Images Dated 20th February 2003

View of docks with SS Duke of Argyll moored alongside a quay, c 1928-1948

Original oil painting by Norman Wilkinson for a London Midland & Scottish Railway poster. Many British railway companies also operated ferry services. Wilkinson was commissioned by several of the companies to produce artwork for use in posters promoting their services. The London Midland & Scottish Railway Company (LMS) was formed in 1923, and operated ferry services across the Irish Sea on routes between Holyhead and Dublin, and Heysham and Belfast. In 1948 all the private railway companies shipping fleets were nationalised, becoming part of the British Transport Commission. The SS Duke of Argyll served the Heysham to Belfast route between 1928 and 1955

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The Skegness Cure, original artwork for GNR poster, 1911

Watercolour painting, the original artwork for a Great Northern Railway (GNR) poster entitled The Skegness Cure, produced by GNR to promote rail travel to Skegness, Lincolnshire. The man in the picture with a bandaged foot has become so invigorated by the bracing air of Skegness that he has sprung out of his wheeled chair and is pulling it along, with his attendant now seated in it, as he skips along the beach. Artwork by John Hassall (1868-1948), the first great railway poster artist. After twice failing to gain a commission at Sandhurst, he emigrated to Manitoba, Canada, but later returned to England, where he started his own art school called the New Art School and School of Poster Design

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Waterloo Station, watercolour for an SR poster, 1948

Watercolour made for a poster produced for Southern Railways (SR). This picture appeared on one of two posters commissioned as part of the celebrations that took place in 1948 to mark the centenary of the opening of Waterloo Station. The poster commemorates a centenary of uninterrupted service during war and peace'. Artwork by Helen McKie (d 1957), who studied at the Lambeth School of Art and exhibited at the Paris Salon and at leading London galleries. In addition to designing posters for the Southern Railway (SR), she also wrote and illustrated booklets and other publicity material and designed uniforms and upholstery. In 1939 she was asked to decorate two new coaches for the cross-Channel service

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