I have recently begun to collect postcards from Kimpton, a village in Hertfordshire where Mike’s grandfather Alan Smith was born, and in particular postcards published by George Matthews, who was the postmaster in Kimpton from the 1890s until his death in 1933.
While George was not a direct relation of Mike’s, he is related to him through several marriages, which make for a rather convoluted branch of the family tree. George’s younger brothers Edwin and Herbert Matthews had married, respectively, Lizzie and Annie Goldhawk, the younger sisters of Mike’s great-great-grandfather Vincent Goldhawk, and his daughters Amelia (known as Annie) and Clarissa (known as Chris) married Vincent’s younger brothers Owen and Horace. In addition, his younger brother William married Annie Smith, the younger sister of Mike’s great-great-grandfather Thomas Smith, and yet another one of his younger brothers, Albert, married Ada Mary Wren, Vincent’s first cousin.
I first learned that George had published postcards during his tenure as postmaster from the Hertfordshire Genealogy website. Since then I’ve been periodically checking eBay and buying any Matthews postcards that come up for sale. So far I have managed to purchase two postcards, both unused. As far as I can tell, they are probably dated before June 1918 (when postcard postage was doubled to a penny) and this is supported by the fashions of the women on the postcards and horse-drawn vehicles featured on both images.
The first postcard depicts the Kimpton post office, with the woman in front of the post office very likely being George’s daughter Ida, who later became the village postmistress.
The second postcard shows Kimpton Green, with a number of local children sitting on the grass, and with the butcher’s shop clearly visible in the background. It is likely that the man in the butcher’s apron standing in the shadow on the threshold of the shop is Horace Goldhawk (Vincent’s younger brother), who was the village butcher around the time the photo for the postcard was taken, and the woman standing behind the gate on the left of the image is likely his wife Chris.
I am hoping to continue collecting the Matthews postcards in the future, as they are pretty interesting from a genealogical standpoint, and provide some interesting scenes from Kimpton that quite often feature people I have come across in my research.