Earlier claims to be the first British PPC publisher
Prior to this E.T.W.DENNIS research there were other firms who claimed to be the first British picture card publisher. These claims have now been superseded for lack of evidence and the new research on Dennis. .
British Photographic Publishing Co of Leicester Mr Corkett (later when working for Tuck in 1906) claimed that this firm was among the first but there is a total lack of evidence that this firm ever published any PPC's at all! (Corkett's claim appears in the 27 April 1906, Journal of the Society of Arts)
Picture Postcard Monthly have been running a readers survey of the first date of postal use for UK locations. The results for Leicester were
Leicester: A card published by Velograph for Bender of Croydon P/U 18 December 1898
Leicester: Three Dennis published cards P/U 21, 25 and 29 November 1899
This indicates that Leicester was quite slow in getting PPC's. I personally have never seen any B.P.P Co (Corkett) cards at all of Leicester or anywhere else. A later 1926 interview with Mr Corkett has come to light (p43, PPM Feb 2008) quoting from an interview Mr Corkett gave to The British Printer in July/August 1926. Here Mr Corkett very explicitly says that his early cards were court size. This rules him out entirely as the first view card publisher, as court size cards were only allowed from January 1895. (incidentally he also claimed that his cards were views in half tone, printed by Raithby Lawrence & Co Ltd )
Stewart of Edinburgh Their claim to be "first", arose from an interview with the Stewart manager (in the Sept 1900 Picture Postcard Magazine) He claimed that he had invoices for cards supplied in 1894, apparently for Edinburgh. . No postally used cards were produced however and nor for that matter were the invoices. Pre 1899 this firm were not prolific PPC publishers. The first Stewart card known in the PPM reader's survey is P/U 1895. There is a very limited scattering of Stewart cards P/U in 1896, 1897 and 1898.
Valentine of Dundee The Valentine archivist conducted interviews with a few of the firm's "old timer" employees. They thought that the Valentine PPC's were first printed in late 1897. This is backed up by the PPM readers survey, giving the first dates of Valentine cards postal use as being in early 1898
Blum & Degen This firm only claimed to have started in 1895
Conclusion: Stewart of Edinburgh is the only other real possible contender to have published the first GB picture card. They certainly did not put in the sustained effort, pre 1898, that is shown on the rest of this Dennis site. The other firms can safely be dismissed.
The Tuck Snowdon myth??
There seems to be a myth that Tuck published a card in 1894 of Mount Snowdon. No such card has ever come to light. Crude amateur cards exist with photos pasted on to official cards, but with no mention of Tuck. Just as an example of these efforts, I show above a Summit of Snowdon Hotel photographic card , with a photograph pasted on to on to the back of an official card, but this was very far from Tuck quality and the P/U date is 1896, coinciding with the opening of the Snowdon railway. In addition the one penny letter rate has been used.
Tuck was so dominant in PPC's after their postcard debut in 1900 that maybe people just assumed that PPCs=Tuck always? Mr Corkett was the managing director of Tucks when in 1906 he gave the above B.P.P of Leicester opinion. Very noticeably, he made no claim for Tuck PPC publishing at all in 1894 for Mt Snowdon or anywhere else. Possible origins of this myth are discussed in snowdonmyth.htm