London Brighton and South Coast Railway Luggage Labels
O v e r v i e w

by Mike Morant
 

A couple of points were made in the general synopsis that apply particularly to an LBSCR collection::

• the sheer volume of material available;
• and just what is the individual collector's objective.

LBSCR labels always carried the full company title as their heading and not even the word 'Railway' was abbreviated as was the case with so many other railways. Many railways took to printing the production date from the early 1900s but The Brighton never followed that trend. However, the penchant for station to station labels finally ended, it is believed, some time around the beginning of the 1st World War but more of that change of policy anon. It is worth pointing out that, until that change, all LBSCR labels were printed on white paper. That is particularly apparent in the case of the oldest type of label as most of the surviving examples still look as good as the day they were printed some 120 to 140 years ago. It has been pointed out by an art teacher (who is also a luggage label collector) that the reason for their incredibly good survival rate is that the paper has a large cotton content.

The company's labels fall into 3 distinct categories and there is, of course, the inevitable 4th one which is the exception to the rule. As this is a general description of the main types of label for this railway there is no attempt being made to delve into the details of the additional types which are either scarce or extremely rare. They do, however, deserve a brief mention as they were an integral part of the labels infrastructure albeit at a very specialised and local level. They are also the only labels which deviated from the standard full company name as the title.

All followers of Southern history will know of the legendary 'Sunny South Express' which plied its trade between Brighton and various points on the LNWR as a summers only through service. Both the railways involved produced their own red printed labels for that service and examples have survived from Brighton to several destinations. Similarly, labels were also produced for a joint operation with the GWR although only a single example is known to have survived. The Brighton was also heavily involved in cross-channel operations and several examples survive of labels to French destinations. It is only recently that an example from Brighton to Caen has come to light which proves beyond doubt that previously unknown historical material and/orartefacts are still waiting to be discovered.

There is a distinctly odd aspect to Brighton labels. Mention has already been made of the fact that vast quantities have survived and it is inevitable that a few stations of origin, a hallmark of the genre, should be missing from the record. It is no surprise that, for example, Kemp Town is missing from the roll call. In contrast, labels survive which mention California (renamed Belmont in 1875), New Arundel, West Brighton and Lewes Road. It is within the missing stations that the surprises occur: there are no surviving station of origin examples from Epsom Downs, Selhurst, Waddon or Wandsworth Common. Even stranger is that, at the time of writing this, South Bermondsey is a complete unknown either as origin station or destination but its antecedent, Rotherhithe, does crop up now and again.

The Earliest Styles

These are the earliest type of LBSCR luggage label which the Railway Print Society handbook (RPS1 ©) designates as L41 (black print) and L42 (red print). These are the only Brighton labels that have, in some instances, the company title split into two lines of text. They were printed on bright white paper and that characteristic, in the majority of cases, has stood the test of time.

One would have thought that these very old labels would be in short supply but they are surprisingly readily available. Some stations of origin, Baynards, Bosham, Carshalton, Hartfield, Mitcham Junction and Partridge Green spring to mind, are quite common although some of their destinations are not so easily acquired. Slinfold and Southwater were virtually unknown three years ago but they have appeared in some numbers in the 2002 - 2003 period.

The example on the left typifies the basic and very clean design which, one would have expected, would be apparent in all labels of this style.

No such luck!

The labels shown below display all the less balanced traits of this label type with the heading spread over two lines, two varieties thereof and the use of italics for both the heading and the station of origin.

The destination (New Wandsworth) also helps to determine the label's antiquity because an antique is genuinely what it is. The name was applied to the second station to be become known as Wandsworth Common whilst the original Wandsworth Common was still in use. The dates for New Wandsworth are from 1858 to 1869.

But look at what's crept in. As well as the variations mentioned above there are two more to contend with. The red-printed labels are contemporaneous with the black-printed ones and no-one has identified any reason for the distinction between them. They are generally scarcer than the black printed version.

Displayed on the left is another slight variation in that a destination printed on two lines within this label type is quite unusual and Isle of Wight destinations aren't exactly prolific.

Also of note in the above illustrations are yet more unusual destinations. Keymer Jn. was originally on the Lewes branch but closed in 1883 and was superseded by Wivelsfield, but on a different site, some three years later whilst Caterham Junction was subsequently renamed Purley in 1888.

There is also reference to a destination on another railway in the form of Romsey but such references appear to relate mainly to the LSWR   - with whom the LBSCR had a long and successful relationship -   plus the occasional mention of Cowes and Ryde. The LSWR's considerable contribution to the luggage label collectors' archives will be described in a future chapter on this web site but it is worth noting here that the very earliest LSWR label type, contemporaries of this page's contents, includes LBSCR destinations.

Transitional Styles

This varied type of label is designated as L44 in the Railway Print Society's handbook. That designation has since been subdivided by the collecting community into L44/1 (black print) and L44/2 (red print)

This is a 'type' of label which, in an historical context, is impossible to pinpoint. The word 'type' is only loosely applied because it seems that, the heading apart, standardisation was thrown out of the window. These labels are coined 'transitionals' which is a term beloved of label (and other) collectors when anything defies categorisation. One characteristic of these labels which a potential collector must be mindful of is that they suffer badly from dessication which is possibly the result of the lack of a cotton content in the paper. This means that an apparently perfect specimen can crumble before one's eyes if handled with anything less than subtlety. This state of affairs is exacerbated by the use of very thin paper in most cases. We also see the advent of a white (the generally used term to describe the paper colour) which varies from brilliant white to something approaching a biscuit shade.

The physical state into which these labels can fall is amply demonstated in the illustrations although, as can be clearly seen, the bright white ones have fared much better than the others.

The bulk of these labels have a common font for the station of origin and that has been described as a spidery font. Whereas the earliest labels, as shown above, vary little in size these do vary quite considerably. For the first time some destinations are printed entirely in upper case and are sometimes spread over two lines. The 'red' factor also manifests itself in a few cases but, again, there is no apparent logic to the application of different coloured inks.

These illustrations show just how varied the fonts had become and we also see the introduction of a 'Via' line which was competely absent from the earliest labels.

The red printed example has been included also for a feature that is very rare on Brighton labels: an overstamped station name. This is the only such example on white paper in the author's collection although there are few overstamps on green labels.

For some stations of origin there is a relative abundance of the basic design (the Eridge label shown above) and one of the commonest examples, which should please the Bluebell Railway afficianados, is Kingscote. Others are Crowborough, Eridge, Heathfield, Hellingly, et al.

The Standard Type

This standardised type of label is designated as L43 in the Railway Print Society's handbook (RPS1 ©). There are no prominently discernible differences between labels which could be construed as being somewhat boring but that depends, as ever, on what the individual collector has in mind. Also introduced here is the advent of special labels for destinations on the Isle of Wight. RPS1 © has allocated the code L46 to them but they are, in essence, L43's with a diagonal red cross on them.

Generally speaking these labels, which have survived in considerable quantities, remain in very good condition when one considers that they are at least 90 years old. They are also less susceptible to crumbling than their immediate predecessors but due care should still be exercised as the more brown they are then the more likely it is that they are brittle.

The label heading is standardised throughout the entire range of this label type and there is only one major difference in the presentation of the station of origin: some examples, for example from Emsworth, are printed in a sans serif font. The size of the labels doesn't vary by so much as a millimetre which makes the storage of a collection a much-simplified task.

The example shown here is about as 'standard' as it's possible to get. The dimensions are 80mm x 47mm and that varies little within the genre whilst the 'from' station's font is the norm for nearly all the labels of this type. Even the destination font is the commonest in lower case.

Six variations on a single station name. These and all subsequent images are two thirds of the actual size.

The stations of origin are consistent in accordance with the station name that applied at the date the label was created. This was particularly true in the context of the complicated history of Waldron & Horeham Road. There are, of course, the inevitable exceptions and the two known to this author are Croydon New (subsequently East Croydon) and Brighton. The latter's variants are shown here . . ..

The labels depicted above also show that the use of other railways' names together with the occasional 'Via' statement had now become entrenched in the LBSCR label culture. Brighton had labels to a large number of destinations on other systems including the GWR, LNWR, LSWR, GER and somewhat curiously the MSWR without the intermediate letter 'J'.

Other stations had labels to some of those last mentioned railways as well as to the SER and SECR but there were also some with unexpected combinations of origins and destinations as depicted here.

The Last Ten Years

Someone in the LBSCR's administration department must have finally realised that the production and maintenance of a label regime which required a different set of labels for each and every station on the system was a time consuming and expensive overhead. The outcome was a change of policy which saw the advent of three previously unknown features on The Brighton's luggage labels: a stock number and labels with no station of origin.

The RPS's designation for these labels printed on green paper is L45/ which is sub-divided as shown hereunder:

1. = no station of origin
2. = with station of origin

1. = Code '34G' on medium green paper
2. = Code '167 34G' on medium green paper
3. = Code '167 34G' on olive green paper

L45/1A	L45/1B
L45/1C	L45/2A
L45/2B	L45/2C

It is sometimes difficult to visually differentiate between the 'B' and 'C' types in artificial light but there are two other means by which they can be separated:

• the 'B' (medium green) type is always printed on smooth paper BUT
• the 'C' (olive green) type's paper has a semi-glossy front with a rough back AND
• has three horizontal stripes running through it when held up to the light. Even the scanner's picked it up! AND
• according to a friend in the print industry the stripes are the result of the letterpress printing process.

All the green labels are to mainland LBSCR destinations only with the obvious exception of the Victoria blank label illustrated. The only stations of origin are Victoria, London Bridge, Brighton and Eastbourne.

The 'A' and 'B' types are prone to discolouration as shown in the Fratton & Southsea example above but the 'C' type fares much better in that regard. It is generally accepted that the olive green type was the final fling for LBSCR luggage labels and yet it is the poorer quality lighter green siblings that were perpetuated into Southern Railway days if only for a very short time.

Isle of Wight Specific Labels

The final standard size label style covered in this section is the so-called 'red cross' type exclusively from mainland LBSCR stations to Isle of Wight destinations andhis type is designated L46. The L46's are subdivided into three types and although three labels are displayed hereunder only two of those types are shown as the third has so far eluded the author. Southern afficianados should note that there is something of a coincidence with the red cross genre as the LSWR, on a much smaller scale, adopted the same style for just a few of its labels from the same era and it was continued for many years after grouping on the Southern Railway.

This a fine example of a 'red cross' label and most surviving examples have retained their brilliant white surface.

This type, with no stock no. on it, is designated type L46/1.

The blank destination label, also of the L46/1 type, reproduced here lists all the stations on the Ryde to Ventnor line plus Bembridge although Ryde is listed generically with the inscription 'all stations'.

The example shown here seems at first sight to be the same as the one shown at the top of the this section but has the addition of the (34 I.W.) stock number which suggests that it is a contempory of the green labels shown above. This is known as type L46/2.

A Round-up of the Oddities

Most railways, both pre- and post-grouping, managed to create non-standard luggage labels of one sort or another and the LBSCR was no exception. Some examples of what are known to exist are shown here.

The Sunny South Express was run jontly by the LBSCR and LNWR from the south coast to various destinations on the LNWR system. All surviving LBSCR Sunny South labels are from Brighton and the example shown here, to Rugby, is the best known one. All bear the stock no. (34 N.W.) and the printer's mark W. & S. Ltd. Note, also, the unusual railway title.

A similarly unusual title on this label to Swansea indicates the strong ties the LBSCR evidently had with the GWR. There is some mystery surrounding the expression 'South Coast Express' as there appears to have been no such animal until after the grouping in 1923. However, the Brighton luggage labels racks were replete with standard labels to GWR destinations as far afield as Penzance.

These intriguing labels were used in conjunction with a registered baggage system and one should perhaps question whether or not they are luggage labels in the strictest sense particularly as no mention is made of the railway's name. There are examples from/to other stations on the system.

This type, again, is for registered baggage and the tricoleur colour scheme leaves one in no doubt as to the destinations. Examples known are headed both with the home railway's legend and either Western of France Railways or French State railways. All known examples are to Paris (St. Lazare).

In recent times this type of label has come to light and only two identical examples are known to exist. The LBSCR's full title is emblazoned across the top but no French railway system is named. This example from Brighton to Caen is intriguingly routed via 'THE SHORTEST AND CHEAPEST ROUTE'. One would be forgiven for thinking that Newhaven - Dieppe was the only possibility but it should be borne in mind that The Brighton originally ran French ferry services from Shoreham as well.

This page was last updated 23 November 2007