Following the recent discovery of the remainder of the LNER prints, as featured in the last issue of RCJ, it would be timely to take a look at the Southern Railway Original series prints by the artist, Donald Maxwell. These mounted prints were issued by the Southern just before the LNER Original Etching series appeared in 1936. Whilst Cecil Dandridge at the LNER was commissioning several artists for his mounted prints, Cuthbert Grasemann, the public relations and advertising officer at the Southern Railway, became aware of a series of prints of South East England by Donald Maxwell, entitled County Prints, which were issued and sold to the public shortly after Donald moved to Farleigh in Kent. He had studied at the Slade School of Art and was Official Artist to the Admiralty during World War I, and was well known for his book illustrations. He had also produced posters for several railway companies, including the Southern.

Maxwell's simple and visually pleasing images mainly included landscapes within the Southern's domain and were considered by the public relations department to be very suitable for use in carriages. The SR bought a quantity of loose prints from the printers Alabaster, Passmore of Tovil, near Maidstone, to use in their panels, which they individually cut, hand mounted and displayed (often with revised titles) in early 1936. They only chose some of the relevant County Print series (some of the 54 views also featured York, Essex, Lincoln and Northampton) and made up the rest from other Maxwell images produced from other series. There appears to be more than one print run of some of the views (some have his signature outside the image area, others outside etc.) Most of the SR panels I have seen do not have 'reference' numbers (i.e. MS26) on them (see page 30 of Landscapes under the Luggage Rack for an example), although some do. It would therefore be unwise to attribute too much relevance to these numbers at present.

In 1936 they appeared framed in carriages and were also displayed under glass in the Isle of Wight ferries. As far as I know, the prints were produced both in singles and pairs and the sizes seemed to vary in width, depending on frames available. Many of the 'pairs' were mounted in 25½" x 9" format to fit the Southern wider frames and 'singles' were often 14¼" x 9", but sometimes the card mounts were left wider (between 17" and 18") to utilise former L&SWR frames. In view of the manual work involved in mounting them, I suspect that there was a limited production run of the series.

One thing is certain - prints from the Southern Railway Original series are extremely scarce and sought-after and, if my records are correct, rarity for each print is pretty simple to ascertain - not one has ever been seen in railwayana auctions before! Whilst very different from the LNER 'fine-art' style, they are aesthetically pleasing in their own right and were well suited to the Southern carriage decor as can be seen displayed in the beautifully preserved L&SWR, 3rd class coach at the N.R.M. York. Which reminds me - thanks to Beverley Cole at the N.R.M. for information on the prints in their collection.

Sadly, Donald Maxwell died in 1936, aged 59, just as the Southern began displaying his pictures.

Since the 2nd edition of Landscapes I have researched and viewed other Southern carriage print collections and I give below a fully revised list of all the Maxwell prints I have catalogued so far. My own feeling is that the list is now very comprehensive but possibly not complete. Prints, new to both editions of Landscapes, are shown in italics.

SOUTHERN RAILWAY ORIGINAL SERIES [Mounted] Issued early 1936

Donald Maxwell

In the next edition, I will have a final focus on carriage print listings with a quick look at several B.R. series.