midland Town. Loosely based on Queens Square by night, with its four bracketed street light, it crams in not only various of Wolverhampton's important buildings but some of the products of the town. The locally built symbol of municipal modernity, the Sunbeam or Guy trolleybus advertising locally manufactured Goodyear tyres, the same products that carry the luxurious Sunbeam motor car we see. The glamorous couple buying their copy of the still produced local paper, the Express & Star, as they head to the Queens Picture House. And my money is on the fact that the child waiting for the 2A 'bus will be wearing a rayon garment made in the town by Courtuald's.

It is one of the best industrial town guides I have seen. Produced by "B&T" (whom I should know) the guide was issued by an effective arm of the Borough council, the Industrial Development Association. In the 1930s the town did remarkably well in establishing 'new' industries, such as rayon, rubber and electrical equipment, so as to help balance out an historic reliance on traditional metal based industries.

Taken on: February 22, 2023

Tags:

Mike Ashworth Collection

official guide

Wolverhampton

Staffordshire

County Borough of Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton industrial and residential handbook

1934

Wolverhampton Industrial Development Association

book cover

graphic design

industrial art

illustration

architecture

Queen Square

Queen's Picture House

trolleybus

Guy Motors

Sunbeam Motors

Goodyear tyres

Express and Star

street lighting

Wolverhampton Corporation Transport

Sunbeam car

people

fashions

night scene « less

Sets appears in: • Wolverhampton • Official Guides and Handbooks

Groups appears in: • Cinemas • Book Cover Club more » • industrial culture • Vintage Advertising • That Old Timey Feeling • Vintage Illustration • Guy Motors Ltd of Wolverhampton • Wolverhampton as it was. • Made in Wolverhampton • PLANET EARTH BACK IN THE DAY • UK Official Guides • Black Country Works Factories and Industry • Black Country pride « less

Camera: Brother MFC-J6930DW (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Brother MFC-J6930DW
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Apple Image Capture
Show full info

Stats: 3,699 views / 5 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder