The colourised postcard was a popular way of bringing photographic street scenes to life. Overprinted with various coloured screens, some printers dealt more successfully with the challenges of lining up or registering the layers than others. Most, like J. Welch & Son of Portsmouth [see the J.W.S. printed on the front], turned to Germany where technical skills combined with competitive pricing meant colourised postcards flooded the British domestic and colonial markets until the outbreak of WWI. In this scene, on the left can be found the name and wares of the long-established printing and publishing firm, The Observer Co, purveyors of the Southampton Observer & Hamphire News. A little further along by the horse and cab is J. Gutteridge & Son's famous Toy Repository.
