This is a somewhat colourful picture postcard of the Victoria Hall in Halifax which dates from the first decade of the 20th century. Such cards were hand-coloured, and one can suppose that the colourful imagination of the colourist got the better of them on this occasion.
The card was sent to Mr G H Smith of Nettleton Street in Ossett. I have been able to trace Harvey Smith in the 1911 census (he was a rag merchant not the famous equestrian rider of sixty years later), but I can’t find a G H Smith at that address. The closest match is one Harold Smith who would have been just ten years old when the card was posted, and thus more likely to have been addressed as Master G H Smith. People were forced to grow up quickly back in those days, however; Harold Smith went on to fight in the Great War during which he was awarded the Romanian Military Medal for Distinguished Service! That, no doubt, is another story.
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