H. & W.

Hastings. This firm, seemingly unlisted in local Directories, published sepia real photographic cards of Hastings, St. Leonards and Fairlight (the Glen and Grangewood House). The cards, which resemble those issued by Wiseman Horner and Shoesmith & Etheridge, have white borders, machine printed captions and in most cases serial numbers. The highest number reported is 118. On the back of the cards is the firm's distinctive trademark: a horse looking through a giant horseshoe.

The earliest postmark seen is 1937. The styles of dress and the cars that can be seen in the pictures suggest a mid to late thirties date. Trolley buses ply the streets of Hastings; they replaced the town's trams in 1928. A sepia card of the Coastguard Cottages in Ecclesbourne Glen that was sold in the late 1930s may have re-used a 1920s negative. It shows virtually the same amount of cliff erosion as a Frith photograph of 1925.

Very different from the sepia H & W cards is a black and white real photographic showing a launch of the Hastings lifeboat. It has the standard horse and horseshoe logo on the back, but is labelled on the front "Photo by Hill Hastings". The possibility that Hill was the H of H & W merits investigation.

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