Railway’s Golden Age

Malcolm Guest

A unique insight into the Golden Age of Railways will be seen today at the second auction of items from The Malcolm Guest Railway Collection. A telephone call from a local solicitor led to a visit to a small terrace house in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire and to the discovery of the most amazing railway collection. The collection, coming under the hammer at Morphets of Harrogate, includes over 2,500 railway and transport posters, original artwork, GWR and other regional railway archives dating from the 19th century, books and ephemera railway items ranging from porters' caps to a cast iron locomotive sign and corresponding cab number.

The man behind the collection was Malcolm Ivor Guest, born in Torquay, Devon, in 1943. Even as a child he had a love for the Great Western Railway and all things connected with it, and as he grew older his hobby became a lifetime passion.


GWR - Known as "God's Wonderful Railway"


South Devon on the Great Western Railway

When the chance came to work on a temporary basis at Paddington Station before he took up his place to study architecture in Cardiff, Malcolm seized it. He enjoyed his time there in the Publicity Department so much that when he was offered a permanent job he accepted with alacrity, and from that time the basis of his collection of all things railway related was formed.

While working at Paddington Malcolm had the vision to see that so much of the Great Western Railway output, considered superfluous under British Rail, consisted of works of art that should be preserved rather than disposed of. Doing so brought him much joy and accounts for the great depth of the collection, which represents a lifelong appreciation. In the following years his interest widened to include other forms of transport, but the main focus was always on railways, whether artwork and posters or leather bound records of the Great Western Railway Officers' Minutes, and he continued to add to his fascinating collection until he died in July 2009.

The first part of the collection came under the hammer in a two-day sale on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th January. The sale included 580 lots of vintage railway posters followed by original artwork for posters and printed matter, railway collector’s items, GWR and other regional archives, books and ephemera. A leading expert in vintage posters has said that he believed the sale to be the largest and most important collection of posters to have ever come on the market.




Scottish Rail Posters

Part I of the collection created a huge amount of interest with coverage by the television, radio and newspapers. Collectors travelled from all parts of the UK in atrocious weather conditions to view and attend the sale. A bank of seven telephone bidding clerks fielded in excess of 500 telephone bids over the two days, with one buyer in New York bidding on 170 lots over a duration of eight and a half hours. An unprecedented number of commission bids were logged and the live bidding on the internet was virtually constant throughout the sale with over 100 active bidders at any one time. The sale realised £410,000.

Part II of the collection will be offered in the Spring Fine Art and Antique Catalogue sale to be held on 4th March and will include a work by David Shepherd, oil on canvas, 61 x 91 illustrated here and estimated at £8,000-£10,000.

David Shepherd

A parcel wrapped in brown paper and string, stored amongst the railway items, when opened revealed the most amazing find - the original artwork by William Heath Robinson for GWR's centenary publication Railway Ribaldry 1935, comprising eighty four pen and ink drawings.




William Heath Robinson

These iconic works will also come under the hammer today (4th March) together with watercolours and drawings by Charles Mayo, Samuel Warburton and Claude H. Buckle. The remaining posters, approximately two thousand, mainly dating from the 1960s and 1970s, will come up for auction later in the year.

Today’s auction includes 84 pen and ink drawings by William Heath Robinson and watercolours by Charles Mayo. The third and final sale of about 2,000 posters dating mainly from the 60s and 70s takes place in July. Elizabeth Pepper-Darling, of Morphets, said the posters were seductive for their artwork and the nostalgia they evoked for a more elegant age. She said: "When I was working through them they lifted the spirits somehow."

Mr Guest worked for British Rail's publicity department when he began collecting. The posters, which Mr Guest started collecting at Paddington Station in the early 1960s, were carefully filed away on shelves. With the commercial acumen, for which they were rightly famous, British Rail burnt 30,000 similar ones at Waterloo Station which would be worth £20m today.






The sale at Morphets, North Yorkshire centres on original artwork like the oil painting by William Hoggarth for this Isle of Man poster.




The first auction in January included 580 posters and made £410,000 - with this one for Southport Lido fetching £6,200.

Southport Lido

Railway historian Dr Richard Furness said the collection was probably the best of its kind ever seen.

Morphets
6 Albert Street
Harrogate
North Yorkshire HG1 1JL
Tel: 01423 530030
Fax: 01423 500717

E-mail: enquiries@morphets.co.uk


Morphets Salesroom